Contesting educational assessment policies in Australia

ABSTRACT

Assessment is a major component of education, significant in directing what is identified as valued student learning. This paper is framed within an understanding of imperative and exhortative policy. Two paradigmatically different, and potentially contesting, assessment policy directions in Australian education – educational accountability to monitor school and teacher performance, and teacher assessment practices to improve learning (assessment for learning [AfL] or formative assessment) – are examined for their impact on teacher professionalism. Both approaches have official endorsement in Australian policy. Mandated participation in national tests is indicative of educational accountability assessments under national direction. While also endorsed nationally, AfL implementation is reliant on state and territory direction. Our examination reveals tensions in the alignment of both policies. This is evident in the impact of accountability assessment on AfL implementation, in particular, teachers’ understandings of valued assessment evidence. We conclude that a paradigmatic shift to support student learning in Australian schools is a policy imperative that includes the need for professional development and learning support for teachers.     

Identifying discourses of moderation in higher education

Moderation of student assessment is a critical component of teaching and learning in contemporary universities. Yet, despite this, it tends to be marked by idiosyncratic and sporadic processes informed by liminal understanding. This paper, in the light of forthcoming radical national requirements for the declaration of moderation processes in tertiary curricula in Australia, will present four discourses of moderation we identified in a recent study in a Faculty of Education in a large metropolitan university. The discourses are equity, justification, community building and accountability. Together, they will act as a starting point for academics to review their beliefs and attitudes towards the moderation of student assessment.     

Aging Research with Students in a University with a Strong Teaching Mission

A National Institute on Aging-funded pilot project to study advice-giving by older adult mothers to their middle-aged daughters was undertaken in a medium-sized teaching-intensive university. The student body and community are highly diverse, and many undergraduates are first-generation college students. In this context, undergraduate psychology majors and master's students were hired as research assistants. Their tasks were to enter and check data as well as to recruit and test older-adult and middle-aged women in their homes and by telephone. The students were successful in all tasks, with the exception of recruitment, an especially difficult task even for the primary investigator. The research program also served the university's mission of community involvement.     

Learning as identity and practice through involvement in online moderation

For teachers working in a standards-based assessment system, professional conversations through organised social moderation meetings are a vital element. This qualitative research investigated the learning that occurred as a result of online moderation discussions. Findings illustrate how participating in social moderation meetings in an online context can support teachers to understand themselves as assessors, and can provide opportunities for teachers to imagine possibilities for their teaching that move beyond the moderation practice.     

The application of pairwise comparisons to form scaled exemplars as a basis for setting and exemplifying standards in teacher education

ABSTRACT

This paper details a two-stage process for standard setting using an extended pairwise comparison method. It describes the application of a new process of establishing a set of scaled and ordered performances as a basis for exemplifying standards. In stage one, the method of pairwise comparison was used to generate data from pairwise judgements made at the criterion level and overall grade. In stage two, judges identified where the pass/fail boundary lay in relation to a selected subset of ordered performances generated from stage one. The combined evidence from the two-stage process demonstrates the method’s application to establish exemplified standards using on-balance judgements across multiple criteria. The approach combines expert judgement and statistical data to provide a basis for comparable cross-institution assessments against standards in the case of a summative assessment of professional competence in teacher education. It may be relevant to any discipline with professional standards and complex performance assessments.     

Marital conflict and finances among Filipinas in Australia

Differences in finance practices emerged as a major theme in interviews conducted by The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health among the Filipina community in Queensland. Women's decisions to migrate and marry Australian men are influenced by their perceptions of relative wealth of their future husband, and their presumed enhanced ability to provide support for Filipino kin. However, because of unrealised financial expectations, issues related to the remittance of money to family in The Philippines, the husband's disapproval of his wife's participation in the paid workforce, and financial practices such as the management of the household finances and roles with money, finance is a constant point of tension in many Filipina–Australian marriages. It seems that in migrating to Australia, many Filipinas exchange one type of money problem for another — one that they rarely foresee.