The Capacity of Assessment in Arts Education

Abstract

Assessments play a dominant role in teaching and learning within current accountability frameworks of education. In such contexts, assessments may be perceived as barriers to promoting creativity within arts education. In this article, I examine emerging research that pushes educators to reframe assessment as a pedagogical structure that supports the development of creativity in students. I begin by justifying the integration of newer forms of assessment (i.e., assessment for and as learning) within traditional assessment of learning structures and in relation to our aim of developing students’ creative capacities. I then consider the practice of constructing performance assessments that maintain criteria that encourage creative development rather than limit it. Thus my purpose in writing this article is to provide both a theoretical rationale for assessment integration in the arts as well as a practical approach to arts assessment that works within the current structures of assessment in schools.