Global assessment provider ISEB empower new project qualification with Comparative Judgement

By Mark House

The Independent Schools Examinations Board (ISEB), a globally recognised and esteemed assessment organisation, marked its 120th anniversary in 2023. With a presence in over 50 countries, ISEB has been instrumental in the educational journey of millions of students and continues to innovate to cater to the evolving needs of the assessment landscape. In 2022, ISEB introduced the innovative ISEB Project Qualification (iPQ), which emphasises student-led, project-based learning through an interdisciplinary approach. However, the diversity of student outputs posed a challenge for traditional assessment methods in terms of standardisation.

To address this, ISEB partnered with RM to explore a reliable method of incorporating teacher assessment within this new interdisciplinary qualification. The solution was required to meet three key criteria:

  1. Teacher assessment should be central to the process.
  2. The solution should aim to reduce teacher workload.
  3. It should support the iPQ by fostering independent learning among students, particularly in generating diverse responses.

The project is still underway, but initial findings and potential next steps have been detailed in a recently published case study.

Julia Martin, CEO of ISEB, shared her insights on the progress of the project at the EAA Beyond Multiple Choice conference. The expectation is that the summer 2024 iPQ will more formally incorporate Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) as part of the assessment process. Further exploration is being conducted to see how ACJ might contribute to and enhance other ISEB products and services.

What next?

The journey of learning continues for both ISEB and RM, and the promising potential observed thus far fuels our enthusiasm to expand this work. We anticipate that the summer 2024 iPQ will more comprehensively integrate Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) into the assessment process. Concurrently, we are exploring how ACJ could be leveraged to augment other ISEB products and services.