Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment

We welcome partnerships within the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, with other centres within the University, and with other institutions, external organisations or companies.

We have recently secured a partnership with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) in order to support teachers’ engagement with, and understanding of, assessment and the use of data to inform teaching and learning.

What we do

Research and publishing

Our work focuses on:

developing theories and models of educational assessment to improve formative and summative assessment in different educational settings
evaluating how the different types of assessment influence the effectiveness of learning and learning systems
exploring the impacts and opportunities of new assessment technologies in test design, distribution, administration and delivery of results
constructing and validating measurement scales for cognitive and non-cognitive constructs
researching notions of validity and reliability in different educational assessment contexts
exploring how psychometrics is changing education and assessment and how it is impacting on lifelong learning
supervising postgraduate studies for local and international students in the areas of educational measurement, assessment and psychometrics.

Teaching

We offer innovative Master of Education units of study delievered entirely online that provide a basic introduction to what teachers need to know and do to assess effectively and maximise learning.

Professional learning for teachers

Our Master of Education units have been divided into professional learning modules that have been endorsed by NESA at the Proficient stage. These are also delivered entirely online, allowing teachers to start and complete them at their own pace. Each provides between 4 and 6 hours of professional learning towards maintenance of accreditation. These are being assessed by the University for articulation to award programs.

To find out more and register for the modules, please click here.

Consulting

Our consultancy services include:

providing consulting services to the University of Sydney in building scales to measure graduate qualities such as cultural competence, critical thinking and influence
providing consulting services to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and the Schools Curriculum and Standards Authority (WA) on projects related to establishing comparability across assessments of teacher effectiveness against professional standards
unpacking the assessment standards of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers into elaborations that need to be known and understood before they can be demonstrated
validating the Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment
participating in international capacity-building workshops and conferences in China, India, Lao, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, the US and the Pacific.

Accredited Assessment Literacy modules

We're offering 6 different Assessment Literacy modules which are fully online and available on demand. You can work on each at you own pace as they have no ‘end’ date although you won’t get your PD hours until completion.

The NSW education bodies above endorse these modules and are developing further opportunities for professional learning in assessment literacy in collaboration with CEMA.

Use your work email address and/or membership number and receive a 10% discount.

Download the flyer (pdf. 218KB) to learn more or access the modules here.

Educational Measurement Interest Group

Learn more

This group comes together every 6-8 weeks and welcomes members of the education community who are involved in assessment, measurement and psychometric projects.

Presentations in 2019 have included “Growth approaches to students’ academic development: findings and practice directions from a program of educational psychology research” by Professor Andrew J Martin; and “An update on how we are going about measuring student performance on the University of Sydney’s graduate qualities” by professors Peter McCallum and Jim Tognolini.

Professor Jim Tognolini
Ms Michelle Davidson
Dr Yoshitaka Nakakoji
Dr Rachel Wilson
Ms Kathleen Walker
Ms Anne Lawson-Jones
Ms Belinda Chambers
Professor Gordon Stanley
Dr Hongzhi (Veronica) Yang
Associate Professor Rachael Hains-Wesson
Dr Graham Hendry
Professor Helen Watt
Dr Lucy Lu
Ms Carol Taylor
Dr Christine Tom
Dr Bruce Mowbray
Dr Jon Twing
Mr John Hardie
Professor David Andrich

Past events

2018

March

Tine Nielsen is Associate Professor, Psychometrics and Psychological Testing in the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. During her visit she presented to the Educational Measurement Interest Group on the topic of “Student self-rating of grades on learning objectives: with students’ course evaluations and final course grades”.

May

We hosted five delegates from Beijing Institute of Education for a week-long academic exchange. The visitors were keen to discuss modern assessment theory including standards referencing, performance-based assessment, constructing rubrics for cognitive and non-cognitive skills and the way these assessment concepts were implemented in Australian schools. We would like to especially thank our academic staff and outside experts who gave their time and expertise to this exchange.

July

Presentation and Workshops for Beijing Huiji International Education on “How to assess higher order thinking skills and core competencies in the classroom” and “Non-cognitive assessment” in the Chaoyang District, Shingshan District and Beijing Institute of Education in China.

October

Presentation at 2nd University of Riau International Conference on Educational Sciences, Pekanbaru, Indonesia, on “Assessing skills and measuring performance of students on skills that are aligned with the needs of the 21st century: a practical example”.