The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

21

An accessible but comprehensive analysis of the issues to be considered in
constructing a theory of educational assessment is Caroline Gipps’ Beyond Testing:
Towards a Theory of Educational Assessment (Gipps 1994). This clear exposition of
the complexities of issues like reliability, validity and the criterion∕norm referencing
debate should be required reading for policy makers and regulators who are tempted
to meddle with the system.

Contributing significantly to illuminating the technical aspects of assessment are the
journals:

• Assessment in Education

• Research Papers in Education

A useful insight into one aspect of assessment is provided in Margaret Mathieson’s
article in the Oxford Review of Education. She presents a close scrutiny of the series
of failed attempts to reform the A-Ievel examinations and predicts - correctly, as it
happens- that using ‘core skills’ to bridge the academic∕vocational divide would end
in yet another failure (Mathieson 1992).

A more general consideration of assessment related to the maintaining of standards in
the final decade of the 20^th century is provided by the contributors to Educational
Standards (Goldstein 2000). In a variation on the usual format of the edited volume,
the role and function of examinations and the definition of standards is discussed in
four papers, to each of which another expert in the field writes a response. Their
theme is the problematic nature of British attempts to maintain standards over time
while leaning toward criterion referencing rather than the more internationally

<<   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   >>

More intriguing information