We analysed the full text of all journal articles returned to the education subpanel of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021). Using a latent Dirichlet allocation topic model, we identified 35 topics that collectively summarise the journal articles that research units, typically schools of education, selected for submission. We found…

Work based assessment (WBA) is a common but contentious practice increasingly used to grade university students on professional degrees. A key issue in WBA is the potentially low assessment literacy of the assessors, which can lead to a host of unintended results, including grade inflation. We identified grade inflation in the WBA of the clinical…

This article illustrates how a new framework for conceptualising comparability has the potential to help assessment professionals to understand and to conduct debate on linking theory and practice. The framework was used as a lens through which to study a corpus of research reports, from which a narrative was constructed to characterise the…

In May 2008, Ofqual established a two-year programme of research to investigate the nature and extent of (un)reliability within the qualifications, examinations and assessments that it regulated. It was particularly concerned to improve understanding of, and confidence in, this technically complex and politically sensitive phenomenon. The…

Professor J. Charles Alderson grew up in the town of Burnley, in the North-West of England, and is still based in the North West but in the ancient city of Lancaster. From Burnley to Lancaster, however, lies a journey and a career that took him all around the world to share his knowledge, skills, and experience in language testing and to learn…

There is perhaps no subject more contentious in schools than assessment and yet, often, at classroom, school and national level, inferences and decisions are made without much reference to research in this area. In fact, teachers often accept or interpret assessment requirements without question, feeling that assessment has to be approached in a…

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) A* grade was first awarded to students in 2010. It was introduced to assist higher education institutions in differentiating between the highest performing students and to promote and reward greater stretch and challenge. This paper, based on a synthesis of key policy documents, an analysis of…

Child assessment practices in English and Korean preschools were compared by analysing data from interviews with educators, examples of child assessment, and official documents from each country. Child assessment in England was systematically implemented and characterised by several methodological and procedural strengths, whereas assessment in…

This paper explores the developing thinking about assessment of graduate trainees preparing for secondary teaching in England. For some years teachers in English schools have worked in a context where the outcomes of formal testing have been used to judge school and teacher performance as well as student achievement. Research evidence that…

This article is primarily methodological but has dual aims. First, it makes a case for Q methodology as an effective and so far little exploited means of capturing, comparing and contrasting individual perspectives on a specific question in the field of educational leadership. In common with other research approaches designed to uncover the…

Hundreds of thousands of raters are recruited internationally to score examinations, but little research has been conducted on the selection criteria for these raters. Many countries insist upon teaching experience as a selection criterion and this has frequently become embedded in the cultural expectations surrounding the tests. Shortages in…

Assessment is critically important to education both for accreditation and to support learning. Yet the literature dealing with formative and summative assessment definitions and terminology is not aligned. This article reports an empirical small-scale study of lecturers in Education at an English university. The research posits that these…

This article explores the extent to which primary school headteachers are prepared for the increasing contribution that self-evaluation is now expected to make to raising standards. Data were collected from headteachers in one local authority in England using a questionnaire and a number of semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that…

Statistical neighbour models provide one method for benchmarking progress. For each local authority (LA), these models designate a number of other LAs deemed to have similar characteristics. These designated LAs are known as statistical neighbours. Any LA may compare its performance (as measured by various indicators) against its statistical…

This paper describes the conceptual development of a self-enumerated scale of quality of life (CASP-19) and presents an empirical evaluation of its structure using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic approaches across three different survey settings for older people living in England and Wales in the new millennium. All…