INTRODUCTION
The new normal set-up in the delivery of learning resulted to enormous curriculum innovations such as development of instructional materials, instructional strategies and pedagogical schemes that aim to continuously enhance the delivery of learning. More so, one of the biggest challenges in the delivery of curriculum is assessment and the most notable is the implementation of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development- Program for International Student Assessment (OECD-PISA).
To set the background, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy every 3 years. First conducted in 2000, the major domain of study rotates between reading, mathematics, and science in each cycle. PISA also includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies, such as collaborative problem solving. By design, PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of compulsory schooling. PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries, and is conducted in the United States by NCES.
This 2022, select schools in SDO Batangas accepted the global challenge of assessment preparation for PISA. It is very notable that the select schools performed their initiatives in making the students test-ready for PISA. This paper is an overture of looking into the notable strategies implemented by the participating schools that may serve as best practices for schools that may undergo testing.
The objectives of this research are to describe the preparation and testing experiences of the PISA participating schools, to determine the challenges they encountered and to develop an assessment implementation framework.
METHODOLOGY
The research report was deduced using the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) which is an inductive method that is characterized by open-ended interview questions, small samples, a reliance on words over numbers, the importance of context, an integration of multiple viewpoints, and consensus of the research team. It is especially well-suited to research that requires rich descriptions of inner experiences, attitudes, and convictions. The researcher used open-ended questions to gather data, using words to describe phenomena, studying a few cases intensively, recognizing the importance of context, using an inductive analytic process, using a team, and making decisions by consensus, using auditors, and verifying results by systematically checking against the raw data. The three steps for conducting CQR are developing and coding domains, constructing core ideas, and developing categories to describe consistencies across cases or cross analysis. Criteria for evaluating CQR are trustworthiness of the method, coherence of the results, representativeness of the results to the sample, testimonial validity, applicability of the results, and replicability across samples.
The essential components of CQR are the use of (a) open-ended questions in semi-structured data collection techniques (typically in interviews), which allow for the collection of consistent data across individuals as well as a more in-depth examination of individual experiences; (b) several judges throughout the data analysis process to foster multiple perspectives; (c) consensus to arrive at judgments about the meaning of the data; (d) at least one auditor to check the work of the primary team of judges and minimize the effects of groupthink in the primary team; and (e) domains, core ideas, and cross-analyses in the data analysis.
The researcher gathered data from reports submitted after PISA, casual interviews and focus group discussions through google meeting when preparing and monitoring for the PISA. Gathered data described the preparation and testing experiences of the PISA participating schools, to determine the challenges they encountered and to develop an assessment preparation framework. The key informants were properly notified in gathering qualitative data from key informants. Gathered responses or actual transcripts were explicated and deduced into themes then into patterns to highlight the phenomenon of assessment preparation in SDO-Batangas. Coding of transcripts, clustering the responses and categorizing the themes were utilized to extract responses on the specific research questions.
Themes and patterns extracted were presented to the key informants to validate the validity and correctness of the unique corpus divulged in the study.
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