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CAA keynote talk

Titles:
Ask not what CAA can do for your career, but what you can do for assessment.
Ask not what is technologically glamourous, but what is useful to assessment.

Date/time: Tuesday 10 July 2012. Session: 10:25am (my own slot: 10:30 - 11:30am).
Occasion: 2012 International Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) Conference
Place: DeVere Grand Harbour Hotel, Southampton SO15 1AG
How to get there: Instructions map direct
Presenter Steve Draper, School of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

Slides: PDF
Handout: PDF file
Related material:

Related talks by me:

What if feedback only counted when it changed the learner? (26 July 2012, HEA, Dundee)
2-D feedback (ipsative and cohort-based) (26 July 2012, HEA, Dundee)
What if feedback only counted when it changed the learner? (31 Aug, eAssessment @ Dundee)
Assessment reform, innovative technology, improving formative assessment and feedback: are they at odds with each other? (31 Aug, eAssessment @ Dundee)

Abstract

This talk argues overall that to make an impact in and with CAA, we should decide exactly what our aims are, and proceed with a focussed requirements gathering. Most assessment is done on the basis of traditions, familiar practices: this is not an adequate basis for eliciting detailed requirements.

The talk will visit, and attempt to support, a number of different suggestions relating to this overall message:

Is feedback important for learning after all? (Many indications suggest maybe not.)
We are addressing assessment, NOT feedback. This is not done to help learners learn, but to help employers do personnel selection. Is our CAA based on a task analysis of employers' decision making?
The field of e-Assessment is actually a meeting place for numerous subfields. These each, at bottom, have quite different aims. If we want rational design and coherent action we must decide on which aim we will base our actions, or rather values and goals.
Nevertheless, summative assessment is of some use to learners: that is why so many of them ignore written comments and only look at the mark. But we could, and should, support that better by giving reference scales that support students' use of them.
We need to do learner-centered needs analysis: e.g providing "2-dim feedback", supporting each goal students use feedback for (not just the infinite self-improvement which is the only goal academics imagine for their students).
We need to do teacher-centered needs analysis i.e. task analysis, following the example of Beryl Plimmer. When I look at what I am actually, concretely, doing when I mark a pile of work, I am writing for many (about four) different audiences. Where does it say that?

In order to book online and obtain further information about the LTDF, please visit caaconference.co.uk. Otherwise contact Bill Warburton on 023 8059 2326 or at W.I.Warburton-AT-soton.ac.uk

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