Introducing ipsative assessment and personal learning gain: Voices from practitioners and the themes of the collection

Abstract

Ipsative assessment rewards progress rather than achievement and potentially motivates and empowers all learners not only the high fliers, but it has yet to become common practice. Learning gain is a measure of the distance travelled between two or more points in a programme of learning and can be used for ipsative summative assessment. This chapter introduces and explores these terms to support the purpose of the collection: to provide a professional evidence base for expanding and supporting ipsative assessment in schools, colleges and universities. Four themes are introduced for a meta-analysis of the case studies and the chapter illustrates these themes with examples. These themes include: enhancing learning through ispative feedback, how to measure personal learning gain, identifying the implementation challenges including frictions between ipsative and conventional assessment practice. The chapter finishes by mapping out the case studies in terms of the type of ipsative assessment covered as well as the institutional and national context to help the reader navigate the collection.