Measuring student achievement in a meaningful way is a difficult undertaking, and there is a whole field of study within psychology dedicated to the topic of this type of measurement: psychometrics. For an assessment in a specific area of study to fulfill its purpose, the score needs to reflect the level of knowledge or skill […]
The idea of personalized learning has been with us for quite some time now, acknowledging – and even embracing – the diverse needs and interests of individual students, as well as their skills and strengths. With this approach to education, students don’t all have to learn the same things in the same way, but are […]
The term ‘homework gap’ has traditionally been used to refer to the lack of digital connectivity some students experience when trying to complete assignments for their school education from home, typically those at a socio-economic disadvantage. There have been efforts to provide funding for these students – in the U.S., for example – to get […]
More and more we hear that open source software is gaining traction in educational settings. If you are not completely familiar with open source, you might be asking yourself, “How can free software possibly be of any value?” or “What’s the catch?” In schools and districts, open source testing tools have been gaining momentum as […]
Your test items will always contain a question or a task. This forms the interactive part of the item – the part where test-takers can provide their response. You may, however, also need to add supplementary materials to your test items, such as media and text, to provide test-takers with the information they need to […]
An item bank is a database of assessment items which serves as a central repository of an institution’s test content. In modern assessment scenarios, educational institutions build repositories of tens, or sometimes hundreds, of thousands of test items. Managing your content well and efficiently is no less important than the content itself. Why is Assessment […]