The Ethical Use of Data in Education: Promoting Responsible Policies and Practices

This volume brings together experts on various aspects of education to address many of the emerging issues and problems that affect how data are being used or misused in educational contexts. Readers will learn about the importance of using data effectively, responsibly, and ethically to fully understand how cognitive fallacies occur and how they impact decision-making. They will understand how codes of ethics deal with the use of data within education as well as in other disciplines. Chapters provide a landscape view of the regulations that pertain to data use and policies that have emerged, including the impact of accountability on data use and data ethics. The text covers data ethics in local education agencies, professional development, educator preparation, testing programs, and educational technology. Chapter authors recommend steps to improve awareness among educators, stakeholders, and other interested groups and suggest actions that can be taken to enhance educators’ capacity to use data responsibly. A final use case chapter describes the importance of data ethics in terms of equity in schools and includes salient examples of ethical dilemmas, with questions and reflections on how ethics and equity apply to each situation. The conclusion addresses data ethics in terms of professionalism and poses several recommendations that challenge educators to raise awareness of data ethics and integrate them into educational practice.

Book Features:

• Discusses how accountability affects effective data, including the pressure on schools and districts to perform better on test scores or other indicators.
• Outlines ten recommendations for how professional development can incorporate data ethics in practice.
• Reviews the expectations and realities of preparing educators for data literacy, including an example of one teacher education program’s integrated, curriculum-wide approach.
• Considers the role of testing companies in ethical data use, including issues around equity in assessment data.
• Explores how educational technologies, platforms, and applications impact data use.

Ellen B. Mandinach is senior research scientist and director of the Data for Decisions Initiative at WestEd. Edith S. Gummer is the founder of PNWEvaluAnd and former executive director for the Office of Data Strategy at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.