Designing Assessment for Quality Learning the Enabling Power of Assessment

Designing Assessment for Quality Learning The Enabling Power of Assessment

Series Editor: Claire Wyatt-Smith Australian Catholic University, Institute for Learning Sciences Australia, Brisbane, Australia

This series heralds the idea that new times call for new and different thinking about assessment and learning, the identities of teachers and students, and what is involved in using and creating new knowledge. Its scope is consistent with a view of assessment as inherently connected with cultural, social practices and contexts. Assessment is a shared enterprise where teachers and students come together to not only develop knowledge and skills, but also to use and create knowledge and identities. Working from this position, the series confronts some of the major educational assessment issues of our times.

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/13204 Claire Wyatt-Smith • Valentina Klenowski Peta Colbert Editors

Designing Assessment for Quality Learning

Volume 1

2123 Editors Claire Wyatt-Smith Peta Colbert Australian Catholic University Australian Catholic University Brisbane Brisbane Queensland Queensland Australia Australia Valentina Klenowski Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Queensland Australia

ISSN 2198-2643 ISSN 2198-2651 (electronic) ISBN 978-94-007-5901-5 ISBN 978-94-007-5902-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5902-2 Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014932419

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Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface

There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the ﬂood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now aﬂoat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. from Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

The tide is turning for assessment. After several thousand years, the Confucian heritage of competitive examinations in Asia is being challenged by the need for assessment approaches that meet today’s educational imperatives. After many decades of a testing culture in the United States centered on comparing students’ scores, the tide is turning in favor of learning-oriented assessment. Around the world, the relatively novel idea that the primary goal of assessment might be to encourage learning is rapidly becoming a ﬂood—inundating teachers and students, policy makers and teacher-trainers with new enthusiasms, new insights and new challenges about ways of using assessment designed to promote, rather than measure, student learning. Building on the relatively well-established foundations of ‘formative assessment’, the tidal wave of interest in ‘assessment for learning’ (AfL) has become a global phenomenon. The clear message of empirical research that, used skilfully, such assessment can signiﬁcantly enhance student learning and performance, has elevated AfL into something of a ‘holy grail’ for governments desperate to raise student achievement across the board in an increasingly competitive world. In their contribution to this book, for example, Earl and Timperley (Chapter 20) quote powerful research evidence from an earlier study by Popham (2011, p. 25):

Recent reviews of more than 4,000 research investigations show clearly that when [formative assessment] is well implemented in the classroom, it can essentially double the speed of student learning ...it is clear that the process works, it can produce whopping gains in students’ achievement, and it is sufﬁciently robust so that different teachers can use it in diverse ways, yet still get great results with their students. Tides are powerful and difﬁcult to control; their impact can be unpredictable as they re-shape the landscape and re-direct existing streams. If 20 years ago no-one could

v vi Preface have imagined quite how powerful this latest stream of assessment thinking would be, then, no-one today can properly predict where it will take us in 20 years’ time. One thing we can be sure of, however, as Shakespeare suggested, is unless we take advantage of this tide while it is, as now, at the flood, unless we ‘take the current when it serves’, we will ‘lose our ventures’and find ourselves ‘bound in shallows and miseries’. Put more prosaically, the clear message here with regard to assessment is that the door to significant change is currently open; there is at the present time an opportunity to re-think the ways in which we conceive the purposes of assessment, the choices we make about our assessment priorities and the techniques that we have developed over the years to do it. However, as Shakespeare also warns us, it is all too easy to fail to take advantage of this portentous tide. Lack of genuine commitment, inadequate understanding, contradictory policies, a failure to prepare teachers with the necessary skills—even simple inertia—all have the potential to leave us bound ‘in shallows and in miseries’, continuing to be wedded to discredited assessment paradigms, unwilling to give up increasingly outmoded approaches and condemned to watch helplessly as the opportunity to adopt new approaches that have potentially enormous educational benefit, trickles away. For anyone tempted to think of the above as dramatic hyperbole written for effect rather than substance, I refer you to this unusually radical collection of chapters. Ably summed up by Jim Popham in his chapter, who speaks for us all in asserting that:

...for nearly an entire century educators have been regarding educational assessment in a way that provides little, if any, beneﬁt to students’learning. Because the dominant function of educational testing, historically, has been to provide comparative interpretations of students’ test scores, educational tests have never been required to show how they contribute either to teachers’ instructional decision-making or, ultimately, to students’ learning. For Popham, it is time now that ‘a hundred years of acquiescence’ in this respect should be replaced by a focus for testing and assessment on ‘instructional actionability’:

