Luis Lizasoain

Luis Lizasoain Hernández was Professor of Educational Research Methods at the Faculty of Education, Philosophy, and Anthropology of the University of the Basque Country (EHU) until January 2019.

His research focuses on the evaluation of educational programs, schools, and systems, with particular attention to large-scale educational assessments and studies of school effectiveness and improvement. He coordinated a research group at EHU and served as principal investigator on several projects related to school effectiveness and improvement in the Basque Country. His scholarly output includes numerous articles published in high-impact journals.

In addition to his teaching and research at EHU, he has been a visiting professor, teaching doctoral and postgraduate courses at numerous Spanish and Latin American universities. He collaborates with various universities and institutions in Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador, where—under his academic guidance—projects on school effectiveness and improvement have been implemented. He has served as an advisor to Mexico’s National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE). He is President of the Scientific Committee of the Basque Institute for Research and Evaluation in Education (ISEI/IVEI), a member of the Advisory Council for Teaching Evaluation at the Ibero-American University of Mexico, and a member of the Scientific Committee for evidence-based innovation projects at the Educaixa Foundation.

He has also served as Director of the Department of Research Methods and Educational Diagnosis, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences at the University of the Basque Country, and Vice President of the Spanish Society of Pedagogy. He is currently the editor of the journal Bordón.

Keynote:

Assessment: A tool for equity, effectiveness, and improvement in education?

This presentation introduces a series of studies within the research tradition of school effectiveness and school improvement, addressing two core questions of this approach: What makes a school good? and What can be done to ensure that there are more good schools?

These studies draw on the results of large-scale assessments, specifically the Diagnostic Assessments conducted in the Basque Country. The first phase consists of a statistical analysis aimed at identifying the most effective schools, understood as those that achieve results well above what would be expected given the social, economic, and cultural contexts in which they operate. This phase employs multilevel regression analysis incorporating contextual variables in order to ensure a more equitable selection of schools.

The second phase seeks to gain an in-depth understanding of the context and everyday practices of the schools identified in the first phase. To this end, qualitative methods are employed, and through multiple case studies, good practices and the factors explaining the observed high levels of effectiveness are identified. The ultimate goal is to incorporate these good practices into improvement projects so that they can be transferred to schools whose results indicate room for improvement.