Entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy: Addressing the challenge of assessment policy and practice

Résumé 0

The focus of the South African Education Research Association's Assessment and Testing Special Interest Group (SIG) is to contribute to current initiatives and debates pertaining to the development and implementation of assessment systems for improving learning and teaching. In particular, the SIG's members aim to address dominant performativity discourses impacting schools and universities by (1) providing a common understanding of the purpose and use of assessment, (2) locating the different assessment applications across the broader system within which learning and teaching occurs, and (3) highlighting recent initiatives impacting on assessment policy and practices. We think it essential to highlight critical policy and practice questions, while simultaneously acknowledging ongoing challenges for implementing enabling assessment systems that support the specific pedagogical needs of learners, teachers, students, and lecturers. Notwithstanding the complexities of effecting change, increasing discourse on, as well as relevant critique of, policies and practices that fail to improve learning and teaching, enhances possibilities for implementing enabling assessment policy and practice that seek to address the elusive challenge of equity and quality within the education system.