...that is, seeing it [assessment] chiefly in relation to its contribution to students’ learning ...and that therefore ...many of the time-honored tools for evaluating the worth of educational tests are simply irrelevant if our mission is truly to help students learn better. So what is the nature of this new ‘flood’ of assessment thinking? What are its implications for practice, and what do we need to do as an educational community to ensure that we do indeed ‘take it at the flood so that it leads on to fortune’ and do not, to stretch the metaphor a little further, miss the boat? The collection of studies in this book provides a range of answers to these questions. Perhaps the most important of all is the repeated call in many of the contributions for greater assessment literacy; for a much more sophisticated understanding of how assessment works in practice, as this has been illuminated through extensive research. Chapters 6–11, for example, describe a range of ways in which school principals, teachers and students themselves can be helped to understand the Preface vii sociocultural theory of learning upon which AfL is based and can be helped to develop the skills to implement it effectively in practice, regardless of which of the above groups they belong to. These various contributions demonstrate the potential of a range of research methods to help us understand the power and potential of educational assessment more clearly. Narrative studies, historical analyzes, case studies, research syntheses and experiments provide the data that underpin the creation of the new theoretical insights pertaining to assessment, which are presented in this book. These data and insights can in turn inform the development of innovative new assessment practices designed to support learning. The book makes clear that the recognition that students themselves are key part- ners in this sort of assessment enterprise is central to such innovation. Students must be helped to see assessment as an integral part of effective learning, along with the hurdles and occasional failures it presents, as a necessary part of building resilience and making progress. The extensive review of relevant research in this respect presented by Tillema in Chapter 3 makes clear that this is a sine qua non of effectiveAfL. For, as Care and colleagues argue in Chapter 4 in their evaluation of an assessment project in schools in Queensland, AfL is much more:

than a series of techniques or strategies ...[it is] part of a dialectical and cultural process of increasing understanding and control of the learning process by the learner—that is, exercising agency. Detailed ‘micro’ classroom studies such as that presented by Willis and Cowie in Chapter 2 demonstrate how important it is for the educational community as a whole to recognize the centrality of learner agency in this respect; to develop its understanding of how classroom relations in general and assessment practice in particular are negotiated in the social behavior of students. Understanding and agency are also key for teachers if they are to be able to use assessment effectively to support learning. The contribution by Allal and Mottier Lopez in Chapter 10 on how teachers can build communities to support effective summative teacher assessment makes clear that ‘teachers’ professional judgment is both an individual cognitive act and a socially situated practice’. The keynote, here, is that in order to meet educational goals assessment must be of high quality. It must represent a well-thought through and research-informed match of means and ends in which ﬁtness for purpose is central. Happily, this book provides many new insights in this respect. To the question posed by Smith and Smith in Chapter 8:

How can teachers and other educational professionals develop assessment tasks that engage, inform and enhance the learning process for students and the teachers who work with them? the various contributions to this collection provide a range of clear and constructive answers. Nevertheless, it is not going to be easy to bring about genuine and profound change in learning settings in which traditional assessment practices have held sway for many decades. Even if it is the case that ‘hurricane winds sweep across the sea viii Preface tossing up twenty foot waves’ in assessment policy, and even if ‘a fathom below the surface turbulent waters swirl’ among professional leaders, it is still likely to be the case that ‘on the ocean ﬂoor [of the classroom] there is unrufﬂed calm’(Cuban 1984, p. 2, cited by Timperley in Chapter 9). Unfortunately, the challenging task of raising the level of teachers’ and students’ assessment literacy and encouraging them to embed learning-centered assessment into the daily routines of the classroom is made even harder by the mixed assessment messages coming from many national governments. In many countries, contemporary assessment policies appear to be acting against each other. Despite the desire to implement AfL, prevailing ‘high-stakes’accountability practices emphasize summative and external assessment at the expense of formative and classroom-based teacher assessment. As Engelsen and Smith observe in their discussion of the importance of assessment literacy in Chapter 6:

The problem is that the policy makers propagate two conﬂicting messages: they increase the intensity of national testing of all students and appear to be obsessed with international rankings, while at the same time they talk about the importance of caring for diversity and individuality, also in assessment. Koh makes a similar point in Chapter 16, referring to recent assessment policy initiatives in Singapore, where:

