Conclusion: Implications for Policy and Practice

In this chapter, I outline the salient aspects of a new paradigm for educational assessment that I suggest may be more robust, and which may be less afflicted by validity, reliability, and allied ethical dilemmas than contemporary models of assessment. To address some of the tensions associated with contemporary approaches to high stakes testing, I make the case for an assessment model based on a system of distributed continuous assessment, and I advocate use of the method of comparative judgement to assess higher level cognitive skills. I then go on to consider the implications of my critique of educational assessment, and the proposed new assessment paradigm, in relation to the future of academic selection for post-primary education.