VERA (comparative tests in school)

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VERA is an abbreviation for "VERvergleichsArbeiten" and started in elementary school in 2004 as a joint project of seven German federal states, coordinated by the University of Koblenz-Landau . All 16 federal states have been participating since 2007/2008, and since 2009/2010 also South Tyrol and the German-speaking Community of Belgium . Under VERA, learning status surveys are now combined in grades 3 and 8, in which the performance level - based on the educational standards adopted by the Standing Conference - of students in the main subjects German and mathematics, and in grade 8 also English and French, are determined. In addition, there are some countries that carry out learning status surveys in grade 6 under the name VERA .

general basics

With the implementation of VERA, various goals, some of which are weighted differently from country to country, are taken into account. The focus is on teaching development. VERA emerged as a consequence of the discussion about the poor performance of German students in PISA 2000 and is therefore in the context of the so-called empirical turnaround, in which the results actually achieved (output orientation) for school and teaching development as well as for the control of the educational systems have become crucial.

aims

The VERA project pursues several goals, which can differ in appearance and characteristics from country to country:

  • Lesson development
  • Acquisition and improvement of the diagnostic accuracy
  • Standard assurance and development
  • Source of information in the context of internal and external evaluation
  • Additional information for school advice and supervision
  • Additional information to advise parents

development

The project was developed in 2002 in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Culture Rhineland-Palatinate at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Landau campus) and was first carried out in 2003 in Rhineland-Palatinate. This work is accompanied by a steering group made up of members from all participating countries.

In the years 2004 to 2006, a study of the level of learning in primary school classes in grade 4 was carried out in Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein under the name VERA. The subjects of German and mathematics were tested. From the 2007/2008 school year, the learning status will no longer be recorded in the fourth, but in the third grade. VERA 3 has been carried out nationwide since 2008/2009.

Since the 2006/2007 school year, learning status surveys have also been carried out in the classes in grade 8, and tests in the subjects of German, mathematics, English and French take place in almost all federal states.

All 16 federal states have been participating since 2007/2008; since 2009/2010 in the Vera 3 and Vera6 area also South Tyrol and in the VERA 3 area the German-speaking Community of Belgium, however, without regular participation.

In January 2019, Lower Saxony's minister of education announced plans to exempt schools from participating in VERA 3 and 8.

execution

The federal states determine the precise implementation provisions independently. This applies, for example, to the degree to which the implementation is binding or the types of schools required to participate.

At a central nationwide date (VERA-3: May, VERA-8: March), all young people in one grade receive standardized tasks that have to be completed in a given time. The respective class or subject teachers evaluate the questionnaires and enter the results, sometimes together with socio-demographic data on the class composition , in anonymous form in national or international internet portals. Immediately afterwards or after some time, an evaluation, carried out by universities or quality agencies in the federal states, can be called up, which contains the learning levels of the individual students. In addition, a statistical overview can often be called up showing the proportions of students in the individual levels relative to class, school and state.

The test booklets and related documents (didactic-methodical materials, coding instructions, etc.) have been created since the establishment of the joint state institute for quality development in education (2004) in Berlin, which works with several didactic chairs throughout Germany.

criticism

An overview of the most frequent points of criticism from 2009 and a response to them can be found on the VERA website of the Bavarian quality agency. In 2010, examples of a critical examination of VERA-3 were published by the University of Dortmund. Here, in particular, the mathematics emeritus Professor Wittmann publicly expressed criticism. The IQB in Berlin then responded with a public response.

One point of criticism in the elementary school was that the cost of duplicating the test booklet had to be borne by the school expenditure provider, i. H. by the municipalities ( principle of connectivity ). Since the tasks are often very extensive, this also means a lot of copy effort for the teaching staff or administrative employees. Some countries then decided to organize the printing of the test booklet centrally and to make the test materials available to the schools by post.

