The OECD's PISA program assesses 15-year-old students globally in key competencies every 3 years, providing influential data on education quality and spurring policy debates. In the latest cycle, the innovation domain focused on creative thinking, assessing over 140,000 students across 60+ countries, in the largest study of adolescent creativity…

This paper explores the significance of schools' data infrastructures as a site of institutional power and (re)configuration. Using 'infrastructure studies' as a theoretical framework and drawing on in-depth studies of three contrasting Australian secondary schools, the paper takes a holistic look at schools' data infrastructures. In contrast to…

Learning analytics platforms (LAPs) have become important modes of anticipatory governance in education. Educational futures are governed by utilizing various forms of learning analytics to track student data over time, suggesting that school leaders and teachers are expected to improve school quality by engaging with digital presentations of…

Undergirded by "economic theory of the principal-agent problem", the study investigated secondary school teachers' perception of the influence of large-scale testing accountability on teaching and learning. Cross-sectional survey design was used. Simple random sampling was also employed to select 200 teachers for this study. The…

Schools now face considerable pressure to be using educational data to inform decision-making and become more efficient. Key to this rise of the 'data-driven' school is the increased use of digital technologies -- with computer-based data processing fuelling hopes for the technology-driven 'smart schooling' and a general 'datafication' of…

Although various academic disciplines use data papers to support effective research practices, data papers are still uncommon in the educational sciences. Main goals of data papers are enhancing transparency regarding research processes and supporting data sharing among researchers and thus, open science. As many educational research projects…

The purpose of this small case-study is to gain an in depth understanding of how secondary school teachers perceive that data walls impact their teaching practices and subsequently, students' learning and growth. By drawing on a conceptual model of evidence-informed practice (EIP), this case study examined responses from secondary school teachers…

This paper considers the subjectivation of students in light of the increasing amounts of digital data that are now being produced within schools. Taking a lead from critical data studies and the sociology of numbers, the paper draws on staff interviews in three Australian secondary schools to explore the various types of student data being…

The use of digital technologies within schools is leading to the increased generation, processing and circulation of data relating to students. To date, academic research around this 'datafication' of schools and schooling has tended to focus on institutional issues of governance and commercialisation, with relatively little consideration of…

This study examines the characteristics, challenges, and strategies of school leadership in Cambodian high schools, with a focus on leadership in resource-constrained settings. Using a qualitative case study approach, the research investigates how principals in six northwestern provinces implement leadership practices to improve educational…

Decision-making is key for teaching, with informed decisions promoting students and teachers most effectively. In this study, we explored data-driven decision-making processes of K-12 teachers (N = 302) at times of emergency remote teaching, as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in Israel. Using both quantitative and qualitative…

Commercial platforms are being increasingly used in classrooms as teaching and learning tools. Beyond shifts in practice to accommodate this, the teacher becomes a tool of the platform -- generating and collecting data for commercial entities. It is time to move from commercial platforms working through teachers to influence education, towards…

This article examines digital data use within three Australian secondary schools, drawing on in-depth interviews with 50 school staff to explore tensions between: (i) established logics of "data-driven" schooling; and (ii) emerging "datafied" practices associated with digital systems, platforms and devices. Using sociological…

Since schools increasingly use digital platforms that provide educational data in digital formats, teacher data use, and data literacy have become a focus of educational research. One main challenge is whether teachers use digital data for pedagogical purposes, such as informing their teaching. We conducted a survey study with N = 1059 teachers in…

Because learning from failures is just as important as learning from successes, we used qualitative case study data gathered in the Netherlands and the United States to examine instances in which data teams struggle to contribute to school improvement. Similar factors in both the Dutch and U.S. case hindered the work of the data teams, such as…