E-Assessment in the Early Years

From ICT Register Wiki

The Future Use of Educational Assessment Games - Final Report

This is a joint project between the ICT Register (Specialist Schools and Acadamies Trust) and Screen Learning

Evaluation Project 2007 - 2008

Executive summary

Children, teachers, schools and parents can all benefit from accurate knowledge of a child’s skills early in that child’s educational career. However, traditional assessments of skills are labour-intensive and can invoke anxiety in the children.

This project tested the idea that computerized assessment games might work as a support tool for teachers, providing useful information about children whilst avoiding almost all the problems associated with traditional testing.

An existing computerized assessment game system - Smart Cat Profiling from Screen Learning - was given to various schools. The games provided focussed evidence to inform teachers’ judgments’ about children’s skills without the children knowing they were being assessed. The information was useful for personalizing children’s learning and for helping ensure inclusivity within schools.

The games took up relatively little teacher time but provided useful insights that would not have been available otherwise.

Computerized assessment games have much to offer in early-years education and their wider use is recommended.

Key findings

Teachers saw considerable benefits from using computerized assessment games. They can provide useful supporting information about every child tested, helping teachers work towards policies of inclusiveness and individual learning.

Computerized assessment games can provide information about children’s skills in the first year of school without the children being aware they are being tested.

It is possible for computerized assessment games to provide information on sensory abilities, social skills, general cognitive skills and curriculum-specific skills such as literacy and numeracy.

There was no evidence of gender differences in the skills assessed here; however, there were substantial differences between August- and September-born ‘peers’.

Full Report available here

The Future Use of Educational Assessment Games final report

Classroom Scenarios

• Stone Hill Primary School

• Priestic Primary and Nursery School

To find out more about Smart Cat Games visit : Screen Learning.com