Some teachers and didactic scientists criticize the test design and processing time. Also, depending on the federal state, the comparative work is not always included in a mandatory and structured process to improve the quality of teaching. How teachers deal with the results of their classes is not explained, although the federal states offer various materials with implementation instructions and information on how to continue working with the results, for example Bremen in 2012 and North Rhine-Westphalia in 2013.

The example of the results reports VERA 8 of the state of Schleswig-Holstein for the years 2009-2013 showed how many pupils write the comparative work on a voluntary basis in the schools. The following table shows the percentage of students from Schleswig-Holstein who took part in the voluntary subjects in the respective year ('-' denotes compulsory subjects).

VERA 8 Year 2009 Year 2010 Year 2011 Year 2012 year 2013 year 2014
German voluntarily 30% - - 24% - 31%
English optional 17% 17% 13% - 27% -
Mathematics optional - 32% - - - -

From an empirical point of view, the evaluation procedure appears questionable to critics: Since teachers evaluate the answers of the students in their own classes, it is not possible to generally assume an identical evaluation standard for all teachers. The Ministry for Schools and Further Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, advises cross-proofing, but does not oblige teachers to do so. The state institute LISUM of Berlin-Brandenburg states for 'Central comparative tests in year 6' that teachers apply inconsistent standards when evaluating comparative papers: 'The solutions to the comparative papers from previous school years are not published. This is because assessing teachers always have a certain amount of judgment. You must always take into account the lessons given in the assessment. '

Critics question the fact that comparative papers are only written in the so-called core subjects German, English, mathematics and French (1st foreign language). If comparative work serves to develop the lesson, it should be written in all subjects.

Some federal states deviated from the implementation for all types of schools: In the state of Bavaria, for example, participation in the 2011/2012 school year was voluntary for grammar schools, secondary schools and special schools and in the 2011/2011 school year for grammar schools and special schools. With a letter dated November 18, 2012, this practice changed: "Due to a nationwide regulation that will apply from this school year, all middle schools, secondary schools, grammar schools and business schools must take part in the comparative tests in at least one subject."

Numerous studies on the use of comparative studies show that teachers rate the diagnostic added value of the tests as very low (e.g. Maier 2009; Diemer & Kuper 2011). The derivation of measures to improve lessons or to support individual students is only successful in isolated cases. In specialist conferences, the comparative work feedback is only discussed if there is already an evaluation culture there. Comparative work data are also rarely used for school development processes (e.g. external evaluation).

There is no report from the education administration that compares VERA results from all federal states. Such a presentation could provide citizens, politicians and educational researchers with insights into the effects of educational administration measures.

The EMSE network, which is made up of members who are active in empirical processes for school development in the federal states, formulated in its position paper in 2008: "The expectation that the provision of external evaluation data alone would have a practical diagnostic and reflection function and, at the same time, in the It has so far not been confirmed that the course itself has consequences for the development of lessons. ”And that the understanding of this situation is still poorly developed:“ The reasons for this have only been empirically worked out in rudimentary form. ”

The Kultusministerkonferenz answered some questions with a question-and-answer paper.

