The recently established Network 1 for Educational Measurement and Assessment was present for the first time in a NERA conference organised in Turku 4 to 6 March 2020. The participation was even more active that the network conveners had dared to hope for. We also had an active network meeting with more than 20 participants from all Nordic countries. In the meeting, we discussed the aims and the scope of the network, planned future activities and revised the public descriptions of the network to be updated on this website in the near future.
After the opening session and the first keynote, we launched the network activities by having an inaugural symposium organised by the network conveners. Jeppe Bundsgaard, Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen, Rolf Vegar Olsen og Christina Wikström had a presentation about the history and the current state of national assessments in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden (respectively) to be followed by an excellent discussion by Sigrid Blömeke from the Centre for Educational Measurement of the University of Oslo. The symposium also provoked an intensive discussion among the more than 30 participants of the session cramped into a far too small seminar room.
The following paper sessions gave a good overview of the various themes and research topics related to the focus area of the network. We had got enough high-quality submissions to fill five paper sessions, which in fact made us one of the most active networks in the whole conference. This was the final confirmation for the whole community that there was really a need for this network! So let’s together keep it going also in the following years – not only in NERA conferences but also as joint discussions, meetings and publications for instance in special issues planned in the network meeting.
Looking forward to future collaboration!
NERA NETWORK 1 