Wiliam, Dylan;
(2008)
Quality in assessment.
In: Swaffield, Sue, (ed.)
Unlocking assessment: : Understanding for Reflection and Application.
(pp. 123-137).
David Fulton: London, UK.
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Abstract
Assessment is a central processes in education. It is through assessment that we can find out whether students have learned what they have been taught, so that we can make appropriate adjustments to our teaching. Assessments are used to describe the achievement of students, so that decisions can be made about their suitability for particular jobs, or the kinds of educational experiences that should follow. Parents use the results of assessments to learn about the progress their children are making at school, and to make decisions about the quality of education offered in different schools. And, of course, policy-makers use assessments to provide information about the quality of schools or curricula. Ultimately, therefore, all assessments are used to support decisions—the key idea is that a decision made with the information from the assessment is better than the decision that could be made without such information. So of course the quality of the decisions will therefore depend on the quality of the assessment. Specialists use a range of technical terms—such as reliability, dependability, generalizability, validity, fairness and bias—to describe the quality of assessments. In this chapter, we will look at these issues not from the technical standpoint, but in terms of the impact that failure to attend to these issues can have on the quality of decisions that we make.
Type: | Book chapter |
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Title: | Quality in assessment |
ISBN-13: | 978-0-415-45313-4 |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
Additional information: | This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1507210 |
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