...new assessment policy initiatives have been introduced to schools, and millions of dollars have been invested into in-service professional development workshops to improve teachers’ assessment literacy. However, the required/desired changes and improvements in teachers’ assessment practices are hindered by a strong performative culture, which places a great emphasis on high-stakes examinations, standardization, objectivity in scoring and norm- referenced reporting. Such policies can be designed to be complementary rather than contradictory she suggests, but only where there is a good level of ‘assessment literacy’:

The enabling power of authentic assessment as a school-based assessment, to assist with students’ learning and mastering of twenty-first century learning outcomes can only be realized when Singaporean teachers are equipped with a high level of assessment literacy. This includes their competence and confidence in executing their judgment of students’work for both accountability and learning demands. It would appear that three elements are crucial to successfully riding the current wave of interest in new assessment priorities and capturing its momentum to effect change. The first of these is a willingness to let learners themselves into the ‘secret garden’ of assessment practice: to equip them with the understanding, the skills and the opportunities to take greater charge of their own learning, to become more empowered to judge success or failure for themselves, and more motivated to do so. The second element follows from the first—that teachers and professionals of all kinds also need to be enabled to change deeply embedded professional practices, which are inimical to such student empowerment, and that they also need support to develop the necessary understanding, skills and opportunities to create an assessment partnership with their students. Thirdly, a key element in successful change will require close attention to understanding how students and teachers, whole institutions Preface ix and even governments, can be helped genuinely to change their frame of reference through policies and practices that build on the clear messages from research in this area. The rapid pace of change in contemporary society means that such change is becoming ever more urgent. A highly mobile, digitally connected and globally competitive world calls for a profound re-balancing in the center of gravity of the educational project itself. There is a pressing need for the students of today to be empowered as learners in order that they can take full advantage of the new opportunities for study now widely available, both for their own benefit and for that of society. As well as being a brake of the development of AfL, traditional forms of assessment are now also increasingly out of step with the skills and attitudes that will be needed by the learners of the future. Tried and tested as they are, most current assessment practices are acting as a brake on educational progress, both conceptually and practically. The contributions that make up this collection represent the international cutting edge of assessment thinking and practice. As such, the collection explicitly recognizes the exciting opportunities that digital technologies are beginning to open up for new assessment approaches to be developed. The ‘priorities and enablers’ for the design of ‘next-generation assessment’, which Kimber and Wyatt-Smith describe in Chapter 22, and the enabling power of ‘technology-enhanced assessment (TEA)’ described in the research review by Broadfoot and colleagues in Chapter 23 both offer an exciting new horizon for assessment development, which at present we can barely begin to imagine. The research presented in this collection of chapters is drawn from a wide range of cultural settings and countries—the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Singapore, the United States and Israel. It documents the strength of the current international tide of support for a new set of assessment priorities. It makes clear the nature of the emerging consensus concerning the re-balancing that needs to be done if assessment is to play its full potential part in supporting learning. It makes clear, too, the scale of the challenge that confronts the educational community internationally if teachers and students are to be equipped to use the tools of AfL effectively. The contributions in this book also provide the navigational tools to enable all those who espouse this purpose to ride the prevailing tide and to take the current that will ‘lead on to fortune’. This is an optimistic and radical book that leaves no room for doubt concerning the ‘enabling power’ of assessment. The only doubt is whether there is sufficient vision ‘to take the current when it serves’ and not ‘to lose our ventures’ in an outmoded orthodoxy.

May 2013 Patricia Broadfoot Acknowledgments

There are many colleagues we would like to acknowledge for their helpful contributions and support. The authors who have generously contributed to this volume all share a belief in the enabling power of assessment. We are indebted to them for not only the richness of the ideas they bring forth in this book, but also for their generosity of spirit and cooperation in the progression of the work from original idea through to publication. The international team represented in the book opens up the field of assessment, offering readers new ways of seeing and thinking about student learning, achievement and accountability. We also wish to offer special thanks to two colleagues, Professor Jim Popham and Professor Patricia Broadfoot. These colleagues have demonstrated throughout their careers both crystalline thinking through their writing and an unwavering commitment to assessment and learning, taken together. They have both taken up strong positions as public intellectuals and both teach us in what they have produced in this book the immense value of authoritative voices, saturated with theoretical and applied insights and wisdom. Jim’s chapter examines the development of testing and ‘assessment past’ in order to challenge educators and systems to examine ways in which the assessment field itself might learn from what has come before. Patricia’s chapter is similarly challenging, highlighting ‘assessment futures’ and the possibil- ities that come with informed use of new technologies. At the heart of these two chapters is a clear commitment to putting the learner at the center and for assessment to be seen as serving learning. There is a sense in which these two chapters bookend the volume! Special thanks to our copy-editor, Dr Renée Otmar. As always, Renée’s keen editorial eye has been invaluable in refining and providing expert editorial advice throughout. Having worked with Renée on a number of book projects, the end product we have always found to be of a high standard. We thank Renée for her guidance, editorial expertise and patience. Much of the work represented in this book comes from our combined research in schools. As such, we wish to offer special thanks to the students, teachers, principals and curriculum and assessment policy colleagues who have worked with us on the many research and development opportunities to improve student learning through taking a sharp focus on assessment. Too often, assessment is not comprehensively

