PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1565557
This article is part of the Research TopicHow do we collect all this data? A performative account of International Large-Scale Assessment data collection in times of systemic diversityView all articles
Promoting participation and engagement: Ireland's experiences across three decades of international large-scale assessments
Provisionally accepted
- Educational Research Centre (ERC), Dublin, Ireland
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In large-scale assessments, the collection of high-quality representative data depends in part on (i) securing high participation rates and (ii) ensuring that participants demonstrate a sufficient level of engagement. This article explores the challenges of promoting participation and engagement with reference to Ireland’s experiences throughout multiple cycles of international and national large-scale assessments.Some factors likely to have influenced participation and/or engagement in the Irish context include: (i) the rising profile of large-scale assessments due to their prominence within a national strategy to improve literacy and numeracy; (ii) the transition of studies from paper-based to digital administration; (iii) the publication of new data protection legislation (both European and national); and (iv) pressures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Initiatives implemented by Ireland’s national study centre with the aim of promoting participation in and engagement with large-scale assessments can be broadly classified as relating to consultation, promotion, and support. Lessons from Ireland’s experiences are discussed in relation to future avenues of investigation that may increase our understanding of facilitators and barriers to engagement. Ireland’s experiences offer valuable lessons that could inform practices in other countries.
Keywords: large-scale assessment (LSA), ILSA, Educational measurement & assessment, Participation, engagement, TIMSS/PIRLS, PISA, National assessment
Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Delaney, Clerkin, Karakolidis, Gilleece and Millar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Emer Delaney, Educational Research Centre (ERC), Dublin, Ireland
Aidan Clerkin, Educational Research Centre (ERC), Dublin, Ireland
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