Dylan Wiliam on formative e-assessment

[Updated 14/7/2008]

I've focused on formative assessment in previous posts. I'm a member of the steering group for a short JISC-funded project about formative e-assessment run by the Institute of Education. The aim of the project is to "scope a vision for formative e-assessment". Here is a link to the PowerPoint slides of an introductory talk given by Dylan Wiliam [1.2 MB PPT] at the project's first "practical enquiry" day. (An MP3 file for the talk would be useful, and will be available soon.)  Wiliam's introduction sets the tone:

"Much of the debate about the improvement of systems of educational assessment focus on binaries. Is reliability more important than validity? Are constructed-response items better than multiple-choice items? Is teacher assessment better than externally-set tests and examinations? Is continuous assessment through coursework better than terminal examinations? In this talk, I will argue that as long as the debate is conducted in terms of such either/or issues, then progress will be slow, if not entirely absent. Rather, progress is to be made by mapping out the shades of grey between these extremes, understanding how each end of the spectrum is useful in helping us understand the spectrum, and the tensions we have to reconcile, but lethal as a goal in itself."

and these statements about formative feedback make you think:

• "Frequent feedback is not necessarily formative
  
• Feedback that causes improvement is not necessarily formative
  
• Assessment is formative only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in making improvements
  
• To be formative, assessment must include a recipe for future action"

The project is looking for a spectrum of case studies of "formative e-assessment in action". Further details about the project.