The Ethics of Accountability in Education Assessment A presentation by Professor Paola Mattei, Associate Professor in Comparative Social Policy at the University of Oxford 26th March 2015

1. EUROPEAN STUDIES CENTRE
ST. ANTONY’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
The Ethics of Accountability in Education Assessment
Professor Paola Mattei
Associate Professor in Comparative Social Policy
University of Oxford
Paola.mattei@sant.ox.ac.uk
Symposium: Teacher Ethics in Assessment
Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (OUCEA) & Ofqual
26 March, 2015
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford

2. The Wire—Louie and Jane
“ I don’t want to go to school…It’s not good…the teachers don’t know
anything, they’re mean and tired…like why is there even an
America?” (Jane)
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3. Public Accountability: why bother?
 Why is accountability important?
 Public Accountability and democratic theory (Waldron, 2014)
 Accountability essential for effective public-private partnership
and for market-based collaboration and new tools of
government (John, 2011; Ranson, 2003; Christensen and
Laegreid, 2007)
 Central elements of accountability (Mulgan, 2014; Finer, 1941;
Mattei, 2012)
Delegation of authority from accountor to accountee (agency)
Public process (transparency)
Consequences (responsiveness)
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4. Accountability as institutional mechanism
Five formally structured relationships that influence public
organization functions and performance
 Political
 Principal-agent delegation to elected officials
 Administrative/managerial
 Ministerial accountability (pre-NPM); financial auditing; top political executive
controls; accountability for performance and results (“managerial
accountability”)
 Professional
 Codes, standards, norms
 Legal
 Courts
 Social
 Clients, customers, interest groups through media, public panels
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5. Multiple and competing accountabilities
M
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Types of accountability relationships
Political Managerial Professional
Direction Clear democratic
accountability lines from
electorate to elected
politicians
Accountability to
owners/shareholders (private)
or autonomous agencies if
public.
Accountability primarily to
professional forums and peers
Logic Emphasis on broader public
good/interest
Emphasis on “value for
money”
Emphasis on medical/
educational evidence
Focus Process dimensions
(openness, involvement, due
process etc.) and politically
determined goals
Output dimensions: bottom
line, business strategy; market
based coordination
Clinical output/outcome
Source: Mattei et al, 2013; Mattei, 2012

6. Measured Performance Indicators:
New Accountability in Government
 A new approach to public services governance in the 2000s:
targets and measured performance indicators linked to
negative feedback/rewards (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992;
Chubb and Moe, 1990)
 Was it a decisive breakthrough in governance – or a partial
repeat of the some of the history of the Soviet Union (Bevan
and Hood, 2006)?
 Key question: how far is the world of cheating and output
distortions “unethical”?
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7. Governance by league tables and targets:
a necessary evil?
 Targets
 threshold standards that a person, organization, country is expected
to reach at a specific time
 They have powerful incentive effects in organizations
 They help organizations to focus on performance deficits
 League Tables
 Use of indicators to compare the performance of different
organizations
 They attract media attention
 Can encourage good performers to continue
 Should they be scrapped all together (as in Scotland and
Wales in 2001-2002)?
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8. Performance management systems: does the
removal of league tables matter?
1979-1997 Quasi-
markets
Inspection League
Tables
Targets
England V V V X
Wales V V V X
Scotland X X X X
1997-2009 Quasi-
markets
Inspection League
Tables
Targets
England V V V V
Wales V V X( abolished
in 2001)
V
Scotland X V X (in 2002) V

9. England, Wales and Scotland: Pupils with 5+ A* to C
GCSEs and SCQF at Level 5 (Mattei, 2012)
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
60%
65%
1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007
Wales England Scotland

10. Assessment as an accountability tool
 1960s: “secret garden of the curriculum” (David Eccles,
Conservative Secretary for Education, cited in Timmins, 1995)
 Late 1980s onwards: accountability through measured
assessment and performance indicators (Baird, 2014)
 2000s: output targets (based on exam results) and new
performance management systems (Lawn, 2014; Mattei, 2012) to
address underperforming schools
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11. Performativity accountability regimes and
controversies
Pro-reform claims
 External public scrutiny of the teaching
profession through measurable outcomes
 Information available to parents to bring
the sanction of ‘exit’ (market
accountability)
 Learning and professional self corrective
measures
 Minimize teacher assessments and
stereotyping against ethnic minorities
(Burgess and Greaves, 2009)
Anti-reform claims
 Narrowing of the curriculum
 Teaching to the tests and negative
curriculum reallocation
 Gaming and cheating by teachers
 Cream skimming (entry selection)
 Schools give up on low performing
students and focus on those on the
margins
 Need for broader indicators (child
wellbeing)
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12. Some problems with targets and PIs
 Threshold effect
 incentive to concentrate on meeting the minimum target
e.g. teachers concentrate on narrow band of students on
the margins to achieve targets
 Output distortion
 incentive to those subject by targets to concentrate on
achieving success at the expense of other factors which are not
measured by the target
e.g. teaching to the test (at the expense of sports, arts)
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13. Output distortions and cultural
conditions
 Role of culture (Mary Douglas, 1966; Christopher Hood, 2000;
Dan Kahan, 2006) in policy making and administrative process.
 Design performance indicators sensitive to organisational
culture. Why?
 How individuals and groups respond to measures depends on four
types of control systems/cultures
 Strength of distortions
 Ofqual survey questionnaire on acceptability of cheating
behaviour is a measure of “culture”
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14. Grid-Group cultural theory and four control systems
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Fatalism
Low group cohesion,
apathy, sense of disorder
and distrust
Hierarchy
Oversight through within a
hierarchy characterised by
strong regulation and rule-
bound institutions
Individualism
Privileges markets,
unbridled
entrepreneurialism
competition, and
deregulation
Egalitarianism
Mutuality, solidarity,
communal governance,
participative decision-
making
GRID
GROUP