xi xii Acknowledgments understood and is seen as ‘testing’ or ‘examining’. The intention of this book is to challenge such thinking by presenting a view of assessment as enabling through the engagement of learners, to lift achievement in ways not otherwise possible. Indeed, a focus on teaching and learning, detached from a concern with real assessment, is necessarily limited! Finally, we thank special colleagues who have inspired the editors in ways that are beyond capture in this limited space. In particular, we thank Professor Des Power, a leading Australian researcher and teacher who has had profound inﬂuence in the community of deafness studies. He has shown what it means to put the learner at the center of classroom teaching and assessment practice, and for assessment to be truly enabling, so that it makes a difference in the lives of individuals and communities. Contents

1 Assessment Understood as Enabling ...... 1 Claire Wyatt-Smith, Valentina Klenowski and Peta Colbert

Part I Assessment Quality

2 Assessment as a Generative Dance ...... 23 Jill Willis and Bronwen Cowie

3 Student Involvement in Assessment of their Learning ...... 39 Harm Tillema

4 Large-Scale Testing and its Contribution to Learning ...... 55 Esther Care, Patrick Grifﬁn, Zhonghua Zhang and Danielle Hutchinson

5 The Role of Assessment in Improving Learning in a Context of High Accountability ...... 73 Patrick Grifﬁn, Esther Care, Michael Francis and Claire Scoular

Part II Becoming Assessment Literate

6 Assessment Literacy ...... 91 Knut Steinar Engelsen and Kari Smith

7 The Power of Learning-Centered Task Design: An Exercise in the Application of the Variation Principle ...... 109 Dany Laveault

8 Developing Assessment Tasks ...... 123 Jeffrey K. Smith and Lisa F. Smith

9 Using Assessment Information for Professional Learning ...... 137 Helen Timperley

xiii xiv Contents

10 Teachers’ Professional Judgment in the Context of Collaborative Assessment Practice ...... 151 Linda Allal and Lucie Mottier Lopez

11 Developing Assessment for Productive Learning in Confucian-Inﬂuenced Settings ...... 167 David Carless and Ricky Lam

Part III Teachers’ Responsibilities in Assessment

12 Looking at Assessment Through Learning-Colored Lenses ...... 183 W. James Popham

13 Elements of Better Assessment for the Improvement of Learning .... 195 Claire Wyatt-Smith and Valentina Klenowski

14 Enabling All Students to Learn Through Assessment ...... 211 Peta Colbert and J. Joy Cumming

15 Assessment and the Reform of Education Systems ...... 233 Anne Looney

16 Authentic Assessment, Teacher Judgment and Moderation in a Context of High Accountability ...... 249 Kim Koh

17 Formative Assessment as a Process of Interaction Through Language ...... 265 Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, Guillermo Solano-Flores and Min Li

Part IV Leading Learning and the Enabling Power of Assessment

18 Conceptualizing Assessment Culture in School ...... 285 Menucha Birenbaum

19 Preparing Teachers to Use the Enabling Power of Assessment ...... 303 Lisa F. Smith, Mary F. Hill, Bronwen Cowie and Alison Gilmore

20 Challenging Conceptions of Assessment...... 325 Lorna M. Earl and Helen Timperley

21 The Place of Assessment to Improve Learning in a Context of High Accountability ...... 337 Margaret Heritage Contents xv

Part V Digital Assessment

22 Designing Next-Generation Assessment ...... 357 Kay Kimber and Claire Wyatt-Smith

23 Seeds of Change: The Potential of the Digital Revolution to Promote Enabling Assessment ...... 373 Patricia Broadfoot, Alison Oldﬁeld, Rosamund Sutherland and Sue Timmis

