Decisions about assessment are often built on myths about teacher professional judgment and subjectivity that prioritize standardized assessment over classroom assessment. Ken O'Connor and Matt Townsley discuss some of the most common myths and explain how to dispel them by developing clear guidelines in which teachers can exercise their judgment,…

Merit-based procedures should be constantly reevaluated according to the circumstances to remain both valid and fair--two interrelated concepts. Inducing reevaluation, however, is difficult. These procedures are controlled by legitimate authorities, are rule and contract-bound, and can become quickly entrenched. This resistance to change calls for…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the nature and operations of schools commonly regarded as "Miracle Examination Centres (MECs)" in Nigeria, through the lens of stakeholders in education. This study also assessed stakeholders' perspectives on the possible solutions to the problem of MECs. Design/methodology/approach: The…

Balancing assessment of learning outcomes with the expectations of students is a perennial challenge in education. Difficult exams, in which many students perform poorly, exacerbate this problem and can inspire a wide variety of interventions, such as a grading curve. However, addressing poor performance can sometimes distort or inflate grades and…

Educational assessment involves eliciting, transmitting, and receiving information concerning the level of proficiency of a learner in a specified domain. With that in mind, it is perhaps surprising that the literature seems to make very little use of the signal processing metaphor. The present article begins by making a general case for greater…

Ten years ago, the author worked as the Director of Assessments for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). For temporal context, the author arrived after the first of the infamous test cheating scandals and left just before the incident that spawned a second. Indeed, the author filled a new position created to both manage test security…

During the COVID-19 lockdown, schools are closed, exams have been cancelled, and teaching and learning are taking an unprecedented form. In this process, two realities are brought to light. On the one hand, the pandemic highlights the widening gaps in society and the part that the educational system plays in privileging students from advantageous…

This paper presents the findings of a study which aimed at exploring the washback of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) English examinations on English teaching and learning practice at secondary schools in Bangladesh. For this purpose, a qualitative research (employing interviews with English teachers, FGDs with students and classroom…

The literature indicates that the effects of sources of demographic biases on fairness in classroom assessment (CA) are under-researched in the Iranian higher education context. Hence, this study aims to explore the Iranian university teachers' perceptions of the effects of demographic biases (e.g., gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic (SES)) on…

Formative assessments are an important component of massive open online courses (MOOCs), online courses with open access and unlimited student participation. Accurate conclusions on students' proficiency via formative, however, face several challenges: (a) students are typically allowed to make several attempts; and (b) student performance might…

"The English Speaking Achievement Test for Japanese Junior High School Students" (ESAT-J) was introduced to contribute to levelling up public English education in Tokyo in 2022. Critics, however, have made claims in the mass media against the use of the test and stakeholder groups have called for its cancellation. This paper presents an…

Community colleges have been seen as a gateway into higher education and social mobility. Matriculation of students into higher education has been critical to guiding and directing the rest of their experience as a student. Not many scholars have examined the experiences of students with assessment and placement during matriculation at community…

Wollack, Cohen, and Eckerly suggested the "erasure detection index" (EDI) to detect fraudulent erasures for individual examinees. Wollack and Eckerly extended the EDI to detect fraudulent erasures at the group level. The EDI at the group level was found to be slightly conservative. This article suggests two modifications of the EDI for…

Originally an editorial for "English in Education," this short article summarises key issues in the imposition of a separate test for grammar, punctuation and spelling. It illustrates the poor foundations, lack of clarity and distortion of curriculum which invalidate the test.

English language education in Thailand is rated poorly internationally and needs improvement. Research identifying the reasons for the l highlights assessment as a key concern since assessment has washback effects on learning. However, little is known about the assessment practices teachers use. This paper has three goals: to identify the…