Underlag till ramverk för en provbank i grundskolan

Abstract

An analysis of item banks for the development of an item-bank framework for Swedish compulsory school

This report compares and analyzes a selection of item banks with regard to the proposed purposes of a future item bank for Swedish compulsory school. Several purposes are presented, but the formative purpose, with its potential to support schools and teachers in their efforts to help the students reach the national goals, is seen as the most important. The item bank can realize this purpose by making the goals clearer and more specific. Furthermore, an item bank can aid the students in reaching the national goals by providing high-quality tasks; assessing students’ strengths and weaknesses. An item bank can also contribute to increased agreement between different assessors, with regard to student fulfilment of the national goals, by showing how the national goals can be assessed. This, however, might be restricted to the tasks provided by the item bank. On condition that the proposed item bank includes resources for developing teachers’ assessment competence in a more general way, both formative and summative purposes for classroom assessment can be favoured. That the item bank could indeed have this function is shown by the analysis of international experiences.