Abstract:

INVALSI, the National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education and Training System, promotes the improvement of educational levels and the quality of human capital through the annual national surveys on learning, thus contributing to the growth of the education system, a driving force for improving the Italian economy and social equity.

Among these aims, the one related to policy is the most relevant and is divided into two sub-objectives: policy at the macro and at the micro level. At the macro level, standardised tests provide the National Ministry of Education with the competence level of the five students’ cohorts investigated and the trend over time. At the micro level, INVALSI directly addresses schools, specifically headmasters, teachers and assessment referents to promote their students’ competence, which is the focus of this paper.

The INVALSI tests are administered to grades 2, 5 (paper & pencil), 8, 10, 13 (computer based) between March, 1st and May, 1st each year, assessing Mathematics, Reading Comprehension and English (Listening and Reading), together with a questionnaire to detect students’ context. The secondary school results are returned as proficiency levels (1 to 5 for Reading Comprehension and Mathematics, according to the European Framework of Reference for Languages for English).

All the results are made available at the beginning of the following school year on a web platform with restricted access for each school, in the form of tables and graphs that allow a global view for headmasters and assessment referents, or a detailed view that allows teachers to understand where to invest in didactics in order to improve the quality of learning.

The available data are transformed into indicators. Here are some examples:
- Implicit dispersion: INVALSI has proposed this definition based on its own data, referring to students who, despite a high school diploma, do not reach the expected basic competences: Level 3 in Reading Comprehension and Mathematics (on a scale 0 to 5) and B1 level in English Listening and Reading (defined by CEFR).
- Excellence: Students achieving high levels in all four subjects investigated.

Value added or school effect: Value-added is a measure of pupils' learning 'net' of exogenous factors that do not depend on the school:
- individual characteristics;
- socio-cultural context of the area;
- socio-cultural context of each pupil's family;
- level of learning already possessed by incoming pupils.

The value-added estimate is the difference between the observed performance of pupils and the expected performance based on factors not controlled by the school.

Variability between classes: a measure of how much classes differ in terms of average achievement or family background. A low level of variability between classes (a desirable situation if associated with positive results) indicates that the sections are very similar to each other in terms of student distribution and, therefore, balanced in their composition. A heterogeneous composition of classes, both from a socio-economic-cultural status point and from an entry preparation point of view, may produce a virtuous effect on students' learning, especially for those with greater difficulties.

Thanks to these indicators and thanks to special training on data literacy for teachers provided yearly by INVALSI, it is possible to design teaching interventions in order to improve learning achievement, decrease drop out, and promote equity.

Keywords:

Competences, learning, learning equity, learning achievement, data literacy.