3.2 Producing evidence for quality
In order to develop a high-quality curriculum, evaluation is of great importance. From
a concern about the frequent failure of (large-scale) innovation processes, as was
recently highlighted in the Dutch context by a Parliamentary commission on education
(Commission Dijsselbloem, 2008), there is a growing interest in studies into the
effectiveness of curriculum innovations. In education, new methods and approaches are
often implemented without sufficient clarity about their added value. When developing
or implementing innovations, political interests or ideological views often prevail over a
solid knowledge base or views on possible effectiveness. Therefore, the Education Council
of the Netherlands (2006) argued for a more evidence-based approach to educational
development: an approach in which specific evaluation methods are used to find empirical
evidence for the effectiveness of an intervention and in which results from previous
evaluation studies are used to guide the design process. Such a data-driven approach is
also increasingly adopted by schools themselves; in this approach schools and teachers
formulate clear goals and systematically work towards reaching these goals by making use
of specific assessment data.