Assessment

We kind of try to merge our own experience with the objectivity of the criteria’: The role of connoisseurship and tacit practice in undergraduate fine art assessment

by Susan Orr

Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education. Volume: 9 | Issue: 1
Cover date: October 2010
Page(s): 5-19

This article explores connoisseurship in the context of fine art undergraduate assessment practice. I interviewed... more This article explores connoisseurship in the context of fine art undergraduate assessment practice. I interviewed twelve fine art lecturers in order to explore and unpack the concept of connoisseurship in relation to subjectivity, objectivity and tacit practice. Building on the work of Bourdieu (1973, 1977, 1986) and Shay (2003, 2005), both of whom problematize the view that subjectivity and objectivity are binary opposites, my research illustrates the ways that connoisseurship is underpinned by informed professional judgements located in communities of practice. Within this particular conception of connoisseurship, the lecturers' expertise is co-constituted in communities of assessors through participation and engagement. Standards reside in communities of practice.

Assessment with rubrics: An efficient and objective means of assessing student outcomes in an information resources class

by Missy Murphey

Cultural shifts, multimodal representations, and assessment practices: A case study

by Jen Scott Curwood

Published in E-Learning and Digital Media

Multimodal texts involve the presence, absence, and co-occurrence of alphabetic text with visual, audio, tactile,... more Multimodal texts involve the presence, absence, and co-occurrence of alphabetic text with visual, audio, tactile, gestural, and spatial representations. This article explores how teachers' evaluation of students' multimodal work can be understood in terms of cognition and culture. When teachers apply a paradigm of assessment rooted in print-based culture to multimodal texts created with digital tools, they may fail to capture students' content learning and meaning-making processes that draw on diverse semiotic resources and involve multiple modes of representation.

Educating capable doctors - a portfolio approach. Linking learning and assessment

by Liz Farmer

J. P. Sturmberg  L. Farmer Medical Teacher Dec 23:1-5 2008

Abstract
Background: Teachers want students to focus on their learning to become capable doctors; yet, students... more Abstract
Background: Teachers want students to focus on their learning to become capable doctors; yet, students primarily want to focus on passing their exams. How much of this paradox is explained by learning and assessment being seen as two different entities rather than as the continuum of one and the same process? How may the two areas be more closely and effectively linked?

Aim: This article describes and illustrates a conceptual framework for an approach termed capability-based portfolio assessment.

Results and conclusions: Thinking about capability, i.e. the ability to perform in the real world, is needed for a contemporary curriculum and assessment design. A capability-focus will help students to integrate the foundations of medical practice with learning how to become a capable, reflective and life-long learner.

A well-structured capability portfolio, regularly presented and reviewed, will be a useful tool to guide the journey, and should have the potential to help drive deep learning and allow the assessment of capabilities that are hard to assess using conventional approaches.

Assessment based on portfolio approaches should not equate to increasing the overall assessment burden as it will reduce the need for more traditional assessment methods. 

Assessing performance 4: Reviewing communication skills

by Liz Farmer

St George I, Farmer EA New Zealand Fam Phys 31(4); 264-266

Assessing the performance of doctors in teams and systems

by Liz Farmer

Elizabeth A  Farmer    Jonathan D  Beard    W Dale  Dauphinee    Tony  LaDuca    & Karen V  Mann    Medical Education Volume 36 Issue 10, Pages 942 - 948

Introduction Increasing attention is being directed towards finding ways of assessing how well doctors perform in... more Introduction Increasing attention is being directed towards finding ways of assessing how well doctors perform in clinical practice. Current approaches rely on strategies directed at individuals only, but, in real life, doctors' work is characterised by multiple complex professional interactions. These interactions involve different kinds of teams and are embedded within the overall context and systems of care. In addition to individual factors, therefore, we propose that the performance of doctors in health care teams and systems will also impact on the overall quality of patient care. Assessing these dimensions, however, poses a number of challenges.

Strategies Taking a profile of a National Health Service, UK surgeon as an example, the team structures to which he or she may relate are illustrated. These include formal teams such as those found in the operating theatre, and those formed through various professional and collegial partnerships. The authors then propose a model for assessing doctors' performances in teams and systems, which incorporates the educational principles of continuous feedback to enhance future performance.

Discussion To implement the proposed model, a wide range of professional, educational and regulatory bodies must collaborate. This raises a number of important implications for the future roles and relationships of these bodies, which are discussed. A strong and constructive partnership will be essential if the full potential of a more inclusive and representative assessment approach is to be realised.

