Educational assessments define what aspects of learning will formally be given credit and therefore have a huge impact upon teaching and learning. Although the impact of high-stakes national and international assessments on teaching and learning is considered in the literature, remarkably, there is little research on the connection between theories of learning and educational assessments. Given the voluminous assessment that takes place annually in systematic ways in most many nations, it is surprising that more has not been gained from these assessments in the development of theories of learning and vice versa. In this article we consider both theories of learning and assessment and draw the main message of the article, that if assessments are to serve the goals of education, then theories of learning and assessment should be developing more closely with each other. We consider fundamental aspects of assessment theory, such as constructs, unidimensionality, invariance and quantifiability, and in doing so, we distinguish between educational and psychological assessment. Second, we show how less traditionally considered cases of a) international assessments and b) Assessment for Learning affect student learning. Through these cases we illustrate the otherwise somewhat theoretical discussion in the article. We argue that if assessment is to serve the learning goals of education, then this discussion on the relationship between assessment and learning should be developed further and be at the forefront of high-stakes, large-scale educational assessments.

International large-scale assessments are on the rise, with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seen by many as having strategic prominence in education policy debates. The present article reviews PISA-related English-language peer-reviewed articles from the programme's first cycle in 2000 to its most current in 2015. Five literature bases were searched, and results were analysed with SPSS. Results map the frequency of publications according to journal, country, and scientific discipline. They also summarise major themes within three identified categories: secondary analysis, policy impact, and critiques. Findings indicated that studies based on the PISA dataset has led to progress in educational research while simultaneously pointing to the need for caution when using this research to inform educational policy.

Peer assessment has been the subject of considerable research interest over the last three decades, with numerous educational researchers advocating for the integration of peer assessment into schools and instructional practice. Research synthesis in this area has, however, largely relied on narrative reviews to evaluate the efficacy of peer assessment. Here, we present a meta-analysis (54 studies, k = 141) of experimental and quasiexperimental studies that evaluated the effect of peer assessment on academic performance in primary, secondary, or tertiary students across subjects and domains. An overall small to medium effect of peer assessment on academic performance was found (g = 0.31, p < .001). The results suggest that peer assessment improves academic performance compared with no assessment (g = 0.31, p = .004) and teacher assessment (g = 0.28, p = .007), but was not significantly different in its effect from self-assessment (g = 0.23, p = .209). Additionally, meta-regressions examined the moderating effects of several feedback and educational characteristics (e.g., online vs offline, frequency, education level). Results suggested that the effectiveness of peer assessment was remarkably robust across a wide range of contexts. These findings provide support for peer assessment as a formative practice and suggest several implications for the implementation of peer assessment into the classroom.

Background PISA results appear to have a large impact upon government policy.

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