Welcome to the WERA IRN Theory and Practice of Using International Large-scale Students Assessments Datasets for National Evidence-based Policymaking (ILSA-PM for short)!

We welcome scholars, emerging scholars, advanced graduate students, researchers, and policy makers who are interested in using international large-scale assessments datasets for national evidence-based policymaking.

The goal of the ILSA-PM is to create an active community of individuals and groups to share their views and encourage productive debate on various methodological, theoretical and practical aspects of using those datasets for policy-making in education around the globe.

The ILSA-PM aim and focus:

The main is to promote the systematic use of international large-scale student assessments datasets for national evidence-based policymaking (possibilities and limitations).

Theoretical focus: Will be especially devoted to the theoretical conceptualization of link between (applied) epistemology and international large-scale student assessments (ILSA).

Research focus: Will focus on the current practices of national policy making using ILSA data and on finding suitable methodologies for doing so.

Practical focus: Will be devoted on research on the ‘impact’ of international large-scale student assessments on national policymaking in different countries as well as providing methodological guidelines for policy making using the data from these assessments.