7th IAEA webinar: Assessment Paradigms

Dear colleagues,

On Thursday, August 26, 2021, at 14:00 (2:00 pm) Central European Summer Time (see www.worldtimebuddy.com for time zone conversion)  Jo-Anne Baird from University of Oxford, UK will present on the following topic: Assessment Paradigms

Summary
Psychometric approaches to assessment are well-documented in the field. In part this has been because of the economic dominance of the US, which has adopted this tradition. This has also affected the language of educational science, English. Many impressive institutions also fit with this tradition, such as Educational Testing Services (US), the Organisation for Economic Development, Cito (Netherlands) and ACER (Australia). The curious thing is that the most prolific form of assessment is national exams, which rarely fit the psychometric paradigm. IAEA conferences epitomise this, since national exams are the focus of the work of the association. Psychometric paradigms are presented as more rigorous in the research literature.  What then explains the lack of its use in national exam systems? Are they a weaker form of assessment? Or do they simply come from a different tradition, a different paradigm? This seminar will argue that there are different ways of thinking about educational assessment, coming from distinctive disciplinary and philosophical traditions and with different expectations about assessment quality criteria and its relationship with learning and the curriculum.

The presentation will take place via Zoom, members will receive a meeting invitation with the link.
We hope you can attend this presentation, and look forward to seeing you.

If you have any questions, please contact Mary Pitoniak, IAEA Board Member, at mpitoniak@ets.org.