‘It is an exceptionally thoughtful assessment of assessment, and I am (along with anyone else who broods about education) much in your debt.’ Jerome Bruner, personal communication with the authorWhen this award-winning book was originally published in 1994, a review in the TES said: ‘Beyond Testing is a refreshingly honest look at the dilemmas facing those who are trying to make educational assessment more supportive of high-quality learning for all pupils and students … It contains powerful and practical messages for assessment developers, policy-makers, teachers and pupils. It exposes the very different agendas of those who wish to achieve greater system-wide accountability through educational assessment, and those who wish to use it to promote improvements in the quality of pupil learning.’ Originally written to re-conceptualize assessment in education in the 1990s, Beyond Testing has stood the test of time and become a classic text in the field. With its examination of the range of uses of assessment – from teacher assessment and standardized testing to formative assessment and norm-referenced testing – to the purposes of assessment – from accountability to support for teaching and learning – the issues it deals with are as enduring and relevant to education now as they were when it was first published. It offers an unsurpassed framework for educational assessment.Now, re-released as a Routledge Education Classic, and with a new preface from D. Royce Sadler, a new generation of educationalists can be introduced to the developments in educational assessment – arguably one of the most hotly contested areas of education – in order to further their own understanding and practice.
