School external evaluation effects on the restructure of early childhood education curriculum in Portugal

Author(s):

Joana Sousa(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 03, Curriculum and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

11:00-12:30

Room:

305. [Main]

Chair:

Meinert Arnd Meyer

Contribution

Topic

Emerging Researchers’ Group

Research Question

What are the effects of the schools external evaluation on restructure of early childhood curriculum?

Objectives

To characterize the curricular decision practices in the public and private systems of early childhood education in the context of schools external evaluation;

Analyze the curriculum management of early childhood schools that have evaluated by of schools external evaluation;

Study the prospects of early childhood educators and educational decision-makers about the effects of schools external evaluation in the curricular restructuring early childhood education;

Analyze the prospects of caregivers about the effects of school external evaluation in the curricular restructuring early childhood education;

Characterize general and specific relevant traits of early childhood education in the context of schools external evaluation.

Theoretical Framework

In the globalization context evaluation has been one of the central aspects of any educational system (Teodoro, 2010; Steiner-Khaamasi, 2012). On the one hand there is a strong relationship between curriculum and assessment (Pacheco, 2001; Leite, 2002; Alves, 2004), and on the other hand a relevant discussion of early childhood education as part of curriculum policies (Fernandes, 2012) and educational change (Roland, 1999; Leite, 2005). The school external evaluation, also known as institutional review (Sobrinho, 2003) has become a subject of investigation in recent years (Pacheco, Seabra, Morgado & Van Hattum, 2014). In this context several international and national reports were produced (Azevedo, 2005; Eurydice, 2015; OCDE, 2012; OCDE, 2013) accompanied by institutional recognized recommendations (CNE, 2010; CNE, 2012), with an impact on structural policies. Thus, school external evaluation is implemented in Portugal since 2005, based on international models, presented as fundamental to solve the problems of schools (Pacheco, 2010).

Through a mixed research methodology, using interviews, questionnaires and documental analysis, we intend to study the curricular restructure of Portuguese early childhood education. With this study we aim to contribute to the recognition of early childhood education importance for society, child development and caregivers as defended by OECD (2012). The international and national reports documental corpus analyses and the interviews and questionnaires data, will provide general trends of curriculum restructure, will characterize the curricular practices and decisions of portuguese public and private systems in the context of the effects of school external evaluation.

This study is relevant because there are no scientific data in Portugal about the impact of school external evaluation on early childhood education which can promote national reflection about this process in a relationship with the international perspective. Early childhood education has specific characteristics, compared to basic and secondary education, particularly in the institutional profile, that is markedly constituted by a considerable percentage of private institutions that in the year 2012 totaled 2404 establishments, against the public sector that totaled 4188 schools. In this context the study of the effects of external school evaluation is particularly important, allowing a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese education system.

This research is financed by national founds of the Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/ BD/ 93389/2013) and contextualized in the project of the same foundation called "Impact and Effects of External Evaluation in Education Schools not superior" (FCT-PTDC/CPE-CED/116674/2010).

Method

In order to answer to the research question and objectives, was chosen a quantitative and qualitative approach "that allows us to establish a more insightful understanding of our study object" (Bodgan & Biklen, 1994 p.49). This research consists of three empirical studies, in order to carry out an analysis based on data collected through interviews, questionnaires and documental analysis, that compares national and international reports about school external evaluation with the perspectives of educational decision-makers, early childhood education teachers and care givers from educational contexts evaluated by school external evaluation system in the north of Portugal. The three empirical studies will analyze the effects of school external evaluation in the curricular restructure of early childhood education and will characterize the education community perspective about school external evaluation taking place on early childhood schools settings both in private institutions (n = 10) and public sector (n = 10) that were evaluated by external school evaluation system in 2013. To this aim it will be performed a documental analysis of each institutional report of the early childhood schools (n = 20), which constitute the documental corpus (Bardin, 1994). The interviews will be semi-structured whose script is designed to obtain information from the educational decision-makers (n = 20) and early childhood education teachers (n = 20) of public and private schools whose reports were analyzed. An interview guide will be prepared for all educational decision-makers involved in research, and will be interviewed a pedagogical decision maker of each early childhood education school (n = 20). The other interview guide will be applied to early childhood education teachers of each school group (n = 20). The data collected through documental analysis and interviews will be treated by content analysis technique (Bodgan & Biklen, 1994; Bardin, 1994; Esteves, 2006). There will be also a quantitative empirical study through survey of caregivers (n = 50) belonging to each school group whose early childhood education teachers are object of the qualitative study (Hill & Hill, 2002; Tuckman, 2002; Moreira, 2007). With regard to ethical issues it will be established several principles, including informed consent, the research protocol ensuring the confidentiality and anonymity of the institutions and respondents (Tuckman, 2002; Lima, 2006).

Expected Outcomes

The expected outcomes from this study will demonstrate that the school external evaluation in Portugal corresponds to the intentions of international politics, which may be positive in terms of alignment between international recommendations and the Portuguese reality. On the other hand, the level of pedagogical activity implementation practices would only occur on the level of evidences and not at the educational practices level. In the terms of caregivers, it is expected that these will demonstrate that the existence of school external evaluation is a valued element, to the point of being considerate when choosing the early childhood school for their children. At the level of schools decision makers it is expected that the school external evaluation effect will be particularly relevant in terms of management and control procedures, with little focus on quality practices.

References

Alves, M. (2004). Currículo e Avaliação. Uma perspetiva integrada. Porto: Porto Editora. Bardin, L. (1994). Análise de conteúdo. Lisboa: Edições 70. Bogdan, R. & Biklen, S. (1994). Investigação qualitativa em educação. Porto: Porto Editora. Leite, C. (2002). O Currículo e o Multiculturalismo no Sistema Educativo Português. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. OECD (2012). Starting Strong III: A quality toolbox for early childhood education and care. OECD Publishing. Consultado em 12/12/2012, disponível em http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/startingstrongiii-aqualitytoolboxforearlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm. Pacheco, J. (2001). Currículo: teoria e práxis. Porto: Porto Editora. Roldão, M. (coord.) (2005). Formação e Práticas de Gestão Curricular. Crenças e equívocos. Porto: Edições Asa. Sanders, J. & Davidson, E. (2003). A Model for School Evaluation. In T. Kellaghan, D. L. Stufflebeam, & Lori A. Wingate, (Eds.), International handbook of educational evaluation (pp. 807-826). Chicago: Kluer Academic Publishers. Sobrinho, J. (2003). Avaliação. Políticas educacionais e reformas da educação superior. São Paulo: Cortez Editora 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. Taubman, P. (2009). Teaching by numbers. Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. London: Routledge. Teodoro, A. (2010). Educação, Globalização e Neoliberalismo. Os novos modos de regulação transnacional das políticas de educação. Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas. Tuckman, B. (2002). Manual de investigação em educação: Como conceber e realizar o processo de investigação em educação. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Tuckman, B. (2002). Manual de investigação em educação: Como conceber e realizar o processo de investigação em educação. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

Author Information

Joana Sousa (presenting / submitting)

University of Minho, Education Institute, Portugal

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.