Paper for TSG 27 in ICME

The advantages of computer-based assessment are most often framed in terms of the convenience and flexibility of the delivery system and the speed and reliability of marking. One assumption behind those arguments is that the assessment items themselves will be little different from those in paper and pencil tests. Yet computers offer the potential for a very different experience, and computer-based instruction often has much larger ambitions for learning. This proposal focuses on an attempt within the constraints of a mark-based mathematics test to develop computer items that utilise the potential of computers for dynamic and interactive working. It considers how the mathematics that is manifested (and therefore assessed) in such contexts may be different from that arising in conventional assessments. Introduction The assessment items to be considered in this paper are all taken from the computer-based element of the World Class Tests in mathematics (www.worldclassarena.org) which have been developed to assess the abilities and skills of the highest achieving students at ages 9 and 13. All of the assessment items in the World Class Tests are related to the curriculum that students of these ages are generally expected to have mastered, although each of them requires an application of students’ expected knowledge in an unusual and demanding way. Although the computer-based tests do contain some items that are conventional in form, and could have been administered on paper, the article focuses on items which were developed as an attempt to make use of some of the power of the computer to operate dynamically, albeit constrained by the context of a mark-based, time limited test that demands a clear definition of a correct response. The possibilities for interaction that the use of dynamic functionality opens up mean that although each of the items was developed with conventional mathematics assessment criteria in mind, the performance of students on them may reflect subtly different competences.