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52 stories
Week 02: Assessing critical and creative thinking
ACER’s Assessment and Psychometric Research team is helping the learning profession become highly skilled, knowledgeable and engaged in excellent practice
By developing high quality assessments of the seven ‘general capabilities’ in the Australian Curriculum, ACER aims to build teachers’ understandings of capabilities, as well as their knowledge of how to teach and assess cross-curricular skills and attributes. Work is well advanced on innovative ways of assessing skills in critical and creative thinking.
Ray Philpot is a Research Fellow in the Assessment and Psychometric Research Program of ACER and a member of ACER’s Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment Project team, commissioned by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to develop formative assessments of critical and creative thinking. ‘The tasks we’re developing are really the first of their kind in terms of their breadth and depth,’ says Ray.
Some teachers may not at first know how to teach the critical and creative thinking continuum, Ray points out, so it’s important to identify the skills and strategies expected of students at various stages. ‘We’re not developing a teaching tool,’ he emphasises, ‘but the tasks will give teachers a good idea of the sorts of things critical and creative thinking entails, which many already teach and assess. They’ll also help teachers, and school and system leaders to identify the sorts of professional development they might need.’
A team of six has developed the tasks, divided by broad domains and addressing Years 1 to 10. Each task has then been paneled, with input from domain expert reference groups, before being tested in a 10-school pilot study. ‘We observed students in classes undertaking the tasks,’ Ray explains, ‘and collected feedback from students and teachers, as well as the students’ work, to see whether the tasks generate what we expect, then undertook a post-pilot workshop for more feedback.’ With further advice from domain expert reference groups, the next step is a formal trial involving 36 primary and 28 secondary schools to test task difficulty, reliability and validity.
‘Developing assessment tools that are fit for purpose like this is a big project,’ says Ray, ‘but that’s where our expertise lies.’
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Week 52: State of the art psychometric and statistical analysis
Week 51: Assessing civics and citizenship
Week 50: International research into teaching and learning
GOAL 1
Learners and their needs
every learner engaged in challenging learning opportunities appropriate to their readiness and needs
GOAL 2
The Learning Profession
every learning professional highly skilled, knowledgeable and engaged in excellent practice
GOAL 3
Places of learning
every learning community well resourced and passionately committed to improving outcomes for all learners
GOAL 4
A Learning Society
a society in which every learner experiences success and has an opportunity to achieve their potential
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Pursuing Quality and Equity through Evidence
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