Assessment in D&T: An Overview

How do we measure what truly matters in Design and Technology education? The challenge lies in distinguishing between assessing individual knowledge components and evaluating the holistic capability that emerges when students apply their learning autonomously.

In this foundational episode, I introduce a new mini-series focused entirely on assessment in D&T education. Drawing from research literature, I establish the critical difference between two assessment targets: specific knowledge components (which can be tested through formative methods) and overall D&T capability (which requires summative, holistic evaluation). For assessment to serve its purpose effectively, it must be both reliable (consistently marked) and valid (measuring what we think it's measuring).

The complexities of D&T assessment stem from its unique nature - we're not just testing what students know, but also what they can do. This incorporates both conceptual understanding and procedural skills across a spectrum of design and technological knowledge. When students respond to design contexts, they independently choose which aspects of their knowledge and experience to apply, making predetermined assessment criteria challenging.

This episode sets the stage for deeper explorations in upcoming instalments, where I'll examine research-based approaches to assessing design knowledge, implementing effective formative assessment through peer feedback and design critiques, and developing valid measures of D&T capability. Whether you teach in primary or secondary settings, these insights will help you reflect on whether your current assessment practices truly capture what you intend them to measure.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Assessment in D&T

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:06

you're listening to the talking dnt podcast. I'm dr Alison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news and opinions about dnt in this ongoing series of what the research says about good design and technology education. I'm now moving on to thinking about assessment in design and technology and in this episode I'm just going to give an overview of the next few episodes. So this kind of just gives you an awareness about what's coming and gives you a bit of a framework for thinking about assessment in design and technology. So the first thing we need to think about is what is assessment for in D&T? Okay, so the research around assessment? It's around their learning, the D&T curriculum and their progress in meeting the aims of design and technology, as we've discussed in earlier episodes, particularly in the context of their developing design and technology capability. And assessment is fit for this purpose when it is reliable and valid. So that means it can be repeated and there is an accuracy in the marking, at other people marking it, and it is come up with the same grades, the same marks, and also that it is actually assessing what we think it's assessing. Okay, so we've got these two individual parts of assessment in design and technology. This is what the literature says back from when I was talking about what the aims, what the curriculum and intent is of D&T. There's the specific aspects of their design or technological knowledge and or technological knowledge, if you remember, that's on a spectrum and don't forget we're talking about knowledge that incorporates the language of skills around procedural and conceptual, so that adds an extra dimension that the assessment of individual parts of the curriculum sometimes are around cognitive recall, but sometimes are around physical recall in terms of them being able to do a process and demonstrate the use of, and they might have different levels of skill in doing that. And then we've got this feature of design and technology capability that emerges as pupils progress through their design and technology learning, as their knowledge grows, their experience grows, and so we have to think about how do we assess these two in a way that is valid and reliable. So if we think about this individual aspects, individual knowledge, these tend to happen through formative quick tests, quick recall questions, quick demonstrations from pupils about things, and also summative assessment, again a written, more formal test, or it might be a practice test in terms of it's practical, it's seen it's not a written test and then really the overall assessment for design and technology capability is better to be summative.

Alison Hardy: 3:26

It's very difficult to evaluate design and technology capability formatively. What you're really doing when you're doing formative assessment is looking at the individual components that may or may not be used when you're assessing design and technology capability. That may or may not be used when you're assessing design and technology capability, because, don't forget, when children are responding autonomously to a design and technology context, they are choosing what individual aspects of knowledge practice experience that they're drawing on. So you can't predetermine what they're going to do. So that's why design and technology capability is assessed summatively and not in sort of individual little parts. It's more holistic and I'll be talking about that really specifically when I do a podcast episode about assessing D&T capability and what the research says. So just some kind of warnings there is.

Alison Hardy: 4:32

Design and technology capability let's just recap is about holistic assessment, which is more reliable and valid, and there's much, much more research about that. But assessing knowledge components may well be done more through multiple choice, through recall, through an exam, through an extended essay, through a short design activity or the description of a flowchart or a process, for example. So you might want to think, whether you're in primary or secondary, how you are assessing those two things and how you're making sure that you are assessing what you think you're assessing and that it's reliable. Okay, that it's not just you and your own bias. Actually it is reliable and we're talking about that in some future episodes. Some things here for you to think about is are your current assessments capturing what you intend them to capture? Are the tests capturing those individual knowledge, components or skills, or are you projecting and saying that's their D&T capability? So just think about that and remember that effective assessment is about supporting learning. It's supporting that progress. It's a feeding in for the pupils and it's a feeding in for you as the teacher. So have a think about your current assessments. The next three episodes will also be on assessment. The next one is about what does the research say about assessing design and technological knowledge? Not a lot. There's a quick heads up. The next one after that will look at at formative assessment, thinking about design, crit and peer feedback, what the literature says about that, and the final episode in this mini series within the series, we'll look at what the research says about summative assessment of design and technology capability. So listen out for those and hopefully you'll do some reflecting in the meantime on your own assessment approaches.

Alison Hardy: 6:44

I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, then do subscribe, on whatever platform you use, and do consider leaving a review, as it does help others find the podcast. I do the podcast because I want to support the D&T community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your D&T community. If you want to respond to something I've talked about or have an idea for a future episode, then either leave me a voice memo via Speakpipe or drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, dralisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links to SpeakPipe, patreon and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.