Events and training

Members of the public can take a 3D virtual reality tour of The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge exhibition at the University of Cambridge’s 600-year-old library. Cambridge Assessment has been delighted to sponsor The Rising Tide, which tells the stories of the lives of women at Cambridge, the fight for equal educational rights, and the careers of some of the pioneering women who shaped the institution.

A102: Introducing Assessment Practice has been designed to guide you through the practicalities of producing and delivering assessment, and to describe and explain important related issues.

This training event will help you to gain a better understanding of the concept of assessment reliability, including how it is conceptualised, calculated, and should be interpreted. Please note that we now intend to run this assessment training online. Further details will follow.

A101: Introducing the Principles of Assessment is a nine week, online course for examiners, assessment writers, professional bodies, teachers, lecturers and those working for exam boards/awarding organisations.

A one week residential course for international assessment professionals on the design and delivery of public examinations.

The Postgraduate Advanced Certificate in Educational Studies: Educational Assessment is a professionally relevant qualification that will enable you to expand your knowledge and understanding of the principles and validation of assessment. This course will lead to a Postgraduate Advanced Certificate in Educational Studies.

This course will provide an introduction to the theory behind item response theory (IRT) and clear examples of when it is useful. It will include practical activities where participants will use interactive point-and-click tools built using the software package R to fit and interpret IRT models, as well as experiment with using IRT to help with test construction.

Understand the advantages and limitations of MCQs, and consider how to write and edit MCQs that are fit for purpose.

“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”.

This course will provide an introduction to the theory behind item response theory (IRT) and clear examples of when it is useful. It will include practical activities where participants will use the software package R to fit and interpret IRT models, as well as experiment with using IRT to help with test construction.