Aligning assessment, learning and teaching in curricular reform and implementation (original) (raw)

Redefining assessment? The first ten years ofassessment in education

Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 2004

The completion of the first ten years of this journal is an occasion for review and reflection. The main issues that have been addressed over the ten years are summarized in four main sections: Purposes, International Trends, Quality Concerns and Assessment for Learning. Each of these illustrates the underlying significance of the themes of principles, policy and practice, which the journal highlights in its subtitle. The many contributions to these themes that the journal has published illustrate the diversity and complex interactions of the issues. They also illustrate that, across the world, political and public pressures have had the effect of enhancing the dominance of assessment so that the decade has seen a hardening, rather than any resolution, of its many negative effects on society. A closing section looks ahead, arguing that there is a move to rethink more radically the practices and priorities of assessment if it is to respond to human needs rather than to frustrate them.

The Central Role of Assessment in Pedagogy

Handbook of Research on Science Education, Volume II, 2000

School governing boards at local and state levels in many countries long had the obligation of establishing the curriculum -by law, as in the United States, or by embedded practice, as in England, or by some combination of the two, as in Australia and Germany. These boards discussed and decided the subjects that should be taught and, not infrequently, determined the specific topics within each one that should be included.

Values, uses and problems of assessment

1991

This paper is intended to raise questions and identify some of the problems posed by assessment within an educational setting. The principal aim is to offer a springboard for discussion, rather than to propose a specific plan of action. It is also worth stressing that assessment designates more than just examinations (public or otherwise). As teachers and educators, we are constantly making assessments of our students, passing official, unofficial, conscious and unconscious judgements. These are judgements which inevitably influence our attitudes to our jobs, our performance and our teaching or administrative styles. They also have wide-ranging repercussions on the attitudes, performances and future of our students. They are judgements based on a complex series of assumptions which we habitually make about, for instance, what education involves, the nature of schooling, school structures and their aims, the learning process as it relates to human development. What follows is largely inspired by a desire to identify and scrutinize some of the most recurrent of these assumptions.

Prospective report on the future of assessment in primary and secondary education

European Commission, 2020

In the context of today’s uncertainty, endangered environment, growing inequalities and the complexity of our societies, education and assessment play a central role in preparing children for the opportunities and the challenges of the future. This foresight study offers a probable scenario of the evolution of assessment of learning outcomes in primary and secondary education in Europe, in the mid-term future, as a response to these trends. The proposed developments in assessment and in policymaking seek to stimulate debate at the European level and support forward-looking policy action. The study is the result of a trend impact and drivers analysis, and a strategic foresight exercise. The foresight methodology of this study included a rapid review of academic and policy studies on educational assessment, as well as a consultation with educational stakeholders at national and EU level through a two-round Delphi survey and online expert panel.

National curriculum assessment: how to make it better

Research Papers in Education, 2003

In a series of papers ov er the last ten years, I have outlined various problems affecting the assessment of the national curriculum in England which are the subject of a critique by Paul Newton (this issue). In responding to this critique, I acknowledge that his summary of my position is fair, and agree that, by the standards of analytic rationality, the evidence for some of the problems I identify is not compelling. However, in response I argue that by standards of reasonableness (eg on the balance of probabilities) the evidence is sufficently serious to warrant a re-examination of national curriculum assessment, and the alternatives. In particular, I argue that the current system provides assessments that are not sufficiently reliable for the inferences that are made on the basis of the results and has also caused a narrowing of the curriculum. I propose that the first of these weaknesses can be addressed through the increased use of teacher assessment, and the second by increasing the range of the curriculum tested through testing a greater proportion of the curriculum. In order to effect these changes without increasing the burdern on students and teachers, I propose that these two changes are combined in the form of a light sampling scheme which would increase both the reliability and minimise the curricular backwash, although the price paid for this would be the lack of a direct, transparent and objective link between the results achieved by individual students on tests and the reported levels of a school's performance.

Assessment in education—from early childhood to higher education

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability

Assessment is a daily business in education and exists in different forms, for different purposes and on different levels. Generally, assessment implies observing the outcomes of something and assigning a value to what is observed (Stake 1991). Consequently, assessments do not provide objective data, but through the course of assessment, aspects without value become systematically divided from the aspects considered to have great value (Scriven 1991). In this process, policy makers, educators and other important stakeholders are provided with opportunities to give 'interpretations in an operational way' (cf. Lundgren 1990, p. 35), which means the information can be used for specific purposes to guide and improve certain aspects of education. This can also lead to a situation where other aspects may be concealed, or at least receive less attention.

What Makes a Good Secondary Assessment? On Achieving the Aims of Assessment

Drawing on the wealth of testing literature, and considering recent assessment paradigm shifts, this paper outlines four main purposes of assessment: as a measure of achievement and attainment; as a gate-keeping selection tool; to promote a meritocracy, providing equality of opportunity, and; to keep schools and teachers accountable. Through a critical discussion of traditional and alternative assessments, tensions between equality, accountability, assessment and the curriculum are highlighted in an attempt to find what would make a 'good' assessment -a test that achieves all four aims. Ultimately, it is suggested that the only way to achieve this is to reconceptualise assessment and curriculum as two halves of the same whole. Formative and summative assessment shows students' competency. A curriculum that supports deep-learning, monitored to be genderneutral, supports gate-keeping and equality. Finally, making schools accountable through qualitative inspections of their teaching and curriculum removes the negative-effects of teaching-to-the-test.