ETN OCCAM investigates how educational policies influence educational outcomes worldwide. One of the most salient findings in the field of education is that there are huge national differences in student achievement in international comparative studies. The shockingly large gap between the highest performing countries (most of which are in East Asia) and many European countries corresponds to a difference in attainment of two years of schooling. Although this finding has been replicated in several studies, the reasons for and consequences of such differences are currently not well understood. The main objective of OCCAM is to address this research gap.
There are variations in educational policy features that can only be observed across countries at the system level (e.g. the existence of central exams). Since the start of the new millennium, a new generation of international comparative studies has been launched: Studies like PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) are repeated every few years and thus have a longitudinal component at the system level. Unlike cross-sectional designs, these trend designs allow researchers to estimate the causal effects of changes in educational policies at the system level. Applying this approach or other approaches to causal inference to the accumulated data from comparative studies, has huge potential to provide insights into the determinants of educational outcomes worldwide.
ETN OCCAM provides an ideal environment for training early-stage researchers (ESRs) to become leading experts in educational policy evaluation, international student assessments, and educational and policy consulting. They receive interdisciplinary and intersectoral training, and their individual research projects promise groundbreaking new knowledge on how to design fair and efficient educational systems. To achieve this, OCCAM integrates complementary expertise from eleven academic and three nonacademic partners. The combination of nonprofit and for-profit organizations will ensure the employability and entrepreneurship of the ESRs.
