The introduction of on-line assessment has created an ideal opportunity for practitioners and assessors to reflect on and re-assess the continuum of assessment for learning and the assessment of learning. In the UK the former has come to mean something that is more meaningful to and valuable for both learner and teacher. Equally, the latter approach is seen to be a clumsy and unhelpful barrier to confidence building and capability development thereby undermining improved performance and progression.
On-line assessment where the learner response is captured directly offers a host of opportunities to evaluate performance of:
• The assessment instrument itself as well as the constituent items and questions
• The assessment judgements in respect of what constitutes a pass/fail decision
• The performance of the individual candidate irrespective of whether they have passed or failed in respect of:
o What they know and don’t know
o How well they know what they appear to know
o What they need to know better if they are to progress successfully in the future.
At present as on-line assessment is rapidly replacing more traditional approaches to testing in order to increase accessibility, flexibility and manageability of the assessment process we believe that more could and must be done if we are to nurture that potential and release the talent of each individual whilst at the same time developing or retaining an assessment regime that is reliable, robust and rigorous.