Events List
| Name of Event | Type of Event |
|---|---|
| Basic statistics Date: 10 Feb 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge This introductory seminar (with examples in the context of scores on a test) is aimed at people with little or no knowledge of statistics. |
Course |
| Critical Thinking – skills for life Date: 11 Feb 2010 Venue: British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Cambridge Assessment is hosting a seminar on the role and value of Critical Thinking and its impact upon driving attainment. Increasingly Critical Thinking skills are being recognised and valued in educational and work settings, leading to a high demand for tests and assessments to measure and acknowledge these skills. Many people believe that building the skills of reasoning and argument into an academic programme increases its rigour and that those students who have a deficit of thinking skills are the ones who lack sufficient grounding to embark upon undergraduate study. |
Seminar |
| Formative assessment: A critical review Date: 18 Feb 2010 Venue: Hughes Hall, Mortimer Road, Cambridge This presentation covers six inter-related issues in formative assessment (aka, ‘Assessment for Learning’). The issues concern the definition of formative assessment, the claims commonly made for its effectiveness, the limited attention given to domain considerations in its conceptualisation, the underrepresentation of measurement principles in that conceptualisation, the teacher-support demands formative assessment entails, and its place in the larger educational system. |
Seminar |
| Learning: Does assessment damage learning? Date: 3 Mar 2010 Venue: Hughes Hall, Mortimer Road, Cambridge There has been a tendency in some circles to suggest that summative assessment actually damages learning. What is meant by this? And what are the arguments of groups which champion greater reliance on ‘Assessment for Learning’? |
Course |
| Assessing Citizenship in schools. Are we measuring the unmeasurable? Date: 11 Mar 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge This paper discusses the problems of assessing Citizenship, a subject which is perceived by many teachers as unconventional, and by some, as unassessable. |
Seminar |
| Footprints in the secret garden – Awarding Bodies’ engagement with the curriculum Date: 16 Mar 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry To what extent should awarding bodies be concerned about curriculum matters? If qualifications increasingly are seen as a means of controlling and influencing the quality of education and training, it is timely to ask what kind of engagement awarding bodies should have with programme content, learning processes and other curriculum issues. |
Seminar |
| When is an exam not really an exam? Date: 17 Mar 2010 Venue: Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge The effectiveness of techniques to assess learner progress and performance is related to the purposes for which assessment is undertaken. Public confidence is often cited as a reason for resisting a range of styles of assessment. Are there ways forward for teacher assessment, tests and qualifications? |
Seminar |
| Assessment for Learning: Making it Work Date: 19 Mar 2010 Venue: Jesus College, Cambridge This conference is designed for teachers with practical experience of Assessment for Learning (AfL) who want to deepen their understanding of the principles on which it is based and to develop their own classroom and school practices. A unique feature of this event will be the opportunity to take part in post-conference online discussions, led by Professor Stobart, which will enable participants to learn from each other as they put insights from the conference into practice within their own classrooms. |
Conference |
| Test and item evaluation Date: 1 Apr 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge An introduction to test and item evaluation covering the principles behind statistics used across Cambridge Assessment's qualifications. |
Course |
| Reviewing the impact of changes in the assessment of GCSEs Date: 22 Apr 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge New GCSE qualifications were introduced for first teaching in England, Wales and Northern Ireland September 2009. These new GCSEs included changes such as controlled assessment, unitisation and entry, aggregation and terminal rules. This seminar will discuss the implications of these changes, both for schools and for awarding bodies such as OCR. |
Seminar |
| Purposes: What is the point of public systems of assessment? Date: 29 Apr 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry This seminar will consider what can be done to address the issue of the purposes of public exams better. Can we balance the differing needs of those who are stakeholders in these assessment systems? |
Course |
| Reliability and validity Date: 5 May 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry This session will provide plenty of opportunity for group discussion of the philosophical issues which arise from the notions of reliability and validity. |
Course |
| Development: Is assessing an art or a science? Date: 6 May 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge Much writing on the theory and practice of assessment is to be found in the United States. There, a model of standardised, external tests is more the norm than in the UK, and indeed than in Europe. What are the differences between their psychometric approach to assessment and one that is more embedded in the school curriculum and linked to teaching? Can we in the UK learn more from psychometrics in the development of our examinations? Or does over-reliance on standardised testing fail to reward the full breadth of student learning? |
Course |
