Abigail Trickey is a musician, graduate of our Postgraduate Advanced Certificate, and last year completed an MEd at the University of Cambridge. We spoke with her about her research – which investigated changes made to music assessments during the pandemic - and how these changes impacted teachers and learners.
Could you tell us how you came to work in the music assessment space?
"After graduating music college and spending a few years teaching and performing, my first full-time role was for an awarding organisation that offered assessments in music. I coordinated different types of music exams and got to work closely with music examiners, learners, teachers and centres in lots of different countries around the world. As I became more experienced, I moved into roles where I was able to grow my assessment knowledge whilst also drawing on my musical training. I’ve never looked back!"
Why did you decide to study on the Postgraduate Advanced Certificate? What were your key takeaways from that learning experience?
"I attended my first assessment training courses in 2014 – one on validity, and one on test and item evaluation. It was really those events that sowed the seed for applying to the postgraduate course. They piqued my interest and had an immediate impact on how I thought about my work.
The postgraduate course provided an ideal opportunity to explore the ideas from those initial training courses further, and with likeminded people working in all sorts of different educational settings. I particularly wanted to reflect on my work in the context of wider assessment theory and practice, and felt that there was a gap in the music assessment space for that type of thinking.
One of the takeaways for me from that learning experience was that there is often not a clear cut right or wrong answer when making decisions about assessment. I found this frustrating at first, in my quest for answers! Over time, by developing a deep understanding of principles like validity, reliability, fairness (etc.) and what they mean in an assessment context, I understood how to navigate those decisions more confidently and articulately. A second takeaway was about the role and importance of good quality research in answering some of the questions that I had about assessment. During my time on the course, I was able to research the answers to questions about validity, assessment methods and assessment feedback.";
What are the main challenges when assessing musical performance?
"Well, the theory goes that there is a payoff between validity and reliability in assessment. In other words, that highly valid assessments – for example, where we see someone 'doing' the thing that we are interested in assessing (such as musical performance) – are somewhat less reliable and vice versa. Musical performance is inherently artistic and expressive; to assess it requires well-designed marking criteria and plenty of high-quality examiner training to create that shared understanding of what ‘good’ performance is."
Your MEd at Cambridge investigated the experiences and perceptions of instrumental teachers using an adapted assessment model where learners were examined by recorded (digital) artefact instead of by live face-to-face performance. Could you tell us more about this research project and what the findings were from it?
"Yes, this research project was prompted by changes that happened almost overnight when the global pandemic hit. By necessity, there was wide-scale adoption in the music education sector of asynchronous assessment by video recording in place of live exams. I researched the impact of this change by exploring the experiences and perceptions of teachers using these adapted music performance assessments, with the aim of closing a theoretical gap in knowledge about the impact of digital assessment in the instrumental teaching and learning context. The findings suggested that instrumental teachers found the introduction of technology to music performance assessment difficult and did not think that the adoption of technology in the assessment process was inherently beneficial.
For example, there was a perception that learners responded to the adapted assessment task with anxiety and perfectionism. However, when I delved further into the research data, there was evidence of increased dialogue, self-reflection and feedback processes relating specifically to the introduction of technology, as well as a greater sense of ownership of the assessment process for teachers and learners. I was able to use these findings to come up with evidence-based recommendations for the design of music performance assessments."
You mentioned in our members forum that you have a real passion for assessment. Why would you recommend a career in assessment to someone reading this?
"A career in assessment encompasses so many things and uses so many skills! On any given day, an assessment expert is a philosopher, sociologist, researcher, statistician and often a subject expert, as well. It is such an interesting time to work in assessment - rapid technological developments are raising fundamental questions about how assessments are designed and what is important to assess.
This is resulting in a shift towards more authentic and meaningful assessments that go beyond factual recall. Assessments like those that assess musical performance really shine in this era, I feel."
This discussion first appeared in Perspectives on Assessment, the Cambridge Assessment Network member newsletter, which features key voices from the assessment community along with other member-exclusive content.
Would you like to feature in a future Member Spotlight? We'd love to hear from you: thenetwork@cambridgeassessment.org.uk