Rethinking assessment in a digital age: opportunities, challenges and risks
Abstract
While it is frequently argued that assessment sits at the heart of the learning process, in practice assessment often remains narrowly focused on qualifications and reporting achievements, driven by institutional and societal aspirations and tensions such as accountability and economic well being. Yet, the need for assessment to account for the knowledge, skills, dispositions and attitudes necessary to equip young people for a changing and increasingly digital world is also increasingly acknowledged. Based on our recent research review, this article critically examines the role of technology enhanced assessment (or TEA). We argue that while technology offers many potentially creative opportunities for innovation and for rethinking assessment purposes, there are also numerous risks and challenges. In particular we highlight ethical concerns over social exclusion and new forms of digital dividedness and the increasing risks associated with big data and the rise of learning analytics. Finally, we note that much research and innovation happens in silos, where policy, research and practice on assessment, technology enhanced assessment and ethical and political concerns are not linked up. We conclude that there needs to be a much more wide‐ranging, critical and nuanced discussion in educational and policy circles so that debates about the potential of technology can be linked to improving assessment in the light of the range of social and political challenges that such progress presents. We end with some critical questions for policy, practice and research communities, which we offer as a starting point for future thinking and ways forward.
Number of times cited: 8
- Melinda Lemke and Lei Zhu, Successful futures? New economy business logics, child rights, and Welsh educational reform, Policy Futures in Education, (147821031775126), (2018).
- Jens Dolin, Paul Black, Wynne Harlen and Andrée Tiberghien, Exploring Relations Between Formative and Summative Assessment, Transforming Assessment, 10.1007/978-3-319-63248-3_3, (53-80), (2017).
- Qi Wu and Tansy Jessop, Formative assessment: missing in action in both research-intensive and teaching focused universities?, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, (1), (2018).
- Jinzhuo Zhang, Xi Zhang, Shan Jiang, Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos and Yongqiang Sun, Mapping the study of learning analytics in higher education, Behaviour & Information Technology, 10.1080/0144929X.2018.1529198, 37, 10-11, (1142-1155), (2018).
- Sue Timmis and Jane Williams, Playing the interdisciplinary game across education–medical education boundaries: sites of knowledge, collaborative identities and methodological innovations, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 40, 3, (257), (2017).
- Patricia Broadfoot, Assessment for Twenty-First-Century Learning: The Challenges Ahead, Learning, Design, and Technology, 10.1007/978-3-319-17727-4_64-1, (1-23), (2017).
- Patricia Broadfoot, Time to tame the leviathan? Perspectives and possibilities for a new era in assessment, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 24, 3, (415), (2017).
- V.J. Shute and S. Rahimi, Review of computer‐based assessment for learning in elementary and secondary education, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 33, 1, (1-19), (2017).
