Network 9 (Student Assessment) was once again well–represented in the Association’s conference programme, with 24 researchers from across Europe presenting papers within one symposium and eight individual paper sessions, and eight additional researchers offering poster presentations.
Symposium
Towards a better understanding of the learning of mathematics and sciences: secondary analyses of TIMSS data
Researchers from Belgium, South Africa, Finland and Cyprus presented the results of their investigations into the influence of school and pupil factors on mathematics and science achievement using attainment and questionnaire TIMSS-R data, TIMSS-R being the 1998-99 repeat of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study carried out under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
Paper Sessions
- Assessment in teaching and teacher training
- School effectiveness issues
- Assessment and the affective domain
- Aspects of language assessment
- Perspectives on pupil grading
- Diverse issues in assessment
- Identifying pupil’s learning goals
- Evaluating different instructional strategies
Speakers from a variety of European countries presented individual papers on a diverse range of research topics, including identifying effective schools, evaluating student teachers’ teaching practice, investigating factors influencing pupils’ foreign language performance, involving pupils in the process of grading their own knowledge, searching for factors reducing gender differences in reading literacy, identifying gifted students, and designing intellectual profiles using the multiple intelligences model.
The network sessions were all well attended, and there were a number of lively discussions on the topics presented.
ECER 2005 – Favoured themes
As in previous conferences, TIMSS was well represented at ECER 2004, and will be again in ECER 2005. But once again PISA and PIRLS, equally important international survey programmes, hardly featured – there were a handful of individual papers that focused on secondary analysis of PISA or PIRLS data. Symposium proposals on assessment issues affecting all three international survey programmes, and indeed national assessment programmes as well, would be welcome for ECER2005.
In addition, symposium and paper proposals focusing on issues in language assessment – listening and talking as well as reading and writing – would be particularly welcome, as would proposals concerning assessment and evaluation challenges in online open, flexible and distance learning. Problems and achievements in the assessment of collaborative problem solving will be another favoured theme for this conference.