Index ...... 387 Contributors

Linda Allal University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Menucha Birenbaum Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Patricia Broadfoot Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom Esther Care University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia David Carless University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Peta Colbert Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia Bronwen Cowie University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand J. Joy Cumming Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia Lorna M. Earl University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Knut Steinar Engelsen Stord/Haugesund University College, Stord, Norway Michael Francis University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Alison Gilmore University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Patrick Grifﬁn University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia Margaret Heritage University of California, Los Angeles, United States Mary F. Hill University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Danielle Hutchinson University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia Kay Kimber Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Queensland, Australia Valentina Klenowski Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia Kim Koh University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada Ricky Lam Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China Dany Laveault University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

xvii xviii Contributors

Min Li University of Washington, Seattle, USA Anne Looney National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Dublin, Ireland Lucie Mottier Lopez University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Alison Oldﬁeld Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom W. James Popham University of California, Los Angeles, USA Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo University of Colorado, Denver, USA Claire Scoular University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia Jeffrey K. Smith University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Kari Smith University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Lisa F. Smith University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Guillermo Solano-Flores University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Rosamund Sutherland Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom Harm Tillema Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Sue Timmis Bristol University, Bristol, United Kingdom Helen Timperley University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Jill Willis Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia Claire Wyatt-Smith Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia Zhonghua Zhang University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia About the Editors

Claire Wyatt-Smith is Professor of Educational Assessment and Literacy Educa- tion and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University. She first became interested in assessment and literacy as a high school teacher and head of department, English. Building on this foundation she developed her considerable expertise in researching professional judgment and teachers’ assessment literacies, including the use of standards and social moderation. Claire’s work in the field of professional judgment relates to teaching at all levels, including in higher education and clinical practice. Her current, large-scale funded projects include studies investigating digital assessment, gaming and the nature and effects of standardized testing upon learners and reluctant readers. Claire has an extensive history of working closely with the teaching profession and in advisory roles in curriculum and assessment policy, both within Australia and internationally. Valentina Klenowski is Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She has held positions at the Institute of Ed- ucation, University of London and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She is currently Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of Education’s Centre for As- sessment and Evaluation Research (CAER), University of Bristol. Val has research interests in curriculum and assessment reform, evaluation, assessment and learning, and social justice. Her recent research and evaluation interests include fairness and equity in classroom assessment, teacher judgment and social moderation in the context of standards-driven reform, assessment and student diversity. Val has published in the fields of assessment, pedagogy, curriculum and evaluation. Peta Colbert is a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University in Queensland, Australia. Involved in educational research for more than 10 years, Peta has co-authored several reports on large government-funded projects and evaluations focused on students with disabilities and learning difficulties, assessment reform and literacy professional development. She has also worked on national, competitive research projects, including a project exploring standards-driven reform in assessment, with a focus on teacher judgment and moderation, and the effects of national testing data on student improvement efforts in the classroom. Peta’s doctoral work concerns parents’ meaning-making of national assessment reporting.

xix About the Authors

Linda Allal is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She obtained her PhD in educational psychology from Michigan State University in the United States. Linda’s research and publications concern the relations between learning, teaching and assessment, the interactive regulation of learning, particularly in classroom writing activities, and the role of teachers’ professional judgment in summative assessment. Menucha Birenbaum is Professor Emeritus of educational assessment at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She earned her PhD in educational psychology (quantitative and evaluative research methodologies) at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, United States and her MA in education (research methodologies, measurement and evaluation) at Tel Aviv University. Menucha’s current research focuses on formal and informal assessment for learning (AfL) and school-related contextual factors that facilitate and those that hinder its successful implementation; learning environments that promote self-regulated learning; and large-scale diagnostic assessment. Patricia Broadfoot CBE is Professor of Education at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. She was formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glouces- tershire. Patricia holds a PhD from the Open University as well as an Honorary DLitt from the University of Bristol. She consults and writes in the ﬁeld of assessment and comparative education, and has contributed both nationally and internationally to education policy. Her current research interests center on learner empowerment and the potential contribution of technology to assessment reform. Patricia is an Aca- demician of the Academy of Social Sciences and was awarded the CBE for services to social science in 2006. Esther Care is a senior academic in the Assessment Research Centre at the Univer- sity of Melbourne,Australia. She coordinates and teaches in postgraduate educational psychology programs with a focus on assessment and differential psychology. Prior to entering the academy she worked in mental health, education and vocational guidance. Esther has led several large-scale projects in literacy assessment in the early years, is the International Research Coordinator of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project, and is Director of the Assessment Curriculum and Technology Research Centre, co-led with the University of the Philippines. xxi xxii About the Authors

