Futurelab’s literature review on Assessment & Social Justice was an additional reading suggested to us a couple of weeks ago – it was rather interesting so I came back to read it in more detail.
Although there was not much that was particularly new to me in terms of the conclusions made by this review, it really did make me think in more depth about the concept of ‘fairness’, and how it is intertwined with issues such as motivation, self-efficacy and access. Strategies such as low-stakes assessment, personalised learning and extended assessment tasks were highlighted as potentially having a positive impact on social justice in assessment.
I loved the idea of installing a period of feedback and reflection after GCSEs and A-levels – can we do this, please 
The role of technology in assisting with social justice in assessment was explored at length, and although the challenges of security and financial cost were acknowledged, the benefits of adaptive testing, automated marking, translation and speech recognition were shown to be significant. The use of e-portfolios is a great example of participatory social justice in assessment – as individuals make their own choices about how they are going to be demonstrate their learning.
The potential in the future for technology to facilitate more personalised curricula was also explored. The drift in emphasis from understanding of subject-bound content to the demonstration of transferable skills (such as team working, self-management, reflective and creative thinking and problem-solving) is bound to bring new and exciting challenges to assessment processes across all levels of formal education. These are challenges that those of us who work with professional masters programmes have been grappling with over the last few years, so it’ll be great to be part of a growing body of knowledge and experience in how these skills can (and should) be assessed.
