Ten topics for research in educational assessment
Abstract
Reforms in education often depend on parallel and supporting reforms to systems for assessing and reporting student achievement. As countries revise and clarify their goals for student learning and set priorities for the reform of curricula and schools, there is usually a need to reappraise and often reconstruct assessment and reporting systems to ensure that assessments of student learning: are consistent with, and provide useful information about, valued learning outcomes, are sufficiently reliable for the purposes they are to serve, and are informed by up-to-date research evidence and thinking in the field of educational measurement. The topics proposed are: aligning assessment with curriculum frameworks, broadening the range of assessment methods, assisting teachers to make valid assessments, ensuring fair assessment, understanding students' conceptions, assessing cross-curricular competencies, using technology to enhance assessment, measuring growth, setting benchmarks for student achievement and providing more informative reports to stakeholders.