Rebuilding Public Confidence in Educational Assessment

Educational assessment is important. But in the twenty-first century it is easy to feel that schooling and other phases of education are shapedentirely by certain assessments, and that assessment is only about exam results.The idea that test grades can accurately describe the aims and outcomes of educationis unfair and reductive. Yet it is a pervasive and persuasive discourse.This book is about such discourses -the stories we tell each other -and how they impact public trust and confidence in educational assessment. Itexplains the roots and nature of assessment discourses, and proposes arestructuring of the debates in order to rebuild public confidence. It aims to challengedominant assessment discourses and demands a more nuanced, informed debateabout what happens in and beyond schools, and how this influences publicthinking. 

Questioning the status quo needs buy-in frompolicymakers, teachers, parents and students, and from the broader public: fromjournalists, you, me, our friends and our children. Using examples frominternational settings to explore the nature of trust in assessment discourses,Rebuilding Public Confidence in Educational Assessment shows how these discoursescan be reframed so that all aspects of the assessment system - policymaking, school planning, home practicewith students - can be undertaken withconfidence.