Professional development opportunity for members of AEA-Europe!

A series of webinars - on-line seminars : a chance to learn in the comfort of your own home or office

You will be able to listen to the speaker, and see any illustrations and slides that are used. You will also be able to ask questions and make comments - and hear the contributions of the others attending the webinar too. All you have to do to take part is register (see below). After that you will receive instructions on how to be present when the webinar(s) of your choice are taking place.

This years webinars are all based on papers given at the last AEA-Europe conference, held in Malta. All webinars start at 10 am GMT, so please check your local time!

The webinars are as follows.

1 Monday, 19th April 2010, 10:00 am GMT Presenter: Frans Kleintjes, CITO, The Netherlands

IRT and its role in test construction Item Response Theory describes how to model student responses in tests.

In this presentation various aspects of item response modeling will be illustrated. Simple examples of fitting item curves will be shown to get a feeling of the probabilistic nature of the modeling. Frans will explain how the results of the modeling can be used in selecting items in the construction of educational assessments instruments.

2 Wednesday, 26th May 2010, 10:00 am GMT Presenter: Marian Sainsbury, NFER, UK

E-assessment for schools: from innovation to integration

This presentation tells the story of a formative e-assessment, starting with its conception, continuing to its realisation and finally tracing its introduction and integration into primary schools. It includes a demonstration of the assessment and reflections on the barriers and benefits of low-stakes e-assessment for primary schools.

3 Thursday, 15th July 2010, 10:00 am GMT Presenters: Alastair Pollitt and Ayesha Ahmed, Cambridge, UK

The Importance of being valid

Current models of validity are not helpful to those who are most involved in ensuring validity in assessment - the professionals who create the tests and the items, who mark students' responses, or who grade the resulting scores. In this presentation we offer a useful model that views validity in terms of how well we measure what is considered 'important' in a subject: validity is highest at the start of the assessment process, but drops at each step; every participant is expected to keep the level of validity as high as possible as they carry out their particular part of the process.

Validity is everyone's responsibility.

All members will receive invitations with a registration button nearer to the time of each webinar. Important for Corporate Members: If you want to have invitations sent directly to staff of your firm or institution please send an e-mail with their names and e-mail addresses to Naomi Rowe at NFER (n.rowe@nfer.ac.uk), and she will put them on the mailing list. You can also later on forward your invitation to them.

If this message has roused your interest then look out for your personal invitation for the first webinar that will explain how to register and how to prepare to take part from your own pc at home or work!