Selecting performance assessment methods for experienced physicians

by Liz Farmer

R B  Hays  1  H A  Davies  2  , J D  Beard  3  , L J M  Caldon  4  , E A  Farmer  5  P M  Finucane  6  , P  McCrorie  7  , D I  Newble  8  L W T  Schuwirth  9  & G R  Sibbald Medical Education Volume 36 Issue 10, Pages 910 - 917  Published Online: 17 Oct 2002

Background While much is now known about how to assess the competence of medical practitioners in a controlled... more Background While much is now known about how to assess the competence of medical practitioners in a controlled environment, less is known about how to measure the performance in practice of experienced doctors working in their own environments. The performance of doctors depends increasingly on how well they function in teams and how well the health care system around them functions.

Methods This paper reflects the combined experiences of a group of experienced education researchers and the results of literature searches on performance assessment methods.

Conclusion Measurement of competence is different to measurement of performance. Components of performance could be re-conceptualised within a different domain structure. Assessment methods may be of a different utility to that in competence assessment and, indeed, of different utility according to the purpose of the assessment. An exploration of the utility of potential performance assessment methods suggests significant gaps that indicate priority areas for research and development.

Assessing general practice knowledge base--the applied knowledge test.

by Liz Farmer

Sturmberg JP, Farmer EA Aust Fam Physician. 2008 Aug;37(8):659-61.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Fellowship examination assesses competence for... more The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Fellowship examination assesses competence for unsupervised clinical practice anywhere in Australia through three segments, each with a unique focus. The applied knowledge test (AKT) is a written examination that tests candidates' applied clinical knowledge. Other segments assess clinical problem solving skills and ability to perform in a clinical situation. Approximately 400-500 candidates sit each administration of the RACGP examination, which is held twice yearly throughout Australia.

A practical guide to assessing clinical decision-making skills using the key features approach

by Liz Farmer

Elizabeth A  Farmer  & Gordon  Page. Medical Education Volume 39 Issue 12, Pages 1188 - 1194  Published Online: 25 Nov 2005 

ABSTRACT

Aim This paper in the series on professional assessment provides a practical guide to writing key... more ABSTRACT

Aim This paper in the series on professional assessment provides a practical guide to writing key features problems (KFPs). Key features problems test clinical decision-making skills in written or computer-based formats. They are based on the concept of critical steps or 'key features' in decision making and represent an advance on the older, less reliable patient management problem (PMP) formats.

Method The practical steps in writing these problems are discussed and illustrated by examples. Steps include assembling problem-writing groups, selecting a suitable clinical scenario or problem and defining its key features, writing the questions, selecting question response formats, preparing scoring keys, reviewing item quality and item banking.

Conclusion The KFP format provides educators with a flexible approach to testing clinical decision-making skills with demonstrated validity and reliability when constructed according to the guidelines provided.

Fair Literacy tests. Paper given at the UKfiet conference, Oxford, September 2011

by Agatha van Ginkel

Assessment of Maternally Reported Life Events: in Children and Adolescents: A Comparison of Interview and Checklist Methods

by Jennifer L. Allen

This study compared the number and impact of maternally reported life events experienced by children assessed using... more This study compared the number and impact of maternally reported life events experienced by children assessed using interview and checklist approaches. Psychometric properties of a new checklist measure were also examined. Participants were 80 children aged 7 to 16 years recruited from the general community. Mothers completed an interview, the Psychosocial Assessment of Child Experiences (PACE; Sandberg et al. (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 34(6): 879–897, 1993)) and the Child and Adolescent Survey of Experiences (CASE), a checklist derived from PACE and featuring parent and child self-report versions. PACE and CASE assessed a similar number of negative life events, however CASE assessed more positive life events. The two measures showed fair to substantial agreement for the number and perceived impact of life events. Both PACE and CASE detected significant associations etween negative, but not positive life events and child psychopathology. An evaluation of the psychometric properties of CASE revealed that mother-child agreement was good for the overall number of life events, with agreement ranging from poor to substantial for specific life events. CASE demonstrated good one-week retest reliability; however younger children were less reliable reporters of life events than adolescents. Findings are discussed in terms of the relative utility of the two assessment methods for research and clinical practice.

