School of Education

Assess@Learning

The Assess@Learning project (2019 – 2021) is funded by the European Commission in response to their Erasmus Policy Experimentation call. The project focus is the use and impact of digital formative assessment in secondary schools in five European countries. The project partners are: European Schoolnet, Brussels; University of Glasgow; Queen’s University, Belfast; Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Italy; and the Ministries of Education in Estonia, Finland, Greece, Spain and Portugal. The research will investigate the impact of a set of support materials developed with students, teachers, school leaders and system leaders on the system-wide use of Digital Formative Assessment (DFA). Current experience of using DFA will be mapped in five of the European countries where the Ministries of Education are involved. The schools involved in each country will complete base-line and follow-up questionnaires. Quantitative data will then be gathered and analysed from schools randomly allocated to a treatment group invited to adopt DFA practices and have access to support materialsand from a control group of schools not receiving access to support. Qualitative data will also gathered from students, teachers, school leaders, parents and policy-makers during a series of collaborative Dialogue Labs set up in the participating countries during each of the 3 years of the project. The Dialogue Labs will enable a more in-depth understanding of the participants’ experiences and the impact of digital formative assessment.