EDUC40130: Assessment

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• EDUC42430 Classroom Assessment.

• To have a critical understanding of assessment in relation to teaching and learning.

• Assessment serves a variety of purposes, and is set within particular social and political contexts.
• All systems of assessment face both technical and conceptual problems. Many of the conceptual problems relate to politics, social policy, and morality. An important theme which runs throughout this module is the interplay between technical issues and conceptual ones.
• The notion of what to assess will be considered, and we will consider taxonomies of learning objectives both as abstractions and in their application to a variety of academic domains.
• We will consider core ideas of reliability, sufficiency and validity across both high-stakes and low-stakes assessment. We will examine the plausibility of some of the simplifying assumptions which are made, such as (unwarranted) strong assumptions made by test constructors about the independence of items, and notions that test takers have some quantity of knowledge which remains unchanged throughout the test. We will consider those situations where conventional psychometrics might be applied safely, and those where it might not.
• We will consider some of the technical, conceptual, and moral issues surrounding 'bias equity' and fairness in assessment, in relation to selection for college and employment as well as public certification.
• The challenges of conducting large scale assessment programmes such as those used for the purposes of international comparison will be explored. Techniques of formative assessment will be a focus of the module; to support student's own learning, and to illustrate the principles of formative assessment, we will engage in formative assessments throughout our working sessions.
• The role of assessment as a bridge between different knowledge communities (testers; cognitive psychologists; domain experts; classroom practitioners) will be explored.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of the module, students will be able to:
• Demonstrate a critical understanding of assessment in relation to teaching and learning across a variety of educational contexts.

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of the module, students will be able to:
• Critically discuss issues relating to assessment across a variety of educational contexts;
• Examine and contextualise the functions of assessment;
• Critically evaluate current assessment practices across a variety of educational contexts;
• Understand technical and conceptual issues across a range of assessment methods.

Key Skills:

• Through their essays students will demonstrate the ability to:
• undertake a search and synthetic review of research literature,
• summarise and critique research-based literatures;
• communicate ideas effectively, in writing, to an advanced level;
• learn independently.

• Through lectures and seminar teaching supported by Study Guide resources. The Study Guide includes preparation for and follow up to teaching activities. This directed independent work is an important part of the module. Lectures enable the ideas of the module to be considered. Student-led seminar work enables students to develop their understanding of the ideas and consider them in a range of professionally relevant contexts. Activities in seminars include a variety of active learning approaches including discussion, group work, presentations, question and answer sessions, individual tasks. Preparation for the assignment involves students in wide reading and critical reflection on ideas of the module.

Verbal feedback is given to students' contribution during class teaching sessions. Staff can be contacted for individual help. Written formative feedback is provided for draft work or essay plan (journal article review - 300 words draft work, essay - 500 words essay plan).

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