New Wine in Old Bottles? The Challenge of Change for Educational Assessment

Broadfoot, P. (2001). Editorial:  New wine in old bottles? The challenge of change for educational assessment.  Assessment in Education:  Principles, Policy & Practice, 8(2), 109-112.

In this editorial piece, Broadfoot looks at the transition in schools to use assessment as a tool for learning rather than merely a test of a student's knowledge.  She celebrates the attempts of many teachers to use assessments daily to see where their kids are with their understanding of the knowledge and to inform teaching, but she expresses concern of the continued focus on achievement on standards as the measure of a student's success.  Teachers using more experimental or alternative assessments constantly feel pressure to show that these assessments are "as good" as more traditional assessment.  This pressure has forced many teachers to bring progressive techniques back towards more traditional assessments.  Very few methods are discussed in this piece but it does reference other articles that may have more useful information.