This document discusses assessment in education. It begins by outlining learning outcomes related to understanding assessment and its links to educational theory. It then discusses the purpose of assessment in measuring student progress and providing feedback. The document notes potential barriers to effective assessment, such as overuse, inappropriate methods, and demotivating less successful students. It outlines different types of assessment, including diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment. It discusses what can be assessed, including knowledge, skills, understanding, and aptitude. The document emphasizes the importance of assessment in focusing learning and providing feedback to students.

2. Learning Outcomes
Be able to…
 Explain what is meant by learning and how this links
to relevant theory.
 Explain what is meant by assessment and recognise
potential barriers.
 Research assessment in your own educational context.

3. We are happiest and most
successful when we learn,
develop, and work in ways that
make best use of our natural
intelligences.

4. What does Guy Claxton say?

5. ‘We want our learners to have competence, confidence and self-
esteem so that they can become better learners and better young
adults both within the school and when they leave’.
‘Good learners stick with things when they are difficult, they ask
questions and they say if they don't understand something. They are
good at sharing with other people, and they like to sit down and think
things through.’

6. Resilience – this is the emotional aspects of learning and being able to persist
when things get difficult, managing distractions, noticing and persevering.
Resourcefulness – the cognitive aspects of learning and being able to deploy a
variety of learning strategies such as questioning, making learning links,
imagining, reasoning and capitalizing on all the tools available to help us with our
learning.
Reflectiveness – this is the strategic aspect of learning. To be able to think about
learning and about how we may develop as learners. Within this aspect we focus on
planning where we are going with our learning, what we will need and the action
we will take to get there. We will also look at revising and being flexible in our
approach to learning and getting to know ourselves as a learner – how we learn best
and being able to talk about the learning process.
Reciprocity – this is the social aspect of learning. It focuses on interdependence
knowing when it’s best to learn on our own or with others. Collaboration, empathy
and listening and imitation are all aspects covered in learning about reciprocity.

7. “Weighing the pig doesn’t fatten it”
Black and Wiliam (1998)

8. (Derek) Rowntree (1987: 1) says of
assessment:
if we wish to discover the truth about an
educational system, we must look to its
assessment procedures.' In addition,
‘assessment is important because students
cannot avoid it’.
(David) Boud (1995: 35) says:
'Students can, with difficulty, escape from
the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by
definition if they want to graduate) escape
the effects of poor assessment'.

9. Assessment
 What will effective
assessment produce?
 Barriers
 Why assess?

10. Why Assess ?
• To match learning experiences to the learner’s needs
• To seek to measure progress
• To generate effective ‘feedback’ to learners
• To enable relative and absolute judgements
• To ‘build-in’ a competitive dimension into the learning
environment for students
• To measure competencies across a wide range of skill-sets
• To rank student performance
• To discover future potential of the learner

11. Why Assess ?
• Assessment without purpose
• Unclear assessment focus/objectives
• Overuse (too frequent in the learning cycle)
• Inappropriate and unreliable assessment methods
• Demotivating for less successful learners
• Potential for ‘Unhealthy’ levels of competition to develop in the learning
environment
As Long (2000: 47) notes, “assessment is…a major part of the educational
process, and without it, teaching would be a rather unfocused activity. The
fact remains, however, that a great deal of testing is implemented with only
limited justification”.
Can you identify any potential constraints/difficulties relating to assessment?

12. Types of
Assessment
Diagnostic
Used to diagnose the level of learning that has been achieved
by students.
Generally used at the beginning of a course to determine the
level at which teaching or support may be required.
Can be used at the end of a lecture, or a series of lectures, to
see if students have comprehended the information
conveyed.
Diagnostic assessment does not provide a tool to enhance
student learning unless it has an element of feedback within
it, unless it becomes formative.

13. Types of
Assessment
Formative
This occurs during a course, and provides feedback to
students to help them improve their performance
The feedback need not necessarily be derived from the
tutor, but can be from students' peers or external
agents. Involving students in peer assessment aids
students in understanding and using the assessment
criteria (Bradford, 2003).
'Giving feedback on another student's work, or being required
to determine and defend one's own, not only increases a
student's sense of responsibility and control over the subject
matter, it often reveals the extent of one's misunderstandings
more vividly than any other method' (Ramsden, 1992).

14. Types of
Assessment
Summative
May or may not include feedback
The main difference between this form of assessment and that
which is purely formative is that grades are awarded.
The grade will indicate performance against the standards set for
the assessment task, and can either be part of in-course
assessment, or assessment at the end of a course or module.
Boud (2000:160) says that assessment activities 'have to
encompass formative assessment for learning and summative
for certification'. Brown et al., (1997) provide a list of weak
practice in assessment. This of course can also act as a
checklist against which assessment programmes can be
evaluated.

15. What can we assess ?
• Factual InformationKnowledge
• ‘How’ to do thingsSkills
• The Ability to use
information
Understanding
Fleming and Chambers (1983) found that nearly 80 per cent of all
questions in school tests dealt only with factual information. It seems
that this penchant for factual information is due to ‘the ease of using
simple knowledge-based assessments, since tests which incorporate
children’s use of skills and understanding tend to be time-consuming
to design and implement’ (Long, 2000: 47).

16. What can we assess?
• Factual InformationKnowledge
• ‘How’ to do thingsSkills
• The Ability to use
informationUnderstanding
Anything missing?
APTITUDE
Aptitude assesses the potential for future attainment

18. You are an Ofsted inspector…
What you expect to see / hear / experience in:
1. An outstanding school’s approach to assessment?
2. The approach to assessment of a school that
Requires Improvement?

19. Your own research
Create questionnaires for…
1. A senior leader
2. Students
…in order to gather information on a school’s
approach to assessment.
What might your questions focus on?

20. Assessment in our own context
• What does the research say makes the
greatest difference to learning? (Hattie
2003; 2009; 2012)
• How well do students “know how well
they are performing and what they
need to do to improve”? (Attfield)

21. Homework…
1). ‘Assessing Without Levels’
Read the article and summarise how 3 schools have adapted to this
challenge. What are the key messages from schools?
2). Creating an assessment task
Working with another member of your Department, write or adapt
an assessment that takes into account Multiple Intelligences,
including clear success criteria.
Reflect on whether the collaborative approach strengthened the
clarity of the work.
All material to be posted to your blog