The use of cognitive ability testing to set targets

Schools and science departments need to be more scientific about the way they use data to assess pupils. Assessment is about attainment, progress and value added. Broadly, attainment is what has been achieved in the past; progress is a judgement of gain over a period of time; and value added is a relative measure of prior attainment to current attainment. Frith (1984) argues that assessment has a number of important roles:

providing feedback about progress;

communicating the nature and level of achievement;

determining the grouping for learning;

evaluating the effectiveness of teaching.