David Carless is Professor of Educational Assessment in the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. His main research interest relates to how assessment can be reconfigured to stimulate productive student learning. David’s most recent books, both published by Routledge, are: From Testing to Productive Student Learning: Implementing Formative Assessment in Confucian-heritage Settings and Reconcep- tualising Feedback in Higher Education: Developing Dialogue with Students, which he co-edited with S. Merry, M. Price, M. and M. Taras. Bronwen Cowie is Professor of Education and Director of the Wilf Malcolm In- stitute of Educational Research at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Before entering the university she taught secondary mathematics and physics. Bronwen’s doctoral study investigated student experiences of formative assessment. She has worked on research projects ranging from in-depth classroom studies to long-term national surveys. Bronwen’s research interests span classroom assessment, curriculum implementation, e-learning and the use of visual methods and collaborative action research. J. Joy Cumming is a Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University in Brisbane, Australia. Her extensive educational research expertise lies in assessment and accountability, with special focus on equity and students from diverse backgrounds. In addition to teaching qualifications, a masters degree and a PhD in education, Joy holds a law degree and is an admitted lawyer in the Supreme Court of Queensland. Her education law research integrates her education expertise to focus on legal and policy issues in equity in assessment and accountability. Lorna Earl PhD is President, Lorna Earl & Associates and the current President of the International Congress of School Effectiveness and School Improvement. She is retired from a position as associate professor in the Theory and Policy Studies Department at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and is currently a part-time professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. As a leader in the field of assessment and evaluation, Lorna has been involved in consultation, research, evaluation and staff development with teachers’ organizations, ministries of education, school boards and charitable foundations in Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States. She is a prolific author and has written books, chapters and articles about assessment, using data for decision-making, evaluation methods, knowledge mobilization, educational change and networking for school improvement. Knut Steinar Engelsen is Professor of ICT in Learning at Stord/Haugesund Uni- versity College in Norway. He worked as a school teacher for several years before he entered teacher education in 1986. Since then he has been a lecturer, head of department and researcher in teacher education. Knut has received grants and has acted as the project leader for several national and international research and development projects, in cooperation with schools and kindergartens. He has also authored and co-authored a number of books, book chapters and scientific articles on the topic of educational assessment. About the Authors xxiii

Michael Francis MA(Ed) BA GradDipEd lectures in education as a Teaching Specialist at the University of Melbourne, Australia and coordinates Assessment Learning and Teaching (Secondary) in the Master of Teaching program. In a career in education spanning 44 years, Michael has worked as Director of International schools (P–12) in Cambodia, Denmark and Botswana, been a Principal Consultant (Ministerial) in Victoria, and with the Aga Khan Education Service. He has also worked as Academic Director of RMIT University’s pre-university program in In- donesia, and as a teaching volunteer in Tonga. He was principal of several Victorian government secondary schools before taking his career overseas. In 1994, Michael was awarded the Commonwealth Relations Trust Fellowship in Education to the Institute of Education, University of London. Alison Gilmore is Director of the National Monitoring Study of Student Achieve- ment in New Zealand. She is based at the Educational Assessment Research Unit at the University of Otago. Alison’s research career over 30 years has focused on educational assessment and evaluation. She has worked at the University of Canterbury, where she taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in educational assessment, evaluation and research methods. Alison supervises masters and PhD-level postgraduate research students. Patrick Grifﬁn holds the Chair of Education (Assessment) at the University of Melbourne and is Director of the Assessment Research Centre, Australia. His work focuses on item-response modeling applications in interpretive frameworks for performance assessment, problem-solving behavior and higher-order competency assessment and performance reporting. Patrick is currently the measurement team leader for UNESCO in SACMEQ project and a World Bank consultant in Vietnam. He leads several national and international studies of problem-solving, literacy and numeracy, and is the Executive Director of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Margaret Heritage is Assistant Director for Professional Development at the Na- tional Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles in the United States. Her work focuses on the development of academic language for English Learner students, formative assessment, including teachers’use of formative assessment evidence, and the implementation of next-generation standards and large-scale assessment. Prior to joining CRESST, Margaret had many years’ experience in schools and higher education in the United Kingdom and the United States. Mary F. Hill is Associate Professor in Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Before entering the university sector she had an extensive career in primary school teaching. She teaches assessment and practitioner research methodologies at the postgraduate level and supervises masters and doctoral research projects focusing on educational assessment. Mary’s research interests are in assessment for learning at all levels of the education system, professional learning and teacher education. She is general editor of an international electronic assessment journal, Assessment Matters. xxiv About the Authors