swell

  1. ↑ Aims of the VERA project Uni Landau
  2. ↑ Jens Holger Lorenz: Central measurement of learning levels in the primary level - comparative work in class 4 (VERA) in seven federal states . PDF, online at subs.emis.de.
  3. ↑ / Evaluation Office for the German Education System, Autonomous Province of Bozen - South Tyrol, accessed on September 19, 2019
  4. ↑ VERA - Information pages of the federal states accessed on September 19, 2019
  5. ↑ Start of the second half of the school year 2018/2019: provision of lessons at 99.4 percent, 1,137 new teachers hired, package of measures to relieve teachers presented | Nds. Ministry of Culture. Accessed January 31, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Critical analysis VERA . PDF. 21 pages. April 2009. Online onvergleichsarbeiten.isb-qa.de.
  7. ↑ Susanne Vieth-Entus: Harsh criticism of comparative works “Vera” in mathematics . ZEIT Online from June 16, 2010, accessed December 2, 2011.
  8. ^ Open letter from Prof. Wittmann dated May 31, 2010 (PDF; 195 kB), 5 pages, accessed December 2, 2011.
  9. ↑ Public letter from Prof. Köller, Stanat, Pant dated June 2nd  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 2, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.iqb.hu-berlin.de  
  10. ↑ Handout of the LIS Bremen for the implementation and further work on VERA 8 (PDF; 1.1 MB). Online at www.lis.bremen.de. May 2013
  11. ↑ Learning status surveys as an impetus for the development of lessons. Notes, examples and working aids for practice. NRW ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.9 MB). Online at www.standardsicherung.schulministerium.nrw.de. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.standardsicherung.schulministerium.nrw.de
  12. ^ Result reports VERA 8 of the State of Schleswig-Holstein . Online at schleswig-holstein.de.
  13. ↑ Report 2009 . PDF; 911 kB. Online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  14. ^ Report 2010 . Online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  15. ↑ 2011 report . Online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  16. ↑ 2012 report . Online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  17. ↑ 2013 report online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  18. ↑ Report 2014 online at www.schleswig-holstein.de.
  19. ↑ School and further education of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: ... whereby a mutual exchange (e.g. cross correction) between the specialist teachers makes sense and can help to develop a more objective view of the strengths and weaknesses of one's own class. ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 22, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.standardsicherung.schulministerium.nrw.de
  20. ↑ http://bildungsserver.berlin-brandenburg.de/vergleichsarbeiten_6.html . Retrieved July 22, 2012.
  21. ↑ Homepage of LISUM berlin Brandenburg .
  22. ^ Letter from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture dated November 9, 2011; PDF; 25 kB.
  23. ^ Letter from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture of September 27, 2010; PDF; 23 kB.
  24. ^ Letter from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture of December 18, 2012; PDF; 26 kB.
  25. ↑ Second position paper. (PDF; 76 kB) “Use and benefit of school feedback in the context of standardized learning progress surveys / comparative work” (December 2008), page 2. Accessed on August 22, 2011.
  26. ↑ VERA 3 and VERA 8: Questions and Answers for Schools and Teachers ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Approved by the 67th Heads of Office “Quality Assurance in Schools” on April 18, 2013; PDF; 136 kB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kmk.org