15. Types of actors/motivation (Hood 2007)
1)‘Saints’: who may not share mainstream goals, but whose public
service ethos is so high that they voluntarily disclose shortcomings to
central authorities
2) ‘Honest triers’: who broadly share mainstream goals and do not
voluntarily draw attention to their failures, but do not attempt to spin or
fiddle data in their favour
3)‘Reactive gamers’: who broadly share mainstream goals, but aim to
spin or fiddle data if they have a motive or opportunity to do so.
4)‘Rational maniacs’: who do not share mainstream goals and aim to
manipulate data to conceal their operations (gross misconduct)
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16. Illustration from another field: gaming the
transplant system in the United States
For a patient in need of an organ transplant, life is a waiting game!
 Low Group Low Grid—Individualist control system and cultural conditions
 Majority of hospitals: private non-profits
 78% of all medical procedures performed on a fee-for-service basis (incentives 
volume targets and rewards)
 Most remunerated procedure (transplant), highest DRGs for hospitals
 High transplant prices – average liver transplant now more than $577,000 and
bonuses for surgeons
Policy challenge: do market pressures combined with high prices
transplant surgeons command, and financial incentives and bonus
rewards encourage unethical cheating behaviour?
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17. Cases of cheating by surgeons: control
systems or motivation?
 2002: University of Illinois teaching hospital
 Federal lawsuits against three centres in Chicago ($2mil to settle the lawsuit)
 Misleading medical information and inappropriate hospitalisation
 Admission to Intensive Care Unit to jump the transplant waiting list in the
region (Department of Justice, 2003)
 MELD introduced in 2002 (new medical standards)
sharp decrease in admissions to ICUs (Snyder, 2010)
 Largest decrease in ICU admissions in markets with highest provider
competition (controlling for surgeons’ rewards system)
 Findings: cheating associated with type of target (volume
expansion, 12 procedures per year) and type of reward (bonus)
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18. Public trust (O’Neill, 2011) and morality
in public policy
 Public policy discourse of efficiency/accountability is now
increasingly tied to morality and trust (Simpson and Baird, 2013)
 Malpractices in public services may diminish public trust
 In live organ transplant (scarce supply), this is detrimental-- drop in
organ donation has severe implications for patients
 Strengthening “defensive medicine” and “defensive teaching”
 Erosion of professional ethos and demoralised professions
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19. Future research and policy challenges:
“Ethics and Gaming in Education”
 Is cheating in the education system caused by regulatory
failure or individual human action?
 What is the relationship between cultural conditions (Grid-
Group theory) and educational assessment?
 Do some control systems deliver a better game-proof design?
 What are the potential effects of changing administrative values
and cultures (e.g. increase relational distance between
teachers and regulators) on the strength of output distortions?
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20. Why ethics and accountability?
 Move beyond institutional mechanisms and formal
arrangements in the field of accountability
 Understanding accountability through human relationships and social
interactions (Bovens, 2002; Dubnick, 2006)
 Multiple diverse conflicting expectations (MDCE) from policy
makers who face dilemmas and make choices among
opposing values (Dubnick and Romzek, 1993; Mattei, 2015)
 Accountability is intrinsically an ethical question.
 Prestige management increasingly significant with PIs governance
 Achieve moral status in the eyes of others (not only about bonuses)
 Avoid moral blame that might result from wrongdoing
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21. Nozick’s ethical theory and public policy:
moral pushes and pulls
 Action as outcome of tensions between moral push and moral pull
 Moral push—my own values
 internal motivation, individual, that determines own moral conduct
based on self-worth
 Internalisation of values
 Moral pull—the others’ values
 external, institutional values and demands, conduct based on the
others’ values (structures and procedures)
 Moral pull of ‘A’ puts a moral constraint on ‘B’ and determines the
behaviour of ‘B’ in accordance to ‘A’ values
 When does ethical action occur?
 Moral push is equal or greater than the moral pull
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22. Conclusion
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If
production
and
economic
values
Then, conflict
between compliance and fidelity