| International Study Programme: the development and administration of examinations Date: 10 May 2010 - 21 May 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 1 Hills Road, Cambridge This two-week study programme in Cambridge is for anyone involved in the design and delivery of public examinations. International delegates review best practice and share their experiences of examination development and administration. Participants debate the principles of assessment design and how they can be carried forward into practice. |
Course |
| Competitive admissions to Higher Education - how do institutions differentiate between applicants? Date: 13 May 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge UCAS applications to UK Higher Education institutions, the number of A-levels awarded an A grade and high achieving students exceeding the minimum entry requirements are all on the increase. This session will consider the wider context of admissions to competitive Higher Education entry, including the impact of the Schwartz Report’s recommendations on admissions processes. |
Seminar |
| No Irish potatoes? Try yams – looking at alternative approaches for assessing science practical skills Date: 25 May 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge Good science courses provide plenty of opportunities for students to explore and develop their understanding of scientific ideas through practical work. It is often argued that, to encourage school practical work, the students’ practical skills need to be formally assessed by examination or coursework but is this really necessary and if so, what is the best way to do this? |
Seminar |
| Reliability and validity Date: 3 Jun 2010 Venue: Hughes Hall, Mortimer Road, Cambridge This session will provide plenty of opportunity for group discussion of the philosophical issues which arise from the notions of reliability and validity. |
Course |
| Revisioning assessment through a children’s rights approach: implications for policy and practice Date: 9 Jun 2010 Venue: Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge This seminar will examine the implications of international human rights standards for assessment practice. |
Seminar |
| Validity: How can we ensure the value of certificates and qualifications? Date: 1 Jul 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 1 Hills Road, Cambridge It seems that the concept of validity has become more complicated over the past 30 years. Possibly, it is now of less help than it used to be to examination writers and test developers, because its emphasis on the interpretation of assessment results is a matter over which they have limited control. Yet, the challenge to assessment developers is still to show that what is measured in a test or exam bears a valid relation to the desired knowledge and skills in the real world. |
Course |
| Reviewing the impact of changes in the assessment of GCSEs Date: 6 Jul 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry New GCSE qualifications were introduced for first teaching in England, Wales and Northern Ireland September 2009. These new GCSEs included changes such as controlled assessment, unitisation and entry, aggregation and terminal rules. This seminar will discuss the implications of these changes, both for schools and for awarding bodies such as OCR. |
Seminar |
| Managing and implementing effective internal assessments Date: 8 Jul 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 1 Hills Road, Cambridge Education reform is changing teaching and learning practice, bringing a greater focus on the need for valid and reliable assessment carried out to a common and high standard within the learning environment. What are the implications of this move towards increasing levels of demand on teachers' assessment skills? What support is available and how can teachers access it? This seminar raises the issues and implications of these trends and the ways teachers can access support to fulfil these requirements. |
Seminar |
| The validation of general qualifications Date: 14 Jul 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge A number of frameworks for validation have previously been proposed but a coherent model with an accompanying set of methods that can be applied to general qualifications such as GCSEs and A levels has previously been absent. This seminar will report on recent work at Cambridge Assessment to develop and pilot a validation framework and methodology for general qualifications. |
Seminar |
| Item writing Date: 5 Aug 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge This session will provide an introduction to some of the principles of item writing. |
Course |
| Trust: Can the public have confidence in national assessments? Date: 2 Sep 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge Decisions about students' success or failure in their courses inevitably rely on the judgements of examiners and assessors. Is this a situation which people accept, or is a general questioning of professional judgement beginning to undermine the exam system? |
Course |
| Development: Is assessing an art or a science? Date: 21 Sep 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry Much writing on the theory and practice of assessment is to be found in the United States. There, a model of standardised, external tests is more the norm than in the UK, and indeed than in Europe. What are the differences between their psychometric approach to assessment and one that is more embedded in the school curriculum and linked to teaching? Can we in the UK learn more from psychometrics in the development of our examinations? Or does over-reliance on standardised testing fail to reward the full breadth of student learning? |
Course |
