CEM Conference

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CEM Conference
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Welcome Peter Tymms
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Outline

• The day
• Assessment for excellence
• Why Monitor?
• Choices
• Layers
• Traps
• CEM
• E-Assessment
• Metrics

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Why Monitor

• From Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence
• to support learning
• to give assurance to parents and others
• to provide a summary of what learners have
  achieved
• to inform future improvements

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Some key points

• From time to time teachers also take stock of
  their learners progress.
• This is vital in ensuring that learners progress
  is on track.
• This stocktaking is particularly important at
  transitions.
• CfE emphasises literacy and numeracy
• Greater breadth and depth of learning and a
  greater focus on skills development
• The practices for arriving at a shared
  understanding of standards and expectations
  involve teachers
• Self-evaluation in schools
• It is important that staff in schools reflect on
  a wide range of sources of information. They need
  to have easily available valid and reliable
  performance data to help to identify areas of
  strength, aspects which prompt further questions,
  and scope for improvement

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Purposes
of learning
for learning
Assessment
as learning
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Choices Assessment Domains
Cognitive
Affective
Physical
Behavioural
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Layers of Information
Authorities
Schools
Classes
Brain modules
Pupils
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Traps

• Relying entirely on teacher assessment
• Reliability? Comparability? Bias? Discrimination
• Believing that top down accountability raises
  standards
• Failed south of the border
• Using only aggregate data
• Ecological fallacy

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CEM

• 1,000,000 students each year
• 1000s schools
• Ages 3 to 18
• Scotland, England, Australia, New Zealand,
  Netherlands, Hong Kong, China, S. Africa
• 100s of international schools
• Confidential and accurate
• Translations into a dozen languages
• Norm and criterion
• Paper based and e-assessment
• Cognitive, affective, physical and behavioural
• With support

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E-Assessment

• Two main approaches
• Flat assessment paper move directly on to
  computers
• Adaptive assessments capitalising on advances
  in psychometrics and IT capacity

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Traditional approach
Low
Average
High
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Individual approach
Low
Average
High
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Disadvantages

• Closed questions
• Computer access
• Atmosphere in computer room
• Not suited to high stakes tests.
• Gremlins
• Takes years of development

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Advantages

• Efficient
• Economical
• Rapid
• Good student experience
• Detailed feedback
• LAN or web
• Green
• Standards referencing and/or norm referencing

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What children know and can do
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Which metric?
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Choices Criterion and Norm Referencing
Criterion
Norm
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Possibilities

• Norm referenced
• IQ style
• T scores
• Z scores
• Age equivalents

• Criterion Referenced
• A, B C etc
• Alpha, beta etc
• 1 st, 21, 22 etc

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Issues

• Criterion referencing generally preferred
• Because
• Progress is clear
• We can work together
• Goals are clear
• Can tracking progress

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But
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Reporting in CfE

• Experiences and Outcomes _at_ levels
• Developing
• Consolidating
• Secure
• Are these categories discriminating enough?
• Will they satisfy parents?
• How will modest progress be shown?
• How will agreement be ensured across Scotland?

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Possibility
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Thank you