16 October 2020
Hundreds of people from across the globe have taken part in a seminar showcasing the latest research in assessment – and if you missed any of the sessions they are now all available online. With the permission of the England exams regulator Ofqual we curated a series of themed sessions, reflecting the themes of its cancelled April 2020 seminar: vocational qualifications, accessibility, marking and maintaining standards.
After a summer series like no other, there is undoubtedly a lot of current research activity across the fields of education and assessment, both to provide insight into the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on this generation of students and their teachers, and to provide evidence to underpin future exam series. Director of Research at Cambridge Assessment Tom Bramley said: “We were conscious that the research that was due to be disseminated and discussed with colleagues across Ofqual and the UK awarding bodies over the last six months still had great value and should not be lost within the wealth of research we are all now working on”.
The seminar was held over two half-days in an online format and allowed for a wider audience to be included. Over the five sessions around 350 participants (from as far as Australia, Kazakhstan and Nigeria) heard from 30 assessment researchers and were then able to put questions to them. Bramley said that it was great to be able to hear from fellow assessment researchers from across the UK.
The sessions are available to watch again here:
Vocational Qualifications
Accessibility
Marking
Maintaining Standards part 1
Maintaining Standards part 2
The presenters have all provided deeper answers to the questions raised by delegates in the online Q&A. Education Assessment Research Seminar October 2020 Q and A - Document
The seminar also coincided with the publication of issue 30 of Research Matters, where we share our assessment research, featuring articles, short summaries, research papers and comment on prominent research articles. Issue 30 includes articles looking at curricula and an investigation into the experiences of on-screen question writing and review.