| Summative assessment by teachers: Designing a system that is fit for purpose Date: 29 Sep 2010 Venue: Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge This presentation will review the design features to be taken into account if systems of assessment in which teacher judgement has a role are to be robust enough to meet the expectations of students, policy-makers and the wider public. |
Seminar |
| Grading Date: 7 Oct 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge This session will provide an overview of the processes of grading and awarding, which are central to the establishment and maintenance of examination standards. |
Course |
| Today's assessment jungle: a view from the regulator Date: 14 Oct 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge What has the regulator found in its regulatory work on the significant developments that 2010 has brought? How do the outcomes help Ofqual fulfil its mission to ensure that these assessments are valued and trusted by learners, users and the wider public? |
Seminar |
| Item writing Date: 26 Oct 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry This session will provide an introduction to some of the principles of item writing. |
Course |
| Incomprehensible? Inexpressible? Inconceivable? The very idea of inter-subject comparability Date: 28 Oct 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge If awarding bodies are to claim that standards are comparable, across examinations in different subject areas, then it seems reasonable to ask the sense in which this is supposed to be true. However, since the introduction of techniques for monitoring inter-subject comparability, during the early 1970s, their underlying principles have failed to be articulated clearly, consistently and coherently. This seminar will trace the history of investigations into inter-subject comparability in England, aiming to shed light on implicit and, occasionally, explicit statements of principle. |
Seminar |
| Standard setting and maintaining using expert judgement Date: 4 Nov 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge This session will look at the role of expert judgement in standard setting and maintaining, the methods used for capturing expert judgements (e.g. Angoff, Bookmark, Awarding, rank-ordering) and an evaluation of these methods. |
Course |
| Linking assessments to international frameworks of language proficiency Date: 10 Nov 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is having a special impact on assessment, as test users increasingly insist on evidence of alignment to it. But what kind of evidence is needed? Interpreting test performance (against the CEFR in this case) is at the heart of test validity. Thus if CEFR alignment is important for an exam, it should impact every relevant stage of design and administration. It cannot be a one-off exercise. Cambridge ESOL’s approach will be presented as an illustration of this. We will also present the SurveyLang project coordinated by Cambridge ESOL, due to deliver the European Survey on Language Competences in 2011, using the CEFR to benchmark the language competences of secondary-school pupils across Europe. |
Seminar |
| Incomprehensible? Inexpressible? Inconceivable? The very idea of inter-subject comparability Date: 23 Nov 2010 Venue: OCR, Progress House, Coventry If awarding bodies are to claim that standards are comparable, across examinations in different subject areas, then it seems reasonable to ask the sense in which this is supposed to be true. However, since the introduction of techniques for monitoring inter-subject comparability, during the early 1970s, their underlying principles have failed to be articulated clearly, consistently and coherently. This seminar will trace the history of investigations into inter-subject comparability in England, aiming to shed light on implicit and, occasionally, explicit statements of principle. |
Seminar |
| Introduction to Rasch Date: 2 Dec 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge A brief review of the mathematical concepts needed to understand Rasch models, plus an introduction to the latent trait theory and the Rasch model for dichotomous items. |
Course |
| To err is human… What can psychological theories of human error add to our understanding of examiner error? Date: 8 Dec 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge Research in a wide range of fields of human activity, from industrial accidents to medical misdiagnoses, has revealed that errors are far from heterogeneous. Different types of error have different cognitive and attitudinal underpinnings, and understanding these has led to successful targeted error reduction approaches. Yet research and practice in examiner error often makes no such distinction. This, Dr Michelle Meadows will demonstrate, is to err. |
Seminar |
| Equating and item banking with the Rasch model Date: 9 Dec 2010 Venue: Cambridge Assessment, 9 Hills Road, Cambridge An explanation of what is meant by a bank of calibrated items with a discussion on different data collection designs and techniques for adding items to a bank, plus detailed worked examples and practice exercises. |
Course |
| Degrees of success: Progressing to Higher Education through vocational pathways Date: 15 Dec 2010 Venue: Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge Widening participation in Higher Education crucially depends upon recruiting more young people from vocational pathways. But what sorts of opportunities do such learners access in Higher Education? This question and others will be answered drawing upon the results for a two year ESRC funded research programme employing the analysis of both large scale administrative data sets and more focussed qualitative research. |
Seminar |
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