literature

  • Horst Bartnitzky : A row of wrong judgments. VERA German exercises under the microscope . In: Grundschulzeitschrift , vol. 22 (2008), issue 217, pp. 14-17, ISSN  0932-3910 .
  • Albert Bremerich-Vos et al: Statement on criticism of VERA . In: Grundschule aktuell. Journal of the Primary School Association , Vol. 90 (2005), pp. 3–6, ISSN  1860-8604 .
  • Hans Brügelmann : Truth through Vera? Notes on the first run of the nationwide performance tests in seven federal states . In: Grundschule aktuell. Journal of the Primary School Association , Vol. 19 (2005), No. 89, pp. 7–9, ISSN  1860-8604 .
  • Hans Brügelmann: Understanding and shaping schools. Perspectives of research on problems of education and instruction . Verlag Libelle, Konstanz 2005, ISBN 3-905707-01-2 , chap. 46–49 (updated by the end of 2008 at: www.agprim.uni-siegen.de/schuleverhaben).
  • Tobias Diemer, Harm Kuper (2011): Forms of in-school control by means of central learning status surveys . In: Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 57/4, pp. 554–571.
  • Annette Frühwacht: Educational standards in primary school. Educational standards and comparative work from the point of view of German and Finnish teachers . Klinkhardt, 2012. ISBN 978-3-7815-1876-6
  • Jana Groß Ophoff among others: Forms of the reception of results and associated school and lesson development. In: Empirical Pedagogy. Journal on Theory and Practice of Educational Research , Vol. 21 (2007), Issue 4, pp. 411–427, ISSN  0931-5020 .
  • Andreas Helmke , Ingmar Hosenfeld: Comparative work (VERA). A position assessment to secure school skills; Part 1 & 2 . In: SchulVerwaltung. Edition North Rhine-Westphalia , 2003, issue 4, pp. 107-110 and issue 5, pp. 143-145, ISSN  0937-7239 .
  • Alexander M. Hüther: VERA - or the problem of measuring school performance for the hearing impaired . In: Hörgeschädigte Pädagogik , Vol. 61 (2007), Issue 3, pp. 84-88, ISSN  0342-4898 .
  • Kevin Isaac: Diagnostic Potential of Comparative Studies . In: Sabine Kliemann (Ed.): Diagnosing and promoting. Recognize, support and expand competencies; Examples and suggestions for years 1 to 4 . Cornelsen Verlag Scriptor, Berlin 2010, pp. 59-65, ISBN 978-3-589-05150-2 .
  • Ursula Koch: Do teachers understand feedback from comparison tests? Teachers' data literacy and the use of feedback on results from comparative studies (Empirical Educational Science; Vol. 31). Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2011, ISBN 978-38309-2538-5 (plus dissertation, University of Koblenz 2010).
  • Jens Holger Lorenz: What can comparison tests serve for? VERA math problems as a planning aid . In: Grundschulzeitschrift , vol. 22 (2008), issue 217, pp. 10-13, ISSN  0932-3910 .
  • Uwe Maier: How do teachers deal with comparison tests? A study on test-based school reforms in Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia . Schneider-Verlag, Hohengehren 2009.
  • Dennis Metzeld, Kevin Isaac, Jana Groß Ophoff, Angelika Speck-Hamdan, Kathrin Böhme: Why the effort is worth it. The contribution of comparative work to competence-oriented teaching . In: Grundschulunterricht , Vol. 56 (2009), Issue 2, pp. 4–8, ISSN  1865-4983 .
  • Carolin Ramsteck, Uwe Maier: Test data-based school and lesson development - analysis of action patterns in reception and use of comparative work data. In: J. Schrader, J. Schmid, K. Amos, A. Thiel (eds.): Governance of education in change. Interdisciplinary approaches. Springer Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2015, pp. 119–144.
  • Christoph Selter: VERA Mathematik 2004. Problems in need of improvement! Capped reading instrument? In: Grundschule aktuell , 2005, No. 89, pp. 17-20, ISSN  1860-8604 .
  • Klaus Weinrich: VERA 2008 Mathematics. A lot of effort, little benefit . In: Grundschule aktuell , 2008, No. 103, pp. 9-14, ISSN  1860-8604 .
  • Erich C. Wittmann: VerA & Co. Quality reduction through "quality assurance" . In: B&E. The educational policy magazine of the "Association of Education and Upbringing" , 2010, Issue 3, ISSN  1869-2788 .

Web links

VERA 3

VERA 8

VERA in general

Web links to VERA 3 and VERA 8 in the federal states

state responsible institution Website
Baden-Württemberg Institute for Educational Analysis Baden-Württemberg (IBBW) to Vera3 and Vera 8
Bavaria State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research (ISB) to VERA 3 and VERA 8
Berlin and Brandenburg Institute for School Quality of the States of Berlin and Brandenburg (ISQ) to VERA 3 and VERA 8
Bremen State Institute for Schools (LIS) for VERA 3 and VERA 8
Hamburg Center for Teacher Education Hamburg to VERA 3 and VERA 8
Hesse Institute for Quality Development (IQ) General website
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Ministry of Education, Science and Culture to VERA 3, VERA 6 and VERA 8
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony State Institute for School Quality Development (NLQ) to VERA 3 and VERA 8
North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Education for VERA 3 and VERA 8
Rhineland-Palatinate State Pedagogical Institute Rhineland-Palatinate General website
Saarland Ministry of Education to VERA 3 and VERA 8
Saxony Saxon educational institute in Radebeul Competence tests
Saxony-Anhalt Education server General website
Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of School and Vocational Training to VERA 3/6/8
Thuringia Project "Kompetenztest.de" General website

see also general information on comparative studies in the countries on the German education server