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Research evidence suggests that appropriate use of formative assessment promotes effective learning. Improved learning occurs when assessment is viewed as integral to learning, and when it is supported by coherent assessment systems. Although assessment systems designed primarily around the formative purpose can provide both formative and summative information, a tension exists in practice between the summative and formative purposes of assessment. Using a theoretical framework developed by Sadler (1989), this research project investigated whether New Zealand’s new secondary school Standards-Based Assessment qualification—the National Certificate Educational Achievement (NCEA)—has the potential to satisfy both summative and formative purposes of assessment in mathematics. Theorising from a contemporary sociocultural perspective of learning, this project recognised the situated nature and interpersonal dimension of knowledge, and the impact of the social environment in promoting and directing learning. Theorising from this perspective offered opportunities to examine classroom assessment practices from a new perspective. To date, insufficient attention has been paid to the ‘students’ voice’ concerning educational matters that directly affect them. Given the situated nature of students’ engagement with formative practices a case study approach was used to investigate students’ perceptions of the formative potential of NCEA mathematics assessment tasks. Three Y12 mathematics classes from an urban secondary school formed the case study singularity for this study. Focus group interviews with nine students were conducted across the year, complemented by classroom observations, a focus group interview with the teachers, and a quantitative questionnaire with all students in each of the three Year 12 mathematics classes. An examination of the philosophical and structural design of NCEA revealed a strong potential for it to serve a duality of both formative and summative purpose of assessment. However the formative potential of NCEA was yet to be fully realised in the case study classrooms. Students’ underdeveloped knowledge of assessment criteria effectively reduced the potential for students’ independent use of self assessment strategies. This project also identified that teachers and students held differing views on preferred feedback practices. The teachers perceived that students did not read written feedback, and this perception significantly influenced the amount of written feedback that they offered to students. In contrast, students clearly displayed that they read, valued and used scaffolded written feedback to improve their learning. While the teachers preferred to offer oral feedback, students preferred to engage with their peers to use feedback to develop corrective strategies and deepen learning. The project has made a number of practical and theoretical suggestions to improve students’ understandings of the assessment criteria they are working towards, and to more effectively integrate the collaborative use of formative feedback into students’ learning experiences. In particular, it has suggested two additional perspectives on the development and use of formative assessment in a sociocultural learning environment. Firstly, that students’ knowledge of the role of formative assessment is socially and contextually situated, and develops through the social interactions that occur in the classroom. Secondly, the potential exists for formative assessment practices to stimulate collaborative learning opportunities within communities of practice.

Statistical covariation refers to the correspondence of variation of two statistical measures that vary along numerical scales. Reasoning about covariation commonly involves translation processes among three representations: (1) numerical data, (2) graphical representations, and (3) verbal statements such as "taller people tend to be heavier". Two well-known translations are graph production and graph interpretation. Less well known is the process of speculative data generation, involving translating a verbal statement into a possible graph or other data representation. This study explored school students' reasoning involving these three translation skills through various tasks in surveys and interviews. Evidence is presented concerning methods to assess these skills, and concerning how students as young as third-grade can engage covariation tasks involving familiar contexts. Interviews involved prompting for cognitive conflict using responses from other students, and provided evidence of limited engagement of ideas that were slightly more sophisticated than their own responses. Responses for each of the three translation skills were described within assessment frameworks involving four levels - Nonstatistical, Single Statistical Aspect, Inadequate Covariation, and Appropriate Covariation - distinguished by the structure of combining correspondence and variation. Distinguishing features of the levels suggested stages of development that may inform instruction. For development from prior beliefs to data-based judgements, tasks involving counterintuitive covariation were designed to prompt students to engage data. For development from single variables to bivariate data, time was observed as a natural covariate, implicit in statements such as "it's getting hotter", with a connotation of order that supported pattern recognition of passing time being associated with corresponding change in a measured variable. For development from single cases to global trends, many students represented correspondence in a single pair of values, at the expense of representing variation. Tasks involving discrete data with few cases, and the use of case labels in responses, were observed to support the view of two data values each linked to the same corresponding case label. This consolidated view of correspondence supported consideration of additional bivariate cases involving variation. Students tended to articulate covariation using the language of comparison and change. Findings were related to issues in the historical development of coordinate graphing, to findings from educational research in statistics, algebra, science and psychology, and to recommendations within curriculum documents. Student representations of statistical covariation were observed to provide a window into statistical reasoning, and are advocated as a valuable basis for classroom discussions to help develop statistical literacy.

'Policy gaps' in education mean that the visions of policy-makers frequently fail to materialise fully, or at all, in teacher practice. This thesis argues that a significant 'policy gap' developed in New Zealand around school qualifications policy during the 1990's, and puts forward some explanations for that. A significant shift in government discourses over that period, from largely social democratic to predominantly neo-liberal discourses, was not matched by a similar shift in the discourses of teachers or the union that represents them. During the same period, teachers and their representative bodies were excluded from policy development, reflecting this shift in government discourses. Government and teachers were 'talking past each other'. As a result, qualifications reforms that might have been expected to be generally welcomed by the profession, as a government response to calls from the profession over many decades, were instead rejected by the majority of teachers. Furthermore, the absence of the teacher voice from policy development meant that the shape of the reforms moved significantly away from the profession's original vision, a further reason for its unacceptability to teachers. Reform was only able to be achieved when teachers and their union were brought back into the policy-making and policy-communicating processes and a version of standards-based assessment closer to the union's original vision was adopted by government. Nevertheless, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement that resulted appears to still be perceived by teachers as externally imposed and its origins in the profession's advocacy for reform over many years have been lost. This indicates that 'policy gaps', while easily opened, are not as easily closed.

