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Elaboration of evidence-based solutions for effective professional competence development of adults and assessment of the transfer of its results into practice in Latvia

April 22, 2024

The State Research Programs "Education" project No. VPP-IZM-Izglītība-2023/4-0001 "Development of evidence-based solutions for the effective improvement of professional competence of adults and the transfer of its results to practice in Latvia" lead researcher Dr. paed. Sanita Baranova (University of Latvia), Dr. sc. administr. Inese Lūsēna-Ezera (RTU Liepāja), Dr. sc. adminr. Una Libkovska (Ventspils University of Applied Sciences), Dr. sc. administr. Liene Resele (Ventspils University of Applied Sciences) on 8 and 9 April 2024 participated in the seminar "Tailored training on Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of education policies" organized by the Ministry of Education and Science in cooperation with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre Learning Lab.


The Learning Lab's work is about encouraging a learning culture in the EU to strengthen Member States' capacity to develop evidence and research-based policies and to evaluate the results of the education policies they put in place.The Learning Lab supports policy makers and evaluators with knowledge, tools, methods and resources for effective evaluation of the impact of education policies, taking into account the needs of national, regional and local communities, and promotes an evidence-based approach to education policy development and implementation.


The event brought together policy planners, enforcers and data analysts from various state institutions, as well as researchers from universities.The aim of the seminar was to enhance participants' understanding of different methods for evaluating the effectiveness and impact of education policies, using research-based evidence to ensure a contribution to quality education.


It was very useful that the research methods were described in the context of case studies, including examples of issues in the Latvian education system. The participants were able to further develop their understanding of research methodologies through discussions and group work on impact evaluation of adult learning in Latvia.


At the end of the seminar, RTU Liepāja professor Inese Lūsēna-Ezera noted that "although the main target audience of the seminar were education policy planners, researchers also gained valuable insights into methodologically different approaches to using counterfactual impact evaluations for more effective education policy planning and evaluation. The seminar highlighted the importance of both data quality and indicators for assessing policy impact, with a particular emphasis on identifying indicators at an early stage in the education reform planning process. The concepts of causality and correlation in the context of evaluating policy effectiveness were also given significant attention".


The lessons learned from the seminar on approaches and methods for evaluating the effectiveness and impact of education policies have been discussed by the project team in the research groups and examples of methodology will be useful for in-depth analysis when planning the empirical research phase of the project.


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