PED603 Capacity for educational assessment (Spring 2027)

After completing the course, the candidate should be able to:

• Understand global traditions and trends for assessment, curriculum, accountability, and evaluation.
• Engage in robust discussions on students', teachers', and school leaders' experiences with and views on models for assessment, curriculum, accountability, and evaluation.
• Discuss differences between ipsative, norm-referenced, goal-references and standard-referenced assessment systems.
• Formulate issues that could form the basis for research on the relationship between individual-level assessment and system-level curriculum, accountability, and evaluation.
• Analyze research that includes goal-oriented teaching, criteria for goal attainment (competence aims), and different assessment practices.
• Analyze the implications of competence-oriented assessment, curricula, accountability, and evaluation policies.
• Analyze the relationship between different learning theories in relation to assessment practices, with particular emphasis on the extent to which some assessment practices favor certain learning perspectives.
• Critically evaluate various school research and development work that includes curriculum, accountability, and system evaluation.

Content

The course addresses assessment at the individual level and evaluation at the systemic level--and the tension and dilemmas between--both theoretically and empirically.

The course focuses on issues related to goal-oriented teaching, criteria for goal achievement, various assessment practices, and the resulting impact on students' self-efficacy. In this context, students' conscious use of learning strategies (self-regulated learning) to meet the school's evaluation regime will be scrutinized. Further attention will be paid to the consequences an ipsative-, norm-, goal- and standard-referenced assessment system can have for the special needs education in an inclusive school.

The course further aims to familiarize candidates with different perspectives on learning and the tension between each theory, with particular focus on the differences between behavioristic, cognitive, social cognitive, and social constructive views.

Teaching and Learning Methods

Lectures, seminar activities, and discussions in Canvas.

Examination requirements

Individually written essay, graded Pass/Fail. Specific instructions will be announced in Canvas.

Please fill out the application form to apply for the coourse: https://nettskjema.no/a/519799#/page/1