| Speakers: |
Stuart Shaw, Principal Research Officer at Cambridge Assessment International Education |
| Date: |
29 Nov 2018 |
Venue: |
Cambridge Assessment
The Triangle Building, Shaftesbury Road
Cambridge
CB2 8EA
|
| Time: |
09:30
-
12:30
|
| Type: |
Training event |
Fee: |
£70.00 |
“It’s not fair” is a charge familiar to organisations and individuals who provide assessments which matter to those who take them. Influential statements about educational assessment have increasingly emphasised fairness, to the extent that some commentators (Worrell, 2016, p. 284) have seen the cornerstones of assessment theory as moving from the “big two” (Validity and Reliability) to the “big three”. But what, exactly, do we mean by fairness and how does (un)fairness relate to, and impact upon, educational assessment? This workshop is designed to explore such questions.
Stuart was excellent and made a complex area of study accessible and interesting."
This session is aimed at practitioners in education and people working in educational and vocational assessment. This includes teachers, anyone who is directly involved in curriculum planning and materials development, key practitioners in assessment and examination bodies and those with an academic interest in assessment.
The workshop
- Introduces fairness as a value-laden, culturally-bounded concept
- Distinguishes four senses of “fair” through which educational assessment can be interpreted
- Provides a brief historical overview of fairness in terms of assessment (and assessment reform)
- Explores the relationship between reliability, validity and fairness
- Introduces concepts such as Accessibility and Universal Design
- Examines (and questions) the established consensus on assessment fairness
- Suggests ways of improving assessment fairness through modifications
During the session we will
- Highlight conceptual and linguistic ambiguities concerning the concept of fairness
- Distinguish four senses of “fair” which may apply to educational assessment
- Discuss theoretical and technical issues relating to fairness as a concept, and fairness in practice
- Participate in a number of discussion activities in order to help contextualise an understanding of fairness.
Related/useful resources
Stuart Shaw & Helen Imam (2013) Assessment of International Students Through the Medium of English: Ensuring Validity and Fairness in Content-Based Examinations, Language Assessment Quarterly, 10:4, 452-475, DOI: 10.1080/15434303.2013.866117.
References
Worrell, F. (2016). Commentary on “Perspectives on Fair Assessment”, in Dorans & Cook (Eds) Fairness in Educational Assessment and Measurement. Routledge.
Course trainer
Stuart Shaw began his career as an engineer, and holds an honours degree in Physics, a diploma in Applied Physics and a research degree in Metallurgy. His early experience, gained with an international plc, covered a range of engineering specialisms. Following his time in industry, he entered the TEFL world (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), gaining a certificate and diploma in TESOL and a Master degree in Applied Linguistics. He had several years of experience as an EFL teacher and Director of Studies. Stuart also holds a postgraduate degree in Theology.
Stuart has worked for Cambridge Assessment since January 2001 where he is particularly interested in demonstrating how Cambridge Assessment seeks to meet the demands of validity in its assessments. Before leading a research team in the area of mainstream international examinations, Stuart worked on a range of Cambridge English products with specific skill responsibilities for assessing writing. He is an experienced presenter and has lectured for the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (University of Cambridge). He is currently an affiliated lecturer with the Faculty of Education (University of Cambridge). He has a wide range of publications in English second language assessment and educational research journals. Recent assessment books include: Examining Writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing (Shaw & Weir, 2007); The IELTS Writing Assessment Revision Project: towards a revised rating scale (Shaw & Falvey, 2008); Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment (Newton & Shaw, 2014); and Language Rich: Insights from Multilingual Schools (Shaw, Imam & Hughes, 2015). He has recently contributed to validity debate through a Special Issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice (2016). He is a Fellow of the Association for Educational Assessment in Europe (AEA-Europe) and member of the Professional Development Committee (AEA-Europe). He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA).