Innovative performance – how can it be assessed?

In 2004 the Technology Education Research Unit (TERU) at Goldsmiths College in London developed a system of evaluative methods which measure and reward innovative performance (possessing ideas, developing ideas, as well as evidentially testing ideas). Together with Professor Richard Kimbell (Goldsmiths College) a group of researchers from Sweden have tested this evaluative tool in a Swedish upper secondary school. The Swedish research project involved a testing series based on the TERU assessment methods as well as studies carried out with pupils/students and teachers alike, revealing their thoughts on assessment issues in general. Some preliminary results from this very first application of TERU’s assessment tool outside the UK, are presented in this paper.