Blogs

At Assessment Horizons 2026 a group of cross-sector experts came together to discuss what’s getting in the way of accessible assessments. The conversation examined challenges including resourcing, stigma and assessment literacy, and identified several opportunity areas for improvement.

In this blog, former teacher and Senior Professional Development Manager at The Assessment Network, James Beadle explores cognitive offloading and how it can act as a both positive and negative force in the context of educational assessment.

Multiple-choice questions can be an incredibly useful tool in summative and formative assessments. In this blog, former teacher and Senior Professional Development Manager at The Assessment Network, James Beadle, explores the world of MCQs and how they’re not as easy as A,B,C or D.

To support those interested in validity, The Assessment Network at Cambridge has provided an overview of this topic along with a brief description of the key considerations involved with this principle of assessment and relevant areas such as validation.

With the application deadline for the Postgraduate Advanced Certificate in Educational Assessment fast approaching, now's the time to start thinking about preparing your application. Read this handy guide on what you need to consider before applying and how you can prepare for the course.

Isabelle Stevens is a recent Psychology Graduate who worked on an internship with The Assessment Network at Cambridge in 2025. Here she reflects on the projects she worked on, and how immersing herself in the world of assessment made her reconsider her assessment ‘identity’.

In this blog, Senior Professional Development Manager James Beadle reflects on why it currently feels like we are experiencing a feeling of ‘steam engine time’ with changes to the assessment landscape, and what professionals working in assessment need to keep in mind to steer our way ahead.

Heather Clements-Wheeler is a member of The Assessment Network at Cambridge and currently serves as Principal Examiner (PE) and Chair of Examiners (CoE) for two awarding organisations. Here she shares insights from her research on the implications of moving geography exams to digital screens - and how mode effects can influence outcomes, and what she finds most rewarding about her work.

Discover how The Assessment Network partnered with the Association for Project Management (APM) to enhance assessment design, improve inclusivity, and strengthen professional standards through a bespoke training and consultancy programme.

At this year’s Assessment Horizons conference, a panel of education experts explored some of the complexities and considerations around authentic assessment (and what it means), future-ready skills, and inclusive, meaningful learning experiences.

Graeme Arnott is an assessor for the Scottish Electrical Charitable Training Trust (SECTT), where he assesses the Final Integrated Competence Assessment (FICA) and the Approved Competence Assessment. We spoke with him about his journey from electrician to assessor, his interest in nervousness as a construct irrelevant variance, and how this can influence the validity of assessments. He also shared practical approaches to recognising and addressing its impact.

In this blog, Matthew Carroll, Senior Researcher, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, explores what assessment data can tell us about the future and the care that is required in interpreting these predictions.

In this blog, Researcher Carmen Lim explores the difference between standardised and normalised scores, explaining why understanding these scoring methods is important for accurate assessment interpretation.

How can we be sure assessments are fair and inclusive for all? At Assessment Horizons we explored some of the barriers students may experience with assessments, and heard from speakers who are championing ‘assessment for inclusion’ to ensure greater equity and better outcomes for all learners.

In this second post of a four-part series on assessment data, James Beadle, Senior Professional Development Manager, The Assessment Network, explores the important role grades continue to play in education today, as well as explaining alternative ways to report student performance.

Rebecca Dowbiggin links the ‘linguistic divide’ students may face when reading Shakespeare to the importance of clearer assessment language. She argues for a culture in which "assessment is not a mystery, but a tool for growth. Where the language of learning is one that we build together."

When we talk about ‘assessment literacy’, what do we mean beyond understanding how assessment works? And why is it important for different stakeholder groups to develop their understanding of assessment?

Data can be used to gather, interpret, and critically inform practitioners and organisations' decisions at every level of assessment. In this blog, Alejandra Miranda, Researcher at Cambridge, explores why assessment data can be more than a measure of student performance.

Psychometrics is the statistical process used to ensure that educational assessments are fair, reliable, and valid. In this blog, Dr Tom Benton and Carmen Lim, Cambridge researchers in the field, explain how psychometric methods underpin every stage of assessment.

New ambassador for The Assessment Network Paul Muir offers an insightful look into the evolving landscape of education and assessment, exploring the pressing challenges in assessment design today, while also highlighting the role that professional communities play in shaping the future of fair and inclusive assessments.