Background: PISA results appear to have a large impact upon government policy. The phenomenon is growing, with more countries taking part in PISA testing and politicians pointing to PISA results as reasons for their reforms. Purpose: The aims of this research were to depict the policy reactions to PISA across a number of jurisdictions, to see…

Late and limited organisational differentiation is a characteristic which has, until now, distinguished the structure of education -- including teacher education - in the Nordic countries from that of the rest of Europe. However, this tradition is now challenged by utilitarian ideologies, supported by international comparison tests such as PISA…

While much of the work in language testing is concerned with constructing quality tests in order to measure language knowledge in reliable and valid ways, there has been a significant movement in language testing research that examines tests in the context of their use in education and society. This line of research exits from the notion that…