Assessment literacies are finding leverage, but there is little exploration of links between theory, practice and perceived understandings in higher education (HE). This article builds on and consolidates research that has taken place over ten years that evaluates assessment literacies among HE lecturers in education and science, and in staff…

In the test-centric Thai education system, results on national exams are often viewed as indicators of educational success. These exams use multiple-choice which can have detrimental effects on students' attitudes and learning. If school assessments also rely on multiple-choice exams, the situation would be worrying, yet there is little data…

At the heart of changing institutional assessment and feedback practices is the need to transform university teachers' ways of thinking about feedback and assessment. In this article, we present a case study of a three-year Master's in Education offered to UK STEMM university teachers as an opportunity to develop critically reflective and…

This article suggests that a portfolio-based approach to assessing the humanities in the primary school is appropriate and outlines what this might involve. It argues for a broad interpretation of "the humanities" and for adopting principles associated with formative assessment, where assessment is not equated with testing and a wide…

This paper reports a study into the development of staff understanding of assessment and assessment practice. Eight teachers from two universities constructed an initial concept map about assessment that was discussed in a one-to-one semi-structured interview. A year later, a new map was created and the interview focused on change in thinking and…

Fidelity concerns the extent to which a specific evaluation sufficiently incorporates the core characteristics of the overall approach to justify labeling that evaluation by its designated name. Fidelity has traditionally meant implementing a model in exactly the same way each time following the prescribed steps and procedures. The essential…

The recent interests in research in the assessment field have been rapidly shifting from decision-maker-centered assessments to learner-centered assessments (i.e., diagnostic and/or formative assessments). In particular, it is a very important research topic in this field to analyze how these learner-centered assessments are developed more…

Funding organisations are increasingly asking academics to show evidence of the economic and social value generated by their research. These requests have often been associated with the emergence of a so-called "new social contract for research" and are related to the implementation of new research evaluation systems. Although the…

Summative and benchmarking surveys to measure the postgraduate student research experience are well reported in the literature. While useful, we argue that local instruments that provide formative resources with an academic development focus are also required. If higher education institutions are to move beyond the identification of issues and…

Analyzing evolutionary relationships requires that students have a thorough understanding of evidence and of how scientists use evidence to develop these relationships. In this lesson sequence, students work in groups to process many different lines of evidence of evolutionary relationships between ungulates, then construct a scientific argument…

This study reports on a large-scale implementation of Assessment for Learning (AfL) in a Swedish municipality. The implementation was founded on two principles: (1) teaching should be informed by educational research; (2) to be successful teachers' professional development needs to be based in everyday classroom practice. From these principles,…

Training evaluation in research and organisational contexts is vital to ensure informed decisions regarding the value of training. The present study describes the development of a valid and reliable training evaluation inventory (TEI), as it does not exist so far. The objectives were a) to construct an instrument that is theoretically and…

This article contributes to research on evaluation by examining the capacity and contribution of developmental evaluation for innovating. This case study describes the "preformative development" of an educational program (from conceptualization to pilot implementation) and analyzes the processes of innovation within a developmental…

Teacher's conceptions are important as they could have a strong influence on their professional practices. This study set out to explore Fijian teacher's conceptions of assessment. Seventy teachers enrolled in an assessment course at a university in Fiji were involved in this study. Data was collected by asking teachers to write a reflection on…

Distance education is a discipline that offers solutions to some important education problems. Distance education, contribute to the solution to the problems such as; inequality of opportunities, lifelong education, the implementation of a series of individual and social goals that can contribute to and benefit from educational technology and…