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Workshop on Educational Assessment for System Monitoring

January 30-31, 2012

The Royal Plaza Hotel
19 Ashoka Road, New Delhi

About the Workshop

Background

Educational assessment has taken an increasingly important role in the teaching and learning enterprise in the recent decade with a wide range of applications such as international assessments (e.g. Program for International Student Assessment, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), national assessments (e.g. National Achievement Survey in India, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy in Australia, The National Assessment of Educational Progress in the US), school-based assessment (e.g. Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation in India) and individual assessments (e.g. International Benchmark Test and Progressive Achievement Test).

While international and national assessments assist in comparisons across systems and system monitoring and improvement over a period of time, school and individual level assessments help in improving teaching and learning at the school and individual levels respectively.

For the assessments to serve intended purposes, it is imperative to develop high quality and fair assessments that yield valid and reliable information.

Details of the Workshop

This two-day workshop will focus on discussions on using assessment data for educational improvement from the perspective of stakeholders who are directly involved in educational assessments or who are involved in forming policies for system improvement. Specifically, participants for this workshop may come from funding agencies and CSR arms of corporations that fund educational and other related interventions and programs; government organizations, non-governmental organizations and corporations involved in the field of education.

The workshop will enable participants to:

• understand measurement concepts and applications in the field of educational assessment,
• understand the scientific process of test development and evaluation,
• appreciate the use of assessment data in improving teaching and learning, and
• appreciate the use of assessment data for system monitoring and improvement.

Contents of the Workshop

• Educational measurement concepts
• Objectives and types of assessment
• Educational assessment systems: The objectives, the designs, the measurement scales and the reporting
• Criterion-referenced and norm-reference reporting
• Assessment for improvement of teaching and learning
• Process of test design, test construction and test evaluation
• Modes of assessment, methods of delivery and data collection
  - paper & pencil, computer-administered, computer adaptive testing, performance assessments
• Use of data for system monitoring
• Comparability across groups and across time

About the Facilitator

Dr Siek Toon Khoo [BSc Canterbury NZ, MEdSt Monash, PhD UCLA] is the Research Director of the Psychometrics and Methodology Program at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).  She is also the Director of The Psychometrics Institute at ACER.

Dr Khoo earned her PhD in psychometrics and quantitative research methodology at the Graduate School of Education, UCLA.  She specialises in psychometrics, measurement issues of educational and psychological constructs, structural equation modelling and multilevel modelling. Her specific research interests are in the psychometrics of measuring change and modelling of change which include the monitoring and modelling of educational progress.

More recently, Dr Khoo led a team of data analysts at ACER in performing psychometric analysis for the national reporting of the Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) which started in 2008. The NAPLAN tests about a million students each year.

Registration details

The participation fee for the workshop is Rs. 16,000 per participant inclusive of service tax.

For registering

1. Fill in the online registration form Send the demand draft / cheque to the following address:
   Dr Rajat Chadha
   Australian Council for Educational Research (India)
   1509,Chiranjeev Tower
   43 Nehru Place
   New Delhi – 110019.
   
   OR
2. Download the registration form as Word doc or registration form as PDF. Send the completed registration form along with the demand draft / cheque to the address mentioned above.

Please contact Dr Rajat Chadha (chadha at acer.edu.au) for any queries.