Digitizing practical production work for high-stakes assessments

June 18, 2014

Digital_Page_01High-stakes external assessment for practical courses is fraught with problems impacting on the manageability, validity and reliability of scoring. Alternative approaches to assessment using digital technologies have the potential to address these problems. This paper describes a study that investigated the use of these technologies to create and submit digital representations of practical production work and forms of creative expression for summative high-stakes assessment. The study set out to determine the feasibility of students creating and submitting these digital representations for assessment and to identify which of analytical or comparative pairs scoring generated the more reliable scores. This paper proposes that scoring digital representations of creative practical work submitted by students is a viable alternative to traditional approaches to assessment.

Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology

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