The role of a non-mandatory low-stakes summative evaluation system in the improvement of reading instruction

While reading comprehension is more vital than ever for participation in education and society (OECD, 2016; Binkley et al., 2010), international tests such as PIRLS 2016 have shown a significant decline in the reading skills of young Flemish students (Mullis et al., 2017). In response, experts and educational institutions made an important recommendation: deliberately use of assessment instruments to monitor reading comprehension throughout primary school (Pereira & Nioclaas, 2019; Tielemans et al., 2019, Houtveen et al., 2019). This Ph.D. project will investigate how a non-mandatory summative evaluation system can influence teaching and school practices related to reading comprehension. This Ph.D. project uses a mixed-method methodology. A thorough literature review will be provided at the start of this project. Furthermore, data will be collected in 25 schools. These schools will try out a summative assessment system and report on their results and experiences. Five of the schools will be followed as case studies; there the implementation process will be studied in more detail. The implementation processes of the five school teams will be followed closely through observations and interviews with the teachers of grades 2 tol 6, and through interviews with the headmaster and other staff members.