Assessment is learning: the preposition vanishes

Abstract

Scotland, in common with many countries internationally, has been learning how to align ideas from research with policy and practice. This article considers what Scotland learned from large-scale evaluations of its Assessment is for Learning (AifL) programme and the extent to which this evidence was used to inform future learning within the national programme. More recently, the policy focus in Scotland has shifted to the creation of a new curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence, subsuming AifL. Merging curriculum and assessment innovations brought new challenges in the alignment of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Drawing on a Scottish Government-funded research project, Assessment at Transition, designed to identify and explore emerging gaps between practice in schools and local authorities and national curriculum and assessment policy aspirations, the article argues that assessment is learning and explores how formative approaches to evaluation at a national level might be used to prevent countries repeating past mistakes.

Classroom assessment and pedagogy

“…For us, it is striking that, in every jurisdiction in which we have worked with teachers on the development of formative assessment practice, teachers have said that the practices we are advocating cannot be used because they are under pressure to raise their students' test scores, and specifically, as a result, they have to 'teach to the test'. This is a particularly ironic finding given the evidence of the impact of formative assessment practices on student achievement on standardized tests (Wiliam et al, 2004;Kingston & Nash, 2011;2015). It is therefore, we believe, hard to see how further development of formative assessment can take place without clarifying the relationships between the formative and the summative aspects of teachers' work, whilst developing more nuanced understanding of the desirable, and indeed the possible, relationships between them.…”

“…Particularly in Canada and Australia, the term "assessment as learning" (Hayward, 2015) has been used in a more specific sense; to describe the role of students in monitoring and directing their own learning (e.g., Earl, 2003;NSW BSTES, 2012). The term 'assessment for learning' is then used to describe the process by which teachers use assessment evidence to inform their teaching, and 'assessment of learning' refers to the use of assessment to determine the extent to which students have achieved intended learning outcomes.…”

The meaning of curriculum-related examination standards in Scotland and England: a home–international comparison

“…The introduction of the new qualifications has not been unproblematic, in line with experience of previous qualifications reform in Scotland (Hayward, 2007(Hayward, , 2015Hayward & Hutchinson, 2013). reform of examinations is risky and systemic failures have been known to happen, such as in 2000 when the Highers were last reformed (Deloitte & Touche, 2000).…”

The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment: Two Volume Set

“…It may be all too easy to think that genuine collaboration across research and policy communities is just too difficult; however, the chapters illustrate many examples of the negative impact on education systems and ultimately on the learning of children and young people, and also of the effects of competing ideologies, and researchers, policymakers and practitioners working in tension with one another. If curriculum, assessment and pedagogy are to be brought into better alignment, then more effective collaboration is a necessary condition (Hayward, 2015).…”