ABSTRACT
Assessment is undergoing a paradigm shift, from psychometrics to a broader model of educational assessment, from a testing and examination culture to an assessment culture. There is a wider range of assessment in use now than there was twenty-fi ve years ago: teacher assessment, standard tasks, coursework, records of achievement as well as practical and oral assessment, written examinations and standardized tests. There is criterion-referenced assessment, formative assessment and performance-based assessment, as well as norm-referenced testing. In addition, assessment has taken on a high profi le and is required to achieve a wide range of purposes: it has to support teaching and learning, provide information about pupils, teachers and schools, act as a selection and certifi cating device, as an accountability procedure, and drive curriculum and teaching. These new forms and range of purposes for assessment mean that the major traditional model underpinning assessment theory, the psychometric model, is no longer adequate, hence the paradigm shift.
