In my previous posts I have looked at some of the flaws in traditional teacher assessment and assessments of character. This post is much more positive: it’s about an assessment innovation that really works.
One of the good things about multiple-choice and short answer questions is that they offer very high levels of reliability. They have clear right and wrong answers; one marker will give you exactly the same mark as another; and you can cover large chunks of the syllabus in a short amount of time, reducing the chance that a high or low score is down to a student getting lucky or unlucky with the questions that came up. One of the bad things about MCQs is that they often do not reflect the more realistic and real-world problems pupils might go on to encounter, such as essays and projects. The problem with real-world tasks, however, is…
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