A Plurality of Measures: From Scale to Modality: Mapping Changes in Assessment and Its Implications for Learning Analytics

Over the last 2000 years assessment has been dominated by improvements of scale—the number of students who can be assessed. From the first widely distributed standardized tests in Imperial China to current international tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the recent rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), scale has motivated and dictated change in assessment. However, while the focus has been on the increase in the number of students being assessed, a more subtle change has been taking place in the background—the growth of assessment formats. This research chapter posits that the next 100 years of assessment will be dominated by changes in format, just as the last century was dominated by changes in scale. The chapter is divided into two parts. The first part provides a historical overview of assessment, tracing its evolution from ancient China to the present day. The second part identifies two major hurdles for learning analytics to overcome, the development of clear methodology to interpret new assessments and the political process of having these interpretations accepted by stakeholders in the educational system. The chapter concludes with a call for integration frameworks, or a plurality of measures approach, that can combine different sources of evidence into a more complete picture of the learner.