'The way we test children in the Netherlands is dangerous for their development'
The final test in primary education is not suitable for conclusions about how education is performing, says test expert Karen Heij in the Onderwijsblad. Moreover, our way of testing has no value for children, she says: 'The child is not there to help the school score.'
According to testing expert Karen Heij, the education inspectorate is putting on much too much of its trousers. “We have a teacher shortage. Why are you going to shout that schools are doing so poorly?" Image Angeliek de Jonge
It is a striking message from a woman who has worked in the testing world all her life. In fact, she has earned a good living from it. Karen Heij (1963) started as an intern at Cito in the mid-2s. She designed tests for NT25 education, was the owner of Bureau ICE for XNUMX years, known for the IEP final test, sold this company to publisher Malmberg and then peddled her research question until she found promoter Paul Frissen who 'dared to tackle the subject'. Heij: “I especially wanted to reveal without judgment that we organize society with our testing system.”
In her dissertation From the cat and the bell: Counting and telling with the primary education final test Heij concludes: The final test is not the great equalizer. On the contrary. He works to select 'the best', for which AD de Groot designed the final test in 1966, but not to give every child opportunities.
Competition model
Heij: “The final test is a competition model. And only a limited part of the population can win.” Winners are usually children of highly educated parents with Dutch as their home language, according to the testing expert: “We test a very small part of language and arithmetic with multiple choice questions. And for decades we have been systematically placing certain categories of students outside the reach of HAVO or VWO.”
The final test, which from this school year onwards is called a progression test, compares students within the same cohort with each other. The most commonly used student monitoring system tests also do this. Often from group 3 onwards in primary school, 'A's' or 'E's' come from the lvs system and 'suns' or 'stars' from the method tests: qualifications that children usually internalize flawlessly, according to Heij: “ If you are compared to other children from an early age, it becomes fixed in your head. And not in the form of: that was my score on that test. But in the form of: this is who I am. And that is simply because this type of test is made for ordering.”
According to Heij, there is a very bad side to this: “The way we test children in the Netherlands is more dangerous for their development than it helps them. It is often said: yes, but those tests also have a lot of value. Maybe for the inspection, but they have no value for the child. And neither does it for the teacher. Based on the results of the student monitoring system, the teacher does not know what to do with this specific student to ensure that he understands the material. All you know is that he did it wrong.”
verknipt
To be clear: Heij is not against testing. On the contrary, she is against the 'Dutch distorted view on assessment'. According to Heij, people in the Netherlands have come to see assessment as something imposed from outside. Heij: “We started thinking: if it is not standardized and does not come from an external institute, it is not of value. But that is a very limited vision.”
She mentions Finland as an example: “We say: there is no testing, but they do. Informal and continuous, in the hands of the teacher. The teacher decides: I think this student understands it now, let me give him a test to see if it is really understood. If so, he can continue.”
Heij is now allowed to contribute ideas in Suriname about setting up a new way of testing, a middle school and talent approach. In the Netherlands, after publishing her dissertation in 2021, she gave herself a year to stand on the soapbox. Due to corona, that became two. During the countless meetings and workshops, Heij resonated with many teachers and school leaders: “People who had had pain in their stomachs because of this for an incredibly long time. They said: you have exposed what I always thought, but which I never had the language for, could never put my finger on.”
Iron strong
She was received less gratefully by 'the guardians of the system'. Which did not surprise her, because especially since it became mandatory in 2009, the final test has been 'a very strong political and policy instrument': “I have also told my story at the Ministry of Education. People said: we are now going to call the final test a progression test, so it is different. But if you give the animal a different name, it will not become a different animal.”
The same kind rebranding underwent Cito's student monitoring system. Since this school year, it has been called Student in Focus. The boxes from A to E that the students end up in are less visible. And the corresponding color transition from green to red has disappeared. But the underlying methodology is still the same, says Heij.
“Look, relative tests, which are the final tests and most LFS tests, are designed in such a way that not everyone can do all the assignments correctly.” In addition to this relative measurement, there is also criterion-related measurement. “For example, if you want to know whether your students can do all the sums that add up to twenty, then you have a criterion. And then you look: who can do it and who hasn't mastered it yet? That is very different from when you want to know: who is better than the other? If you want to select, measure relatively, then you have to take a test with many tasks that are too difficult. Because these tasks can only be completed by the best.”
Solution
Precisely that aspect, the relative measurement, also makes the final test unsuitable for conclusions about how education is performing, Heij believes: “We in the Netherlands cannot satisfactorily conclude on the basis of that final test (she claps her hands): great! All our students can do this. That is not possible, because the purpose of the test is that a lot of children cannot do something.”
One solution is the reference levels for language and arithmetic. This describes which reading and arithmetic levels students must master at the end of primary school. 1F, 2F: every teacher has heard of it. Aren't these reference levels supposed to provide 'criteria' on which you can test students?
