Sammendrag
What are the roles of the national exams in the Norwegian school system? The regulations of the Education Act simply state that exam marks should reflect the student’s competency upon completing the education. This article demonstrates that policy documents and policy-makers express a range of expectations in the use of exam results. By integrating theoretical and empirical encounters, the article identifies three roles of educational assessment: to certify, govern and support learning and instruction. This conceptual framework is used to analyse the formally defined purposes of the exams and intended and unintended functions of the examination system. The article is based on three types of historical data: (i) Ministry reports to the Parliament («white papers»), (ii) the annual report of the National Agency for Education and Training («The Education Mirror») and (iii) expert interviews undertaken in 2013 with a state secretary and a government official in the Ministry of Education and Research, and the general director and department director of the National Agency for Education and Training. Additionally, it analyses current regulations of the Education Act and the «The Examination Framework» of 2017. The article illuminates that clarification of the purposes of the exams is insufficient and maintains that this may lead politicians and other policymakers to undertake insufficient approaches to the administration and development of the examination system. Further, it can cause inappropriate use of examination data by the executive agency, school inspectors, municipalities, school leaders, teachers, parents and students. The article concludes that legislation, regulations and the Examination Framework should be reviewed and changed to explicitly state the roles the examination system is expected to fulfil. This way, one may achieve a better foundation for the development of exams and facilitate sound use of exam data both nationally and locally.
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