Portuguese External School Evaluation models in public and private pre-school education schools.

Author(s):

Eduarda Cristina Capela da Silva Rodrigues(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 06 A, Internal and External Evaluation of Educational Effectiveness (Part 1)

Paper Session to be continued in 11 SES 08 B

Time:

2015-09-09

15:30-17:00

Room:

102.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Jana Poláchová Vaštatková

Contribution

Over the last decades of the last century, Portugal experienced an increasing number of students, whose expectations demanded more efficiency in their school results and more effectiveness all over the teaching/learning processes.

Along with these social needs, new transnational and supranational policies contributed to knowledge regulation and its forms of evaluation (Pacheco, 2011; Steiner-Khamsi, 2012).

In fact, evaluation assumed crucial importance in many subjects and education was not an exception. Either seen as measure (Tyler, 1949), or a way to decide the merit of something (Scriven, 1967), or in order to produce a judgement (Barbier, 1990; Hadji, 1994) or even with the purpose of collecting information to take decisions (Stufflebeam, 2003; Pacheco, 2002), evaluation has come along with accountability policies but also to help schools to improve themselves, to understand the way they work and to make public the information they gathered.

Most authors defend external evaluation allied to internal evaluation in order to respond to the complex challenges faced by schools. There are plenty of ways to evaluate schools but most of the models turn to indicators that put into practice a concept of quality supposedly measurable and easy to be compared (Stake, 2006). Indicators bonded to efficiency by students results (Pacheco, 2013), answering to the responsibility of giving information and observe if everything is according to established central rules.

Now, standard results lean towards measurable and summative evaluation neglecting formative aspects, as the context or the process.

If we accept school evaluation as a systematic investigation conducted by the school, for the school and the needs of its community (Sanders & Davidson, 2003), then, evaluation should be based upon a dialogue between schools, teachers, principals and community members.

Different in their essence and under the authority of different ministries, public and private preschools also differ in their external evaluation processes.

The Portuguese law nº31/2002, of 20th December started a new way of seeing education through external evaluation (Stufflebeam, 2003). With an outsider look, an external team started to help public schools to improve their services by pointing out their fragilities but also its stronger points in a written report leading each school to find a way to self-improve (Sobrinho, 2003).

The actual model was introduced in 2006 and after some changes in 2011, focuses in three domains: results, educative service and leadership and management. It’s surveyed by IGEC (General Inspection of education and Science).

External evaluation tends to be complementary to internal evaluation, a different perspective that helps schools to find the better way to self-improve.

On the other hand, private schools started sooner their own internal evaluation as they needed to justify the payments and the advantages of their services to their costumers. They had to prove their quality of services by providing solid data to parents and other interested members of the community (the stakeholders).

More recently private schools also started different external evaluation processes according to the different organisms they respond. Most private pre-schools institutions depend on Social Security ministry that has its own evaluation model based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model.

The social security model - MAQ (model of quality evaluation) – is based upon 8 concepts of reference and comes along with a Key-processes model and Questionnaires to customers and stakeholders that help organizations to achieve excellence in their services by improving its non-conformities.

Our investigation intention was to understand the impact of school evaluation processes in public and private preschool establishments. If public preschools highlight education issues, private schools emphasise more the social needs of the families.

Method

To fulfil our objectives and find a suitable answer to the investigation question, it was thought a qualitative study supported by interviews (Ghiglione & Matalon,1997) and document analyses (Santos Guerra, 2003), respecting all ethical advises given by Bogdan e Bicklen (1994). The documents analysed were IGECs evaluation reports of two grouped schools from S. João da Madeira, located in Aveiro district in the north of Portugal, the two mainly reports of IGEC (2006, corresponding the term of the first external evaluation cycle and 2012, corresponding to the first report of the second cycle) and finally the document that supports private preschools evaluation surveyed by social security institute – MAQ (Quality evaluation model in day nurseries). Interviews were made, not only to four school directors (two from the public grouped schools and other two from two of the private preschools existing in S. João da Madeira) but also to twelve preschool teachers: four from public schools (two from each grouped schools) and four from private schools (one from each private preschool existing in the city. All documents and interviews were subsequently analysed using content analysis (Esteves, 2006) choosing the major questions as a form of categorization. All inferences were made according to the accomplished results.