Recent research has challenged the way in which personality and attitude constructs are measured. Alternatives have been offered as to how non-cognitive responses are modeled, the mode of delivery used when administrating such scales, and the impact of technology in measuring personality. Thus, the major purpose of the studies in this thesis concerns two interrelated issues of personality research, namely the way personality responses are best modeled, and the most optimal mode by which personality items are presented and associated modal issues. Three studies are presented. First, recent developments using an ideal point approach to scale construction are outlined, and an empirical study compares modeling personality items based on an ideal point approach (generalized graded unfolding model; GGUM) and a dominance approach (graded response model: GRM). Second, an extensive review of literature pertaining to the mode effect when transferring paper-and-pencil measures to screen was conducted, in addition to a review of the various types of computerized and innovative items and their associated psychometric information. Finally, nine innovative items were developed using various multimedia features (e.g., video, graphics, and audio) to ascertain the advantages of these methods to present items constructed to elicit response behavior underlying ideal point approaches, namely, typical response behavior. It was found that the dominance IRT model continued to produce superior model-data fit for most items, more attention needs to be placed on developing principles for constructing ideal point type items, the web-based version supplied 20% more construct information than the paper version, and innovative items seem to provide more data-model fit for students with lower personality attributes. While the innovative items may require more initial outlay in terms of time and development costs, they have the capacity to provide more information regarding test-takers’ personality levels, potentially using fewer items.

Recent research has challenged the way in which personality and attitude constructs are measured. Alternatives have been offered as to how non-cognitive responses are modeled, the mode of delivery used when administrating such scales, and the impact of technology in measuring personality. Thus, the major purpose of the studies in this thesis concerns two interrelated issues of personality research, namely the way personality responses are best modeled, and the most optimal mode by which personality items are presented and associated modal issues. Three studies are presented. First, recent developments using an ideal point approach to scale construction are outlined, and an empirical study compares modeling personality items based on an ideal point approach (generalized graded unfolding model; GGUM) and a dominance approach (graded response model: GRM). Second, an extensive review of literature pertaining to the mode effect when transferring paper-and-pencil measures to screen was conducted, in addition to a review of the various types of computerized and innovative items and their associated psychometric information. Finally, nine innovative items were developed using various multimedia features (e.g., video, graphics, and audio) to ascertain the advantages of these methods to present items constructed to elicit response behavior underlying ideal point approaches, namely, typical response behavior. It was found that the dominance IRT model continued to produce superior model-data fit for most items, more attention needs to be placed on developing principles for constructing ideal point type items, the web-based version supplied 20% more construct information than the paper version, and innovative items seem to provide more data-model fit for students with lower personality attributes. While the innovative items may require more initial outlay in terms of time and development costs, they have the capacity to provide more information regarding test-takers’ personality levels, potentially using fewer items.

Recent research has challenged the way in which personality and attitude constructs are measured. Alternatives have been offered as to how non-cognitive responses are modeled, the mode of delivery used when administrating such scales, and the impact of technology in measuring personality. Thus, the major purpose of the studies in this thesis concerns two interrelated issues of personality research, namely the way personality responses are best modeled, and the most optimal mode by which personality items are presented and associated modal issues. Three studies are presented. First, recent developments using an ideal point approach to scale construction are outlined, and an empirical study compares modeling personality items based on an ideal point approach (generalized graded unfolding model; GGUM) and a dominance approach (graded response model: GRM). Second, an extensive review of literature pertaining to the mode effect when transferring paper-and-pencil measures to screen was conducted, in addition to a review of the various types of computerized and innovative items and their associated psychometric information. Finally, nine innovative items were developed using various multimedia features (e.g., video, graphics, and audio) to ascertain the advantages of these methods to present items constructed to elicit response behavior underlying ideal point approaches, namely, typical response behavior. It was found that the dominance IRT model continued to produce superior model-data fit for most items, more attention needs to be placed on developing principles for constructing ideal point type items, the web-based version supplied 20% more construct information than the paper version, and innovative items seem to provide more data-model fit for students with lower personality attributes. While the innovative items may require more initial outlay in terms of time and development costs, they have the capacity to provide more information regarding test-takers’ personality levels, potentially using fewer items.

Recent research has challenged the way in which personality and attitude constructs are measured. Alternatives have been offered as to how non-cognitive responses are modeled, the mode of delivery used when administrating such scales, and the impact of technology in measuring personality. Thus, the major purpose of the studies in this thesis concerns two interrelated issues of personality research, namely the way personality responses are best modeled, and the most optimal mode by which personality items are presented and associated modal issues. Three studies are presented. First, recent developments using an ideal point approach to scale construction are outlined, and an empirical study compares modeling personality items based on an ideal point approach (generalized graded unfolding model; GGUM) and a dominance approach (graded response model: GRM). Second, an extensive review of literature pertaining to the mode effect when transferring paper-and-pencil measures to screen was conducted, in addition to a review of the various types of computerized and innovative items and their associated psychometric information. Finally, nine innovative items were developed using various multimedia features (e.g., video, graphics, and audio) to ascertain the advantages of these methods to present items constructed to elicit response behavior underlying ideal point approaches, namely, typical response behavior. It was found that the dominance IRT model continued to produce superior model-data fit for most items, more attention needs to be placed on developing principles for constructing ideal point type items, the web-based version supplied 20% more construct information than the paper version, and innovative items seem to provide more data-model fit for students with lower personality attributes. While the innovative items may require more initial outlay in terms of time and development costs, they have the capacity to provide more information regarding test-takers’ personality levels, potentially using fewer items.