Assessment of Complex Performances in Digital Environments

Abstract

Digital technologies hold the potential to transform educational assessment. Recent advances reveal that digital environments will support the development of learning and assessment activities in ways that will both increase the inferential fidelity of assessments and change the form of assessments altogether. Digital technologies can also automate data collection and the production of assessment inferences on a massive scale. Here, we discuss the wide variation in digital learning experiences and explain how they are transforming traditional language for discussing assessment. We argue that the predigital constraints on assessment have skewed our thinking about assessment and give examples of new and novel approaches. Second, we discuss how digital environments can allow us to capture and make inferences from simple or complex learning activities in new ways. Third, we point to advances in machine learning and AI that have the potential to change current and future assessment practices. Finally, we argue for balancing enthusiasm for digital environments against the challenges of making appropriate assessment inferences.