More Than Good Intentions: Policy and Assessment for Learning in Scotland

Abstract

The major challenge in Scotland’s long history of well-intentioned policy has always been implementation, in particular the realisation of a constructive and effective relationship across research, policy, and practice. Scottish experience provides a basis for radical changes, of potential international significance, in assessment policies to ensure better practical orientation to learning. The chapter considers critically the relationship between assessment policy rhetoric in the Curriculum for Excellence (for students aged 3–15) and provision of practical guidance and professional learning opportunities. It draws on understanding of what matters in the process of change gained from previous Scottish experience in the Assessment is for Learning programme. Evidence from a study of early Curriculum for Excellence assessment practice, Assessment at Transition, shows how the design, findings, and conduct of that project have led to some collaborative action by researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to make effective implementation of key assessment policy intentions more likely, despite the inadequacy of the support originally provided. The argument then moves beyond steps to help the implementation of current Scottish policy by proposing a number of major changes to the purposes and content of typical ‘traditional’ assessment policies and practices not only in Scotland but in many countries.