Heij: “The problem is that the reference levels have not been developed and implemented strongly enough in all those tests.” And even if that does happen, she foresees problems. She points to a statement by the Flemish educationalist Roger Standaard. “He says it so beautifully: reference levels are not physical measuring points, such as a boiling point or a freezing point. You can't pin it down: there's a 1F here and there's a 2F here. You can only say roughly: the child reads approximately texts that correspond to what is stated in the description of 2F. And the child seems to approximately understand those texts. But say: with 32 points you have 2F and with 31 points you are still at 1F? That's bizarre. Anyone who understands language development and testing will confirm this.”
In addition, according to Heij, with the introduction of the reference levels, no clear choice has been made about the purpose of testing, and if it were up to her, about the purpose of education. Heij: “The selection principle also had to remain. So it was said: you know what? We simply put the reference levels in the existing final test. Well, we know that embedding two functions in one key is trouble.”
pants
For years, education has complained that the same test that sorts students towards secondary education, the final test, is also used to assess the school. The Education Inspectorate is responsible for this. Heij missed the presentation of the State of Education this spring. It makes her feel bad. According to Heij, the government service is making far too big a fuss based on data that does not necessarily say anything about the quality of education at a school. “While the message is: it is getting worse.”
Heij: “We have a teacher shortage. What do you mean you're going to say that schools are doing so poorly? That is not true! We have no tools to prove that. The opposite could just as easily be true.” According to Heij, to find substantiation you have to dig very deep into the State of Education: “They refer from report to report to report. And I take all those steps, I take all those poll studies. And what do you think? There is nothing left.”
She talks about a weak school that she assists through her current consultancy practice. “All problem cases from the region can go to that school. There is a team of very strong teachers. They ask the inspectorate: what should we do now to score better on the final test next year? The answer: you shouldn't hire everyone. Well, then you have education turned upside down. Then you adjust the parameters of your school so that you are able to generate the desired performance. Then the system rules and no longer what the pedagogical task of education is. The child is not there to help the school score. Education is there to help the child on his way.”
Test tube
According to Heij, tests only have value in the hands of a professional. “Compare it with a doctor who may have all kinds of lab results, but also has a conversation with his patient. He takes much more into account in his assessment than what is created in a test tube. Because he knows that what happens in a patient's body is more complex. And that's how it is in education. Education is not a production process. We can't say: we put this in, so this has to come out. And that whole realization of the limited value of testing and a good understanding of education, I am now of the age for that. In that sense, my dissertation is also a redemption of another one mindset than when I was 25.”
Because to what extent does Heij actually have butter on his mind? With the IEP final test did she contribute to, and earn money from, the Dutch testing system? “I understand the question, but no, because that was exactly when I left Bureau ICE. I tried to fight with OCW for a while and said: I don't want to make such a relative test. During my career I have mainly worked on criterion-related tests. But the underlying principles of the final test also had to be followed by other test providers to gain approval. And I had a lot of trouble with that. Ultimately, leaving and writing about this was the best option for me.”
More fair
A social debate to achieve fairer education, that is Heij's wish. She has no illusions about top-down change. “Not much has changed in thinking at policy level. It's a mighty, tough machine. The only thing that can change is at teacher level, at school level. That's where the pressure has to build upwards.”
Heij: “I often hear teachers say: I don't know much about tests. You can hardly get me angrier. Because it's not true. Teachers are the best assessors there are. They spend the whole day looking: where will the message land? Who has trouble with it? Where do I see a question mark on the face? Who shows in their schoolwork that they don't understand something?” She continues enthusiastically: “That is testing to grow, to learn!”
Response of the Education Inspectorate
The Onderwijsblad asked the inspectorate for rebuttal. The service only wants to provide a general response:
"When assessing schools, the education inspectorate, as Karen Heij indicates, does indeed use the results as measured by the final/progression test. But we look at more than that, we also extensively include the educational process and social safety in our investigations. Schools with a special student population can always provide their own accountability for the results achieved. If this accountability shows that the students have developed as expected, we will take this into account in the assessment.
At system level, in addition to the results of the final tests, we use poll studies to provide a broad overview of the teaching-learning process and the knowledge and skills of students. For language, in addition to reading skills, this also concerns listening skills, speaking and conversation skills and writing texts. In addition, all learning areas from the core objectives are assessed, including 'people and society' and 'exercise and sport'. We conduct these studies in collaboration with university research consortia.
The school advice for a student is drawn up by the teacher. The test advice is a second, independent piece of information on the basis of which the advice can be adjusted in favor of the student. We believe that a rich offering with a focus on basic skills is important. Supervision is constantly developing and the inspectorate is discussing this with many parties."
Karen Heij will give a science lecture on Thursday evening, February 1, 2024, about testing in education. You can be there! In Utrecht or via a live stream. Sign up
