OCCAM · Outcomes and Causal Inference in International Comparative Assessments

The ETN OCCAM will investigate how educational policies influence educational outcomes worldwide. One of the mostsalient findings in the field of education is that there are huge national differences in student achievement in internationalcomparative 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 hasbeen replicated in several studies, at present, the reasons for and consequences of such differences are not wellunderstood.Variations in many features of educational policies can only be observed across countries on the system level (e.g., theexistence of central exams). Since the start of the new millennium, a new generation of international comparative studieshas been launched: studies like PISA and TIMSS are repeated every few years and thus have a longitudinal component atthe system level. Unlike cross-sectional designs, these trend designs allow the causal effects of changes in educationalpolicies at the system level to be estimated. Applying this approach, alongside other approaches to causal inference, to theaccumulated data from the comparative studies has a huge potential to provide insights into the determinants of educationaloutcomes worldwide.The ETN will provide an ideal environment for training ESRs to become leading experts in educational policy evaluation,international student assessments, and educational and policy consulting. They will receive interdisciplinary and -intersectoral training, and their individual research projects promise groundbreaking new knowledge on how to design fairand efficient educational systems. For this purpose, OCCAM will integrate the complementary expertise from nine academicand three non-academic partners. The combination of non-profit and for-profit organizations will ensure the employability andentrepreneurship of the ESRs.