Becoming a member of the CIEA
Before applying to become a member, you might like to review some of the following information:
The different grades of membership >>
Campaigns and Activity
e-Learning and e-Assessment
The environment in which children learn is now richer than ever. The world that children inhabit uses technology as a matter of course. Multi-media tools within the home and at school are commonplace. Children use mobile phone technology, they use blogs and create their own websites, with downloaded music as a background to what they present. These skills are taken into the classroom and multi-media working in such subjects as history, geography and English make the work come alive.
Imagine how dull then, when learners, now as candidates, are faced with an environment stripped of all stimuli, other than a copy of the rules and regulations, a clock, rows of desks, paper, pens and pencils and asked to perform to their best ability!
In a round table discussion hosted by the IEA, leading figures in the world of e-assessment came together at the London Novotel, to discuss the implications for developing e-assessments and developing a national strategy within which everyone within the assessment community can work.
Stuart Jones from BeCTA stressed the need to support the personalisation of the curriculum and of assessment by using the technology we have available, stressing the need for assurances around authentication, security and the use of effective interfaces that were user-friendly.
To support such developments among the assessment community, Kathleen Tattersall, Chair of the IEA, stressed that continuous professional development (CPD) was essential if the education community is to overcome the fears of technophobes and the sceptics who felt that e-assessment employed limited question types and relied heavily on multiple choice questions to the detriment of extended, imaginative and more searching essay type questions.
To maintain and improve public confidence in the standards of e-assessment, awarding bodies had to market the benefits of e-assessment, suggested Michelle Alpren from QCA. Tattersall confirmed that in universities, "the pen is almost redundant." She continued, "We must make e-assessment reliable, valid, consistent and fit for purpose, as well as value for money." It should be based on sound research about what works and what does not work, insisting that the lack of rigour in e-assessment is more likely to dent public confidence than sticking to an assessment regime that was appropriate thirty or forty years ago, but which is no longer fit for the twenty first century and reflecting the way that learners engage with their work.
Research needs to be carried out into ways in which e-assessment can inform e-learning. "The experience in Northern Ireland", added Professor Fred McBride, " has shown that such methodologies can in fact motivate learners who were labelled as low achievers. These learners tend to do better using such assessment techniques when compared to traditional assessment methodologies."