Assessment Reform in Education

This book discusses the recent assessment movements in the eastern and western worlds with particular focuses on the policies, implementation, and impacts of assessment reform on education. A new perspective of assessment sees assessment as a means to enhance learning.This book examines the tensions, challenges and outcomes (intended and unintended) of assessment reform arising at the interface of policy and implementation, and implementation and student learning. The book reviews the experiences insights gained from research, and identifies the facilitators and hindrances to effective change. It reflects current thinking of assessment and provides the readers with ample background information of assessment development in many countries including USA, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

EditorRita Berry is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Hong Kong Institute of Education. She obtained her doctoral title from the University of Exeter UK but her teaching qualifications (main stream and slow learners) were obtained in Hong Kong. Dr Berry has extensive experience in teaching and has worked in schools and universities in the UK and Hong Kong. She is involved in many external and internal funded research projects and publishes widely in the area of assessment, learner autonomy, curriculum, and teaching education. Dr Berry develops and coordinates modules and programmes. She provides consultancy services and offers various kinds of professional upgrading training for teachers in and outside Hong Kong. Her research interests include assessment FOR/AS learning, classroom and school-based assessment, curriculum development and implementation, as well as autonomous learning and learning strategies.Co-editorBob Adamson is a Professor at Hong Kong Institute of Education, where he is Head of the Department of International Education and Lifelong Learning. Prior to this, he was Head of the Curriculum and Instruction and the Director of Graduate Programmes. He has worked in schools, colleges and universities in France, mainland China, Hong Kong, Australia and the United Kingdom, before assuming his current position at the Hong Kong Institute of Education in September 2006. Prof Adamson is a former Honorary Director of the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong, and Past President of the Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong. He has carried out consultancies for the People’s Education Press, China; Ohana Foundation, California; and UNICEF. Prof Adamson has published extensively in the field of curriculum studies, with a particular focus on English language teaching and comparative education.