Expected Outcomes

The main results present different effects in private and public realities in Portuguese schools with preschool education. Accordingly, in private schools the evaluation process seems to be more systematic, continuous and formal. Public schools are evaluated each four years and preschool evaluation tends to be diluted with the other school cycles except in social results, curricular articulation, parenthood and community participation. Public preschool teachers recognise that, since external evaluation satrted, other teachers from other school levels are more aware of their work and therefore preschool teachers feel more professionally recognised. This can be explained because now they belong to decision structures and are more involved with the grouped schools dynamics. Private preschool teachers also make out more social recognition of their work from parents and community, but not in the same terms, that is, public preschools still are pointed as the best schools to learn and private schools better to fulfil their social needs of caring. Both realities point out better more homogeneity in the documents used since the beginning of school external evaluation processes. Nevertheless, private preschools show more complete documents with more systematic data as its partners in public schools, which are more occasional, usually preceding external evaluation by IGEC members.

References

Barbier J-M. (1990). A Avaliação em formação. Porto. Edições Afrontamento Bogdan, Robert & Biklen, Sari (1999). Investigação qualitativa em educação. Porto: Porto Editora. Clímaco, Maria do Carmo (2010). Percursos da avaliação externa das escolas em Portugal. Balanços e propostas. Lisboa: CNE. Esteves, Manuela (2006). Análise de conteúdo. In J. Á. Lima & J. A. Pacheco (org.), Fazer investigação. Contributos para a elaboração de dissertações e teses (pp. 105-126). Porto: Porto Editora. Ghiglione, R & Matalon, B. (1997). O inquérito. Teoria e prática. Oeiras: Celta Editora Hadji, Charles (1994). A avaliação, regras do jogo. Das intenções aos instrumentos. Porto: Porto editora IGEC (2011).Avaliação externa das escolas. Avaliar para a melhoria e a confiança. 2006-2011. Lisboa: IGEC IGEC (2013). Avaliação externa das escolas 2010-2011. Relatório. Lisboa: IGEC ISS, I.P. (2005). Modelo de avaliação da qualidade. Creche. Pacheco, José Augusto. (2002). Critérios de avaliação na escola. Reorganização curricular do ensino básico: avaliação das aprendizagens – das conceções às práticas (pp. 55-64). Lisboa. Ministério da educação – departamento da educação básica. Pacheco, José A.; Seabra, Filipa; Morgado, José Carlos; & Hattum-Janssen, Natascha (2014). Avaliação Externa. Para a referencialização de um quadro teórico sobre o impacto e efeitos nas escolas do ensino não superior (em publicação). Pacheco, José Augusto (2013). Os testes internacionais, o sistema de avaliação externa e a promoção das aprendizagens. Lisboa: CNE. Sanders, James R., & Davidson, E. Jane (2003). A Model for School Evaluation. In T. Kellaghan, D. L. Stufflebeam, & L. A. Wingate, (Eds.), International handbook of educational evaluation (pp. 76-98). Chicago: Kluer Academic Publishers. Sobrinho, José Dias (2003). Avaliação. Políticas educacionais e reformas da educação superior. São Paulo: Cortez Editora. Santos Guerra, Miguel Ángel (2003). Tornar visível o quotidiano: teoria e prática de avaliação qualitativa das escolas. Porto: edições Asa Stake, Robert E. (2006). Evaluación compreensiva y evaluación basada em estándardes. Barcelona: Editora Graó. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2012). Understanding policy borrowing and lending. Building comparative policy studies. In G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldow (Eds.), World yearbook of education 2012. Policy borrowing and lending in education (pp. 5-17). London: Routledge. Stufllebeam, Daniel (2003). Institutionalizing Evaluation in Schools. In T. Kellaghan, D. L.Stufflebeam, & L. A. Wingate, (Eds.), International handbook of educationnal evaluation (pp. 775-805). Chicago: Kluer Academic Publishers, Vol. I. Scriven, M. (1978). Avaliação educacional II. Perspetivas, procedimentos, alternativas.Petrópolis: Vozes Tyler, Ralph (1947). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: The university of Chicago press.

Author Information

Eduarda Cristina Capela da Silva Rodrigues (presenting / submitting)

Universidade do Minho

Educational sciences

Arrifana - Sta. Maria da Feira

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