Generalise not specialise: design implications for a national assessment bank

Within the framework of the Assessment is for Learning (AifL) programme1, two systems of national assessment are currently operating in Scottish schools: on-demand 5-14 National Assessments and the sample-based Scottish Survey of Achievement. This paper will discuss issues surrounding the design of an assessment bank intended to support both systems.2 It focuses in particular on the considerations underlying decisions about the structure of the shared materials database, the complex definition of an “item” that had to be adopted in order to accommodate a wide range of assessment types, the overall architecture of the wider information system, with its component databases (one being the bank) and information management subsystems, and the tensions arising from the need to accommodate the requirements of different systems of assessment while avoiding the dangers involved in data repetition and redundancy.