Rene’s Assessment

The report  “The Transition to Computer-Based Assessment – New Approaches to Skills Assessment and Implications for Large-scale Testing” has been published. The volume, which is based on a set of workshops that was held in Iceland in September 2008, was edited Julius Björnsson and Fritz Scheuerman. I think it gives a very broad and comprehensive overview of the current state of, and issues around, computer based assessment.

I would especially recommend The article on “CAT as a pedagogic tool” by Jakob Wandall, and “Issues in Computerized Ability Measurement: Getting out of the Jingle and Jangle Jungle” by Oliver Wilhelm.

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At the EU workshop I attended in Ispra, Italy last year (see blogposts Psychometrics versus pedagogy and High stakes national assessments and ranking) we agreed to write some articles on quality aspects of computer based assessments to go towards a report for the European Commission. I’m glad to say that the report has now been published, and can be accessed online via the following link: Towards a research agenda on computer-based assessment

I think there’s many interesting articles and views within the report, and I will certainly be reviewing the interesting perspectives that my colleagues presented at the workshop in this report. Do have a look, I am positive there will be something of interest there for virtually anyone.

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It’s been a long day full of many, many presentations. Fortunately the last presentation was actually one of the more interesting ones, and I did not have to fight off the embarrassment of falling asleep too hard. It was a presentation by Jakob Wandall from Skolestyrelsen.
about the new national computer based assessments in secondary education that have been introduced in Denmark.

While the technical side of this was interesting (they were using computer adaptive testing for instance), the most interesting bit of the talk had nothing to do with technology at all. It had to do with how the test was used, presented used and regulated.

In England, high stakes tests are a very big deal. The main reason is that they are always is that they are inevitable translated into rankings and funding consequences, leading to teachers and school becoming completely obsessed with assessments, drilling students until they are green in the face in the idle expectation it might raise the school a place or 2 in the oh so important regional league tables. It is this abomination that I think the Danish have elegantly addressed (apparently with the English system as the example of what they wanted to avoid at all costs, and understandably so!)

The publication of the results of these national benchmarks is strictly regulated. The national average is published and used for policy purposes, but no regional or individual result is public. Teachers can review all results of all their students, and even responses to individual questions, but are forbidden to communicate these results other then to the student and their parents (and this communication is not in the form of a grade, but of a textual report with feedback). Students have to be given their result by a qualified teacher that discusses the results and provides relevant feedback on the performance.

So it is impossible for a school, a local authority or the press, to rate and rank scores just on the numerical outcomes of a single test. It provides stakeholders on every level with the relevant information, without the detrimental effects of publication that we see in the US and UK. I think we’ve got a lot to learn from the Scandinavian approach to education

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