The Quality Turn: Political and Methodological Challenges in Contemporary Educational Evaluation and Assessment1

Abstract

In December 1972 a group of scholars engaged in educational evaluation and curriculum reform assembled, in what was later to be called the Cambridge conference, to challenge what they viewed as the then “traditional style of evaluation” (MacDonald & Parlett 1973:74). Their aim was to develop guidelines for the future of educational evaluation, and to challenge the traditional evaluation style. In the present policy context, it is instructive to revisit the manifesto that summarised this conference MacDonald & Parlett 1973) to see what these scholars wanted to challenge, what they viewed as problematic and what they wanted to promote.