Educational Assessment in Norway—A Time of Change

Abstract

This chapter discusses the context, problems, historical background and new approaches to student assessment in Norway. Few countries have seen the ideological fights over student assessment that has occurred in Norway, where formal grading was attempted abolition in lower secondary school in the 1970s. While the initiative did not result in immediate changes, the controversy has remained a latent conflict that typically ignites when new educational reforms are introduced. Following implementation of the major educational reform 'the Knowledge Promotion' of 2006, the government has introduced new regulations for student assessment. The initiative can be seen as a response to numerous issues regarding student assessment, such as comparability of teachers' judgments, external examinations and formative feedback. In the chapter it is argued that lack of theoretical foundation of the approaches to student assessment is one of the main causes for the problems that Norway faces in educational assessment.