Participatory research can be promoted by scientific intermediary units, such as Science Shops. The overarching goal of these initiatives is thereby to foster a process of co-creation of the research questions to address societal needs that are relevant to scientific research and society at large. The InSPIRES project was a Horizon Europe…

To facilitate a more definitive understanding of the usefulness of formative assessment, this meta-analysis examined the impact of formative assessment on student academic achievement in the K-12 classroom. The study analyzed 258 effect sizes from 118 primary studies published around the world. By applying a broad lens for defining and…

Purpose: This study aims to explore ways of developing, implementing and validating a new framework and criteria for self-evaluation of programme curricula, with specific reference to the quality assurance certification process in a particular case. Design/methodology/approach: The framework is developed using a case study research methodology and…

More than 20 years after the first round of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it has become one of the most important large-scale international assessments, at a global level and in particular in Europe. Thus, a growing number of scholars have examined or discussed its research design. Nonetheless, a key feature of…

The European Research Council (ERC) receives many high-quality applications, but funds only a few. We analyze how members of ERC review panels assess applications in the first, highly competitive step of evaluations for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants. Drawing on interviews with ERC panel members in different fields, we show that they adopt a…

Purpose: This study investigates the challenges faced by European teachers when assessing student learning of democratic citizenship competences by asking about their experiences and opinions in their teaching practices. Design/methodology/approach: Through focus group interviews conducted with the teachers, we investigate the underlying reasons…

Measuring lexical diversity in texts that have different lengths is problematic because length has a significant effect on the number of types a text contains, thus hampering any comparison. Treffers-Daller et al. (2018) recommended a simple solution, namely counting the number of types in a section of a given length that was extracted from the…

Competence assessment has been one of the most crucial aspects in initial teacher training in the context of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). It has implied a change in teachers' approaches to teaching and learning and is based on different assessment procedures for their training. In order to discover the effect of the assessment…

Learners who learn from OER often cannot have their learning assessed or receive a credential. Open credentials offer a potential solution to this problem, combining badges or micro-credentials with competence frameworks and digital seals. This study identified the current situation of open credentials in post-secondary education in Europe, the…

This study offers a critical examination of university policies developed to address recent challenges presented by generative AI (GenAI) to higher education assessment. Drawing on Bacchi's 'What's the problem represented to be' (WPR) framework, we analysed the GenAI policies of 20 world-leading universities to explore what are considered problems…

Digitally enhanced learning and teaching is widely used across the European Higher Education Area, with general acceptance growing over the years and institutions widely acknowledging the benefits it brings to the student experience. The strategic focus being placed on digitally enhanced learning and teaching has increased, undoubtedly accelerated…

As higher education quality assurance in many countries in Europe has become a mature activity, some agencies carrying out external quality assurance are developing beyond their core tasks and missions. The current study identifies new tasks taken up within quality assurance agencies and analyses the drivers behind such development. Based on an…

Several international large-scale assessments were conducted at the turn of the new century, and during the past two decades the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) completed seven cycles of assessment to facilitate practitioners' policy debates and governance. This study reviews PISA-related articles published in English and…

The monitoring and evaluation of R&I policies relies on quantitative and qualitative methods with important methodological shortcomings. Quantitative assessments rely on standardized indicators that do not capture context-specific challenges, while qualitative approaches lack comparability. Both approaches are complementary but not always…

This paper provides both a summary and plenary paper for a Special Issue of papers that build on the findings of a research project that investigated formative and summative assessment methods to support and to improve inquiry-based science teaching and learning. The paper aims to unravel some of the complexity that underpins classroom assessment…