New research objectives
Questions to consider:
- What happens during the process of judgment?
- What is the nature of the debate about student work?
- How are the judgments, involving interpretation of the criteria and the work actually undertaken?
- Who makes the judgments?
- Are those judgments challenged, and if so by whom?
"Community as arbiter of quality"
A concept of "community as arbiter of quality"is proposed as an assessment strategy that could achieve standards of judgment consistent with practice in the broader arts community and is more responsive to the dynamic nature of the visual arts discipline. (Boughton, 1997)
Why?
- Assessments have greater meaning and greater currency if judgments made have meaning which is shared within a community
- The cutting edge of student work is considered "new-paradigm work," and is such, a form of personal research
How?
BENCHMARK SETTING
Student work is selected from a representative population, assembled in a central location, and ranked against agreed criteria for judges to assess. Selection of the panel of judges includes a majority of experienced teachers, with a selection of less experienced "trainees."
Student work is selected from a representative population, assembled in a central location, and ranked against agreed criteria for judges to assess. Selection of the panel of judges includes a majority of experienced teachers, with a selection of less experienced "trainees."
- The tacit knowledge component of the knowledge held by experienced judges is transmitted from expert to novice by joint participation in evaluative activity
- Practices vary from setting to setting, although one which requires a regular renewal of personnel each year makes most sense in terms of professional development of teachers
- Setting these benchmarks may take several days of debate until the full range of work has been established and agreed
- This is the most crucial stage of the process, as criteria and objectives are interpreted in the context of real works which stand for agreed standards