The main difficulty with qualitative assessments (from my view) is the time taken to carry them out and analyse information gained from them. 

I believe they are immensely valuable in some circumstances due to the rich information they provide and would allow for differences in the education systems, values and cultures from each country to be accounted for within the assessments.

Would it be beneficial to see the level of improvement in systems (including quantitative and qualitative measures) relative to previous years so view the assessment as a linear process rather than a snapshot comparing different scores? Then continual improvement is the focus rather than just getting high scores?

However due to the time (and therefore cost) taken to implement is this going to be something which is included?  Do we need to think about what these assessments are used for- are they used to compare success or to improve educational practices?

An interesting question that calls for a serious and profound analysis and evaluation of the uses and purposes of such quantitative  examinations on the side of governments and the OECD as well.  On the other hand, advantages and disadvantages come from both qualitative and  quantitative assessment methods. In my opinion, the aforementioned international exams are not measuring candidates' competences but just linguistic, mathematical and science skills per se. Therefore, those exams are not rightful procedures to assess the integral performance of the subject since they do not represent authentic situations in which students can demonstrate their strengths in terms of cognitive, procedural and attitudinal achievements. 

I think it's a good idea to add value to the test as pointed out above but it is going to take some further analysis to justify it's inclusion and cost.

Best regards,

Debra

I think it is essential. Quantitative testing is one-sided and limited: it ignores personal difference, the particular time and context and treats people as if they are machines, it steers a culture of testing and wastes a lot of children's learning time (all learning happens in present moments). Without qualitative assessment there is no human discerning mind that is evaluating, human beings may as well be clones in such a case. Too much valuable personalised knowledge is lost to us when qualitative assessment is left out of the picture.   Yours sincerely, Linda

Well said Linda - as many of the above posts indicate, these metrics are being waved as absolute indicators of what seems to be educational 'superiority', and thus also 'inferiority'. There is so much that they do not take into account, and if qualitative, cultural, demographic and other indicators were included, a very different picture would probably emerge. Of course, there will be resistance from those that the current figures support, but as education trends are emerging, we can already see that the 'concrete proof' of system efficacy is in fact not an accurate long-term indicator. Regardless of how challenging it may be, it is not satisfactory to assume that the present reliance on limited quantitative metrics offers a fair or accurate picture of global educational contexts.

I think that it´s is possible, we have to develop new technology to recolect info and apply diferent kinds of answers possibilities.

I agree with many of the comments given - These assessments are poor indicators of children's abilities in real life situations, and therefore give biased results of limited value for guiding educational policy or practice. They promote shallow learning and the separation of content from community or cultural contexts. Perhaps there should be Social, Emotional and Cultural Climate questions added, to guage how well the school and countries are serving the wider needs of their students. Many studies show how pedagogical connections between cultural, emotional and cognitive needs can enhance long-term learning and knowledge transfer.

I agree with Robin that these assessments do not reflect abilities in real life situations. With Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Computational Linguistics, we are are on the cusp of providing tools (perhaps a wearable in the classroom)  that can measure student interaction, thinking, problem solving and provide real-time feedback to practitioners so that instruction can be adjusted to meet the needs of the learners. Standardized tests are not bad, they are just bad used as an independent measure of student performance. The goal should be to create learning profiles that explore all facets of of the learner, social, emotional and academic. Then we can work to provide resources for growing these 21-century learners into 21-century thinkers and movers. 

Ideally, any kind of assessment should have a qualitative measure to improve its validity. We usually resort to quantitative approaches as they are easy to conduct and evaluate. If answers to a test are analysed qualitatively, we can get better inferences taking into consideration the complete context in which the answers are provided, However, assessing such answers fairly and consistently can be challenging. 

Perhaps we should abandon the dream of absolute distinction between qualia and quanta.

Measuring quality and comparing among countries is likely to lead to yet another form of quantitative comparison