The acronym VERA stands for VERgleichsArbeiten (Nationwide Achievement Tests). VERA comprises written assessments that are administered nationwide and are mandatory in Grades 3 and 8 (VERA-3 and VERA-8) in all federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
VERA-3 consists of written assessments that are administered annually and are mandatory in the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.Based on the educational standards, these assessments are used to determine the level of learning that students in Grade 3 have achieved in the subjects of German and mathematics.
VERA-8 consists of written assessments that are administered annually and are mandatory in the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.Based on the educational standards, these assessments are used to determine the level of learning that students in Grade 8 have achieved in the subjects of German, mathematics, English and French.
How are educational standards assessed through VERA? 🔗
Teachers and schools receive feedback on the results from their respective federal state, which allows for various types of comparisons. For example, it is possible to determine how well a particular class has already achieved the educational standards set by the KMK for Grade 4 or Grade 9, respectively, or how the class performs in comparison with another class at the same school, with schools in the same federal state serving a similar student population, or with the federal state as a whole. The results provide teachers and schools with information about the areas in which their classes demonstrate strengths and in which particular instructional emphasis is needed to ensure that all students achieve the educational standards. No rankings of schools or federal states are produced, and the results are not graded.
Educational monitoring aims to strengthen competence-oriented education within the education system.Regular feedback from assessments is an important tool for the targeted implementation of competence-oriented teaching.VERA serves as an early warning system for teachers: One year before students are expected to meet the educational standards, teachers receive feedback on how far their class is from achieving these goals and which competence domains require particular attention in instruction.The handbook “Teaching in General Education Schools” (Unterrichten an allgemeinbildenden Schulen; Henschel & Stanat, 2019) offers an overview of VERA’s aims, functions, and effectiveness.
Teaching in General Education Schools (Unterrichten an allgemeinbildenden Schulen, German handbook)
The IQB develops the assessment items for VERA in interdisciplinary teams together with teachers from all federal states, who contribute the perspective of educational practice. The IQB offers workshops on subject didactics and empirical research for these teachers at regular intervals. The IQB units responsible for VERA, together with researchers from the respective fields of subject didactics support the entire item development process, including pilot testing. They evaluate and review the assessment items with regard to their subject-specific educational suitability and psychometric quality. Moreover, feedback from subject-matter consultants from all federal states is incorporated into the revision process. Each year, the IQB organizes a conference with teachers and subject-matter experts at which the newly developed items are discussed before being pilot tested. It takes approximately two to three years for an assessment item to progress from initial development to its use in a VERA assessment.
Responsibility for administering VERA lies with the federal states. The states’ Ministries of Education, together with the responsible quality assurance agencies, state institutes, and other partners, organize the preparation, implementation, scoring, and reporting of results according to their own responsibilities and state-specific regulations. The subjects and competence domains covered by VERA can vary both between and within the federal states. The federal states jointly define nationwide testing windows for VERA-3 and VERA-8, within which the assessments are administered.
The feedback provided through VERA is intended to support data-informed instructional development at the school level. As one component of data-informed instructional development, the VERA results help teachers support their students’ competence development more effectively. The VERA results reports enable schools and teachers to understand how students within a class are distributed across the different proficiency levels and to identify areas where additional support may be needed.
To identify the need for additional support, teachers are provided with instructional materials, sample items developed by the IQB, and additional resources supplied by the federal states.
The process of outcome-oriented instructional development following a VERA assessment follows a continuous improvement cycle that incorporates not only VERA results but also other sources of data for instructional and school development.
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