Configuring the low performing user: PISA, TIMSS and the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

Scholars of the global phenomenon of international student assessments (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) have paid little attention to the ways in which student users of these material objects are configured in nations that are located at the periphery of knowledge production. Our analysis takes the United Arab Emirates as its case study to capture the social construction processes and relations of PISA and TIMSS users, agents and test objects within global educational accountability infrastructures. Drawing on evidence collected from interviews with principals, vice principals and teachers in nine schools as well as with government officials, we reveal how the state plays a role in the re/configuration of the user in this process. We also trace the discursive and emotional narratives that delineate usage and the institutional practices deployed to solidify user re/configurations. We argue that user configurations induce institutional reforms, cognitive remappings, and affective reactions which reflect adaptations being made by ‘real’ users to misconfigured material objects. We suggest that rather than blaming students for their poor performance on global tests, it is more appropriate to point to a failure in the material object’s obdurate design and monocultural user configuration.

KEYWORDS:

• International student assessments
• PISA
• TIMSS
• United Arab Emirates
• sociology of science and technology

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank ADEC for its support and UAE University for providing funding for our study. We would like to especially thank our research participants who took time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions and share with us their valuable thoughts. We also wish to thank the journal’s referees for their helpful and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international assessment administered triennially by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD) to test 15-year old students’ knowledge and skills in math, science and reading.

2. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is an international assessment administered every four years by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). TIMSS measures the level of students’ competencies in science and math in grades 4 and 8.

3. For example, Carvalho and Costa 2015, ; Engel and Rutkowski 2014; Ringarp 2016 for the European context; Gorur and Wu 2015; Lingard et al. 2016; Lingard and Lewis 2017 for the Australian context; Engel and Frizzell 2015; Morgan 2016 for the North American context; Forestier et al. 2016 for the Asian context.

4. Researchers have studied the social construction of metrics, global tests and rankings by examining their ‘cognitive and social making’ processes (Carvalho 2012, 176), the datafication processes in which they are embedded (Hartong 2018; Williamson 2016), the ways in which test items construct low performance among test takers (Serder and Ideland 2016), their role in reproducing class inequities (Mac Ruairc 2011) and in rendering race and class invisible (Lingard et al. 2016), and the signifying and representational practices embedded in these tests (Shahjahan, Morgan, and Nguyen 2015).

5. For example, Kauko et al. 2016 in the Latin American context; Takayama 2018; Takayama and Lingard 2018 in the Japanese context.

6. See Morgan 2017, 2018 for the Arab regional context.

7. Within this geopolitics of knowledge, certain local knowledge systems that are derived from particular historical-material conditions have the social privilege to shape global thinking (Mignolo 2011; Shahjahan and Morgan 2016).

8. We recognize that the OECD has created another international assessment called PISA for Development to address incommensurability issues arising between the performance of students from rich and poor countries/regions (see for example, Bloem 2015; Willms and Tramonte 2015).

9. In its 2017 budget, the UAE allocated 25.2 billion Dirhams (US$6.8 billion) for general and higher education sector representing 20.5% of its total budget (“UAE Cabinet approves” 2016) whereas in 2018, it allocated 10.4 billion Dirhams (US$2.9 billion) or 17% of the total budget (“UAE Cabinet approves” 2017) and for 2019, 10.25 billion Dirhams (US$2.8) or 17% of the total budget (Zacharias and Saadi 2018).

10. The Ministry of Education has full jurisdiction over the northern emirates of Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah, and Umm Al Quwain while also managing the public schools in the Emirate of Dubai.

11. KHDA governs private schools in the Emirate of Dubai (KHDA).

12. We will refer to ADEK when we are citing the new organization’s practices after the reorganization of 2017. Since our interviews were conducted prior to this reorganization, we will use the old organizational name as it was referred to by our research participants – Abu Dhabi Education Council or ADEC.

13. Public education is freely available to Emiratis. Public education access to the expatriate population is based on merit and is fee-based. ADEC restricts the number of expatriate students to 20% for each school/grade. (https://www.adec.ac.ae/en/Students/PS/Pages/Expats-Students.aspx).

14. Ministry of Education statistics for 2017–2018 available at: https://www.moe.gov.ae/En/OpenData/Pages/ReportsAndStatistics.aspx.

15. The UAE regularly participates in TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA. The Emirate of Dubai participated in TIMSS in 2007 as a benchmarking participant. The UAE participated in TIMSS in 2011, 2015 and in PIRLS in 2011 and 2016.The Emirate of Dubai first participated in PISA in 2009, with the rest of the Emirates participating in 2010 in a PISA round called PISA 2009+ (Ministry of Education 2013). The UAE participated in PISA in 2012, 2015 and 2018.

16. For example see PISA 2012 Results in Focus available at https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf, PISA 2015 Results Volume 1 available at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/9789264266490-en.pdf?expires=1537815921&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=5C4204363B8949B5B6CDDDB72194E34B), TIMSS 2011 International Results in Mathematics available at: https://timss.bc.edu/timss2011/downloads/T11_IR_Mathematics_FullBook.pdf TIMSS 2015 International Results in Mathematics available at: http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2015/international-results/wp-content/uploads/filebase/full%20pdfs/T15-International-Results-in-Mathematics.pdf.

17. For example, PISA 2015 results indicate that private schools significantly outperform public schools: ‘After accounting for students’ and schools’ PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS), the difference in science performance between public and private schools is one of the largest in favour of private schools among PISA-participating countries and economies. (−53 PISA Score, rank 57/58, 2015)’, OECD Education GPS, http://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=ARE&treshold=10&topic=PI.

18. See for example PISA results posted on Education GPS available at: http://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=ARE&treshold=10&topic=PI .

19. We are using the formal designation for UAE’s rulers as is commonly deployed in UAE’s government documentation and press releases.

20. For example, Buckner (2018) in her analysis of PISA results found that ‘low-income Emiratis are not being served well by the existing school system and policies must address the distinct needs of low-income Emiratis’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UAE University Research Start-Up Grant.

Notes on contributors

Clara Morgan

Clara Morgan is the current co-Chair of CIES’ Middle East Special Interest Group and a former faculty member with UAE University. Her research interests include education and labor market policy and the global governance of education. She has published in the Journal of Education Policy, Comparative Education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, Policy Futures in Education, and the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Ali Ibrahim

Ali Ibrahim is an Associate Professor in Foundations of Education at the UAE University. His research interests focus on reforming education leadership, policies of education, and teacher work in the Middle East region. His current research focuses on organizational culture in schools and the professional life of teachers. He has recently published in Teaching and Teachers Education, Teacher Development, and Journal of Education for Teaching.