The self-report version of the Liebowtiz Social Anxiety Scale: Psychometric properties of the French version

by Alexandre Heeren

Heeren, A., Maurage, P., Rossignol, M., Vanhaelen, M., Peschard, V., Eeckhout, C., & Philippot, P. (2012). The self-report version of the Liebowtiz Social Anxiety Scale: Psychometric properties of the French version. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 44, 2, 99-107?

Development and validation of the Vicarious Distress Questionnaire

by Alexandre Heeren

Grynberg, D., Heeren, A., & Luminet, O. (2012). Development and validation of the Vicarious Distress Questionnaire. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 44, 2, 138-145

Cross-cultural validity of the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire: Adaptation and validation in a French-speaking sample

by Alexandre Heeren

Heeren, A., Douilliez, C., Peschard, V., Debrauwere, L., & Philippot, P. (2011). Cross-cultural consistency of the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire: Adaptation and validation in a French sample. European Review of Applied Psychology, 61, 147-151.

Review of the book Uses and Abuses of Intelligence: Studies Advancing Spearman and Raven's Quest for Non-Arbitrary Metrics

by Alexandre Heeren

Heeren, A. (2009). [Review of the book Uses and Abuses of Intelligence: Studies Advancing Spearman and Raven's Quest for Non-Arbitrary Metrics, by John Raven & Jean Raven (Eds.)]. Psychologos, 24, 1, pp. 34.

Abstract, Dedication, and Acknowledgments for the Hobbs (2011) dissertation published by SAS.

by Robert Dean Hobbs

The Hobbs (2011) doctoral study is published in the ProQuest Dissertations and These database, UMI No. 3484309

The purpose of the qualitative research was to assess models of education developed for the study to investigate how... more The purpose of the qualitative research was to assess models of education developed for the study to investigate how and when to incorporate second and third languages into the curriculum to improve language acquisition. Research indicates that L3 enhances and reinforces L2 and L1. The stratified systematic grounded theory study explored the perspectives of neurolinguists, psycholinguists, sociolinguists, and interdisciplinary education researchers to derive variables for constructing a new model of education. The outcome of the Internet survey revealed that 100% of the participants agreed that education must change and that teacher training must improve. Variables from the cross-disciplinary data contributed to the construction of an integrated model of multilingual education consisting of four primary models and other models to serve as tools for designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment as well as determining demographics and student meta-analysis of language abilities and storage in the brain. The first model emerged from the data to offer multilingual principles of education. The other primary models are macro, meso, and micro models. The macro model represents schools, instruction, assessment, and the curriculum cycle. The meso model depicts the developmental domains of the individual learner and includes a cyclical equation. The micro model delineates multilingual processing in the brain based on neurolinguistic research, variables from the current study, and Kees de Bot's bilingual adaptation of Levelt's language processing model. Recommendations include the incorporation of notional-functional pragmatic-aesthetic concepts as depicted in the models developed for the study and enhanced by input from published researchers with unique language and research repertoires who were located on four continents.

Is it really possible to think strategically about assessment?

by Savvas Papagiannidis

Does the sum of the parts equal the whole?

by Errol Thompson

Thompson, E. (2004) Does the sum of the parts equal the whole? Mann, S. and Clear, T., (Eds.) Proceedings of the seventeenth annual conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications. pp 440-445. Hamilton, New Zealand: National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications. ISBN: 0-476-00726-7

Measuring attitude towards RE: factoring pupil experience and home faith background into assessment

by Phra Nicholas Thanissaro

British Journal of Religious Education (2012), Vol.34, No.2, pp.195-212.

Recent studies have increasingly favoured contextualisation of religious education (RE) to pupils’ home faith... more Recent studies have increasingly favoured contextualisation of religious education (RE) to pupils’ home faith background in spite of current assessment methods that might hinder this. For a multi-religious, multi-ethnic sample of 369 London school pupils aged from 13 to 15 years, this study found that the participatory, transformative and dialogical activities of church visits, computer use and classroom debate improved attitude to RE. It revealed more readiness in girls to apply RE to their own religiosity and particularly negative attitudes to RE in pupils with no religious background. Besides indicating the validity, reliability and unidimensionality of a new short quantitative measure of pupil attitude to RE which acknowledges pupil experience and home context, the findings suggest ways to move beyond ‘banking’ paradigms to which RE remains prone.

Colley, S. 2003. Lessons for the Profession: Teaching Archaeological Practical Work Skills to University Students

by Sarah Colley

Australian Archaeology 57:90-7.