Assessing group work formatively in higher education poses a significant challenge. The complexity of evaluating individual contributions is compounded by the lack of efficient and effective methods for tracking, analysing and assessing individual engagement and contributions, which can impede timely feedback and the development of group work…

This concluding essay offers a reflection on the set of the papers contained in this special issue of the Educational Assessment journal. In it the author situates formative assessment squarely in the realm of teachers' continuous professional learning and considers the essential nature of formative assessment as centering on three questions that…

With the introduction of a new initiative in a teaching and learning environment there is an ethical responsibility to consider whether the impact of the introduction has met its intended goals, and whether it has harmed those who are influenced by it. Technology and infrastructure developments have encouraged a continued growth in the development…

This paper explores the usefulness of formalytics for sustainable learning improvement linked to lifelong learning. This can be achieved in two ways; firstly, by providing students with automatic VLE generated feedback of information giving an analysis of their personal data gathered on their learning engagement and performance; secondly, by…

This paper reports on the development of a system in which naturalistic inputs are collected by a web-based e-reader and, in combination with a measurement of readers' comprehension of that text, are analyzed by a neural network to determine the nature of the relationship between the annotations and comprehension. Results showed that neural…

British Columbia (BC) has experienced a significant teacher shortage for years. While every region of the province is impacted, rural and remote communities have experienced a worsening shortage especially during the pandemic. Additionally, there is a critical shortage of specialist teachers across the province. This Education Brief outlines five…

The Every Student Succeeds Act grants states new flexibility to create more balanced assessment systems with a greater role for formative assessment. Drawing on lessons learned over three decades of research and reform, we argue that state and local leaders should take the lead in designing new assessments guided by two core principles: First,…

Shadowing is a data collection method that involves following a person, as they carry out those everyday activities relevant to a research study. This article explores the use of shadowing in a formative evaluation of a professional development school (PDS). Specifically, this article discusses how shadowing was used to understand the role of a…

Current trends and challenges in higher education (HE) require a reorientation towards openness, technology use and active student participation. In this article we will introduce Social Learning Analytics (SLA) as instrumental in formative assessment practices, aimed at supporting and strengthening students as active learners in increasingly open…

In an effort to bring rigorous research into the education and social sciences field, the past decade had seen an increase in the advocacy of randomized controlled trials. The argument in favor of using randomized controlled trial is that one can evaluate the impact of an intervention in comparison to a control group with confidence during a…

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science Digital Library/Distributed Learning (NSDL) program turned 10 years old in 2010. This report presents results of a preliminary program evaluation carried out by RAND and is organized around three principal goals: (1) Provide an initial evaluation of NSDL based on existing information…

Today's building level instructional leader is faced with an enormous challenge in ensuring that all students are meeting end-of-year proficiency targets. The current climate of accountability, particularly in regards to high-stakes end-of-year assessments has placed the burden of assessment upon students, parents, teachers, team or department…

This report presents the results of the formative evaluation of the Adult Learning, Literacy and Essential Skills Program (ALLESP). Data collection related to this evaluation took place between November 2008 and May 2009. The evaluation resulted in the following four recommendations: (1) It is recommended that Program objectives and activities…

This paper describes an online image analysis tool developed as part of an iterative, user-centered development of an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) called the Education through Virtual Experience (EVE) Portal. The VLE provides a Web portal through which schoolchildren and their teachers create scientific proposals, retrieve images and…

This paper reports on a formative evaluation study of 10 practitioner research projects linked together under the title "Better Communication Skills as a Means of Reducing the Barriers to Learning", which aimed to identify conditions through which practitioner research could help teachers to improve the quality of pupils' classroom talk.…