Evidence That Matters: Designing Digital Assessment

Design digital assessment from the learning claim backwards: choose valid evidence, use technology for a clear reason, reduce construct-irrelevant barriers and build feedback loops that change what happens next.

• Start with the learning claim, not the digital format — Assessment design begins by deciding what you need to know about learner capability.
• Choose a task that can reveal the evidence you need — Different response formats reveal different kinds and depths of learning.
• Make the digital contribution explicit — Digitising an assessment should change something useful, not merely move the same task onto a screen.
• Build evidence into a formative loop — Assessment for learning matters when evidence changes what teachers or learners do next.
• Balance validity, reliability, fairness and manageability — Assessment quality is a set of trade-offs that should be made deliberately rather than hidden by a platform score.