LUCET Commissioned Research
assurance of the Luxembourg school monitoring programme and setup of a unique longitudinal database
LUCET’s most prominent and resource-intensive commissioned research is the implementation, enhancement and assurance of the Luxembourg school monitoring programme Épreuves Standardisées (ÉpStan), which aims at facilitating evidence-based decision making in national education.
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| Pascale Esch |
The ÉpStan assess students’ academic competencies, learning motivation and attitudes towards school at the beginning of each learning cycle of compulsory education (i.e., at the beginning of grade levels 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9). Each year, the entire student population in each of the concerned grade levels participates in the ÉpStan. While the assessments for all elementary schools are paper-based, the ÉpStan for secondary schools are completely computer‐ and web‐based (using LUCET’s in-house online assessment system OASYS). Through the sui generis Luxembourg school monitoring programme, LUCET is not only providing timely and policy-relevant information to national educational stakeholders, but also assembling a unique and incredibly rich longitudinal database—panels are actually entire cohorts—about the evolution of students’ competency profiles and their pathways through school—and possibly through life.
Additional mission-oriented research and assessment projects include national analyses and reporting of international large-scale studies (e.g., PISA), (large-scale) cognitive and language testing, university admissions testing and student course evaluations.
publication of an integrative, research-based report on national education and coordination of nationally embedded educational research
In addition to the centre’s commissioned research in the area of educational measurement, LUCET is also in charge of the coordination, facilitation and dissemination of nationally embedded educational research at the University of Luxembourg.
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LUCET’s most prominent dissemination outlet is the triennial report on national education, the so-called Bildungsbericht. In 2015, in a joint effort, Luxembourg-based researchers in the educational field published the first report on national education (Bildungsbericht 2015 Band 2 see also Bildungsbericht 2015 Band 1). The report featured quantitative as well as qualitative research, and the (inter)disciplinary perspectives on education ranged from pedagogy, didactics and linguistics, over psychology and psychometrics, to sociology. A year after the publication of the first edition, it was decided to institutionalise and legally consolidate the national education report as an integrative, research-based, periodical publication. To ensure long-term continuity, LUCET was selected to structurally host, edit, coordinate and develop the Bildungsbericht publication series. |
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| Thomas Lenz |
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With an ever-growing community of Luxembourg-based educational researchers, a strong need for coordinating, facilitating and streamlining research processes in and around schools naturally emerged. Due to certain national specifics—most notably Luxembourg’s small size and its inherent multilingualism—the national education system is a highly attractive context for topical educational research—a living laboratory so to say. In order to maximize synergies, reduce bureaucracy, facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders, and, finally yet importantly, anticipate and avoid an overfishing of the metaphorical pond—a real danger given the country’s small size—LUCET has been assigned to act as a bridge-builder and future single point-of-contact between the Luxembourg education system and University-of-Luxembourg-based educational research. |
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| Thomas Lenz |
Pedro Tavares Mendes |
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