Danielle Hutchinson coordinates and lectures in assessment for the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia for both in-service programs and post-service professional development leadership programs. Before entering the university sector she had an extensive career in middle-school teaching and school leadership in New South Wales. Her postgraduate teaching focuses on assessment for learning and teaching, particularly the collaborative use of student assessment data to inform teaching. Danielle’s research interests are in the links between the use of large-scale student achievement data, and teacher strategies, ma- terials and resources associated with developmentally targeted teaching interventions in literacy and numeracy. Kay Kimber is Director of the Centre for Professional Practice at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, where her responsibilities include the coordination of pre-service teachers on ﬁeld experience and the classroom teaching of English. Her doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology focused on technoliteracy, teacher agency and design in senior English and modern history, and her master’s degree in education from Grifﬁth University on the thinking curriculum. Kay’s project involve- ments have included a longitudinal, government-funded investigation into secondary students’ electronic use and creation of knowledge, teacher judgment in assessment using standards and criteria, and learning spaces. Kim Koh is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Calgary, Canada. Prior to that she was an assistant professor with the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, and the Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Kim is currently teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses in classroom assessment. Her research interests are in authentic assessment task design, teachers’assessment literacy and professional development, teachers’judgment and moderation practice in school-based assessment, and teachers’ conceptions of assessment and student learning across different sociocultural contexts. Ricky Lam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Before joining the tertiary sector, Ricky had extensive teaching experience in secondary and postsecondary language education settings in Hong Kong. His research interests are assessment for learning, portfolio assessment and second language writing assessment. Dany Laveault earned a PhD in psychology at the Université Laval, Canada in 1981. He is Professor of Measurement and Evaluation at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, where he has served as Vice-Dean Research. From 1993 to 2001, Dany worked as editor of Revue de mesure et évaluation en éducation. His research focuses on how assessment practices may be improved to develop students’ self-regulation skills, including student self-motivation. He is the co-author of a book on test theory and has published several papers on the role of student self-assessment on learning and on teachers’ professional judgment. About the Authors xxv

