Teacher knows best? On the (dis)advantages of teacher judgments and test results, and how to optimally combine them

Abstract

The transition from primary (PE) to secondary education (SE) is a fiercely debated topic in the Netherlands. Despite the availability of two strong sources of information (i.e., a central end-of-primary-school-test EPST and a judgment of the teacher in the final grade of PE), a recurring question is whether the classification of children into different tracks of SE on the basis of the EPST and teacher judgments is fair. Proponents and opponents of the EPST have asked themselves the question ‘is one of the two (the teacher or the EPST-test) better in guiding the transition from primary to secondary education?’ ‘To what extent are test results and teacher judgments biased by factors as the pupil’s ethnicity, socio-economic background and gender?’ ‘How can we prevent or limit these biases?’ In my PhD thesis, I have had the opportunity to investigate these and related questions, in the specific context of the EPST and beyond.