Min Li is Associate Professor at the College of Education of the University of Washington at Seattle, in the United States. Her research focuses on the validity and reliability issues of large-scale tests and classroom assessments in science. Anne Looney is the Chief Executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in Dublin, Ireland. The Council advises the Irish government on curriculum and assessment for early childhood, primary and post-primary education. A former post-primary teacher, Anne holds an EdD from the Institute of Education in London, and has published on assessment, education policy, school ethos and religious and civic education. Lucie Mottier Lopez is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Ed- ucational Sciences of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She holds a PhD in educational sciences from this faculty. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on assessment and on the regulation and differentiation of teaching and learning processes in school settings. Lucie’s research is conducted in a ’situated’per- spective on assessment practices in the context of the classroom, the teaching team, the school and the educational system. The current focus of her research group is on teachers’professional judgment and on processes of social moderation in summative assessment. Alison Oldfield is an independent researcher working in the fields of learning and digital technology. Recent work includes contributing to a literature review and set of discussion papers for the University of Bristol, United Kingdom on the potential of technology to transform assessment; research on the EU-funded iTEC project; and lecturing at Bath Spa University on social and educational inclusion. Her professional interests focus on innovation and digital technology in learning, as well as inclusion and participation. Alison is a former youth worker and teacher. W. James Popham is Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Los An- geles, in the United States, where he served on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies for almost 30 years. His specializations are educational measurement, particularly formative assessment, and teacher evaluation. Jim’s most recent books are Evaluating America’s Teachers: Mission Possible? (Corwin 2013) and Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know (Pearson 2014). Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo is Associate Professor at the School of Education and Human Development, University of Colorado, Denver, in the United States, where she is director of the Research Center and the Laboratory of Educational Assess- ment, Research and Innovation. Maria’s research examines large-scale and classroom assessment and teachers’ assessment practices. Claire Scoular is a Research Officer with the Assessment Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her work focuses on collaborative problem solving and ICT literacy skills within the framework of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project, a multi-stakeholder partnership involving schools and academics internationally. Claire holds a master’s degree in psychology from xxvi About the Authors the University of Edinburgh and is currently undertaking her PhD at the University of Melbourne. Claire is a trained psychologist and has experience in psychomet- rics, evaluation, special education, counseling and intervention work in the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand and Australia. Jeffrey K. Smith is Professor and Associate Dean-Research of the College of Ed- ucation at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the former Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology at Rutgers University and Head of the Office of Research and Evaluation at the Metropolitan Museum ofArt. He did his undergraduate work at Princeton University and his PhD at the University of Chicago. Jeff’s research interests include assessment, learning and the psychology of aesthetics. He is a foundation member of the New Zealand Assessment Academy. Kari Smith PhD has major research interests in teacher education, professional development, mentoring novice teachers and assessment for and of learning. She worked as a school teacher for 18 years before she became a teacher educator. She has recently completed 7 years as the Head of Teacher Education at the University of Bergen, and is currently the Head of the Board of Directors for the Norwegian National Research School in Teacher Education. She is the founder and head of the research group Professionalism in Teaching. Kari is active in the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction (EARLI), previously as the Coordinator for theAssessment and Evaluation SIG (1) and currently as the Coordinator for Teaching and Teacher Education SIG 11. She has published numerous articles, book chapters and books. Lisa F.Smith is Professor of Education and Dean at the University of Otago, College of Education, in New Zealand. She received her doctorate in educational statistics and measurement from Rutgers University in New Jersey; she joined the University of Otago in 2005. Lisa’s research focuses on assessment issues related to standardized and classroom testing, preservice teacher efficacy and the psychology of aesthetics. She has published and presented widely and has won teaching awards in both hemispheres. Lisa is a foundation member of the New ZealandAssessmentAcademy. Guillermo Solano-Flores is Professor at the School of Education of the University of Colorado at Boulder, in the United States. His research examines the intersection of language and validity in large-scale assessment, especially the testing of linguis- tic minorities and the testing of linguistically diverse populations in international comparisons. Rosamund Sutherland is Professor of Education at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom and was formerly Head of the Graduate School of Education. Her research is concerned with teaching and learning in schools with a particular focus on mathematics and the role of digital technologies in learning. She co-directed the EU Network of Excellence STELLAR (Sustaining Technology Enhanced Learning, Large-scale Multidisciplinary Research, 2008-12), and this led to her current work on technology enhanced assessment. About the Authors xxvii

H. (Harm) Tillema is Associate Professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has worked as a research coordinator at a large educational research institute, and has received several research grants in the area of development and learning of professionals. Harm’s main field of interest is professional learning and development, especially in teaching and teacher education. His special field of interest is assessment as a tool of professional learning. In his consultancy work in several educational organizations, Harm is involved in establishing powerful learning environments that make use of assessment. He takes part in several initiatives in international cooperation as evidenced in his research and publications. Sue Timmis PhD is Senior Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning at the Uni- versity of Bristol, United Kingdom, and has over 20 years’ experience in leading successful international research projects in the field. Her research focuses on the role of digital tools in mediating learning and assessment across formal and informal settings, especially higher education and in support of collaborative forms of learning and assessment. She coordinates L-KIT, the research center for Learning, Knowing and Interactive Technologies at the Graduate School of Education, and leads the Tel- me research program on technology enhanced learning in undergraduate medicine at the University of Bristol. Helen Timperley is Professor of Education at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. A particular research emphasis of her teaching and research has been on promoting leadership, organizational and professional learning in evidence-based ways to improve the educational experience of students currently under-achieving in education systems. She has recently completed a best-evidence synthesis itera- tion on professional learning and development that has received major international attention. Helen has published widely in international academic journals, and has written and edited seven books focusing on the professional practice implications of her research in her specialty areas. Jill Willis is a Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Aus- tralia, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses and conducts research related to the development of learner agency through assessment, learning space design and communities of practice. She is a leader in the Kelvin Grove Teacher Education Centre of Excellence, preparing beginning teachers for successful rural teacher experiences. Jill holds a PhD in education from Queensland University of Technology and a master’s degree in educational leadership from the James Cook University. She has worked as a school leader and teacher in Australian government and independent schools. Zhonghua Zhang is Research Officer at the Assessment Research Centre (ARC), University of Melbourne, Australia. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and received his doctorate in educational measurement in 2010. After working as a research associate in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and then as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Zhonghua joined the ARC in 2012 to work on evaluation and measurement projects. He has extensive research interests in educational measurement and evaluation, as well as in applications of advanced quantitative methods in educational and psychological studies.