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In Sweden the national tests are designed as a paper-based assessment, but some test parts give students the opportunity to present their proficiency orally and practically. In Sweden different universities are responsible for developing the national tests, commissioned by the National Agency of Education. In 2016 some universities were assigned to start the development of item examples for digital national tests. The idea is to gradually introduce digital national tests between 2018 and 2022. The tests are intended to measure student proficiency in relation to the Swedish curriculum and work as a support for consistent national assessment and grading.

A project group at Umeå University, which is responsible for the national science tests, has started work on a test model for a digital national test in science. The test model is supposed to be aligned with the curriculum and fulfil its national aim. The project group also wishes to fully challenge item types in the digital sphere, where e.g. animations, film clips such as courses of events and simulations are available.

The project group has in their process been inspired by the released digital item examples from PISA (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test/other-languages/) and SimScientists (http://simscientists.org/home/index.php). Inspiration also comes from ATC21S (Griffin, Patrick, McGaw, Barry, Care, Esther (Eds.) 2012 and (http://www.atc21s.org/). The project group now wishes to be part of a larger network for further development work.

Questions like what do different countries’ test systems look like, how do they build and ensure the quality of different item examples in a digital sphere, what do innovative digital item examples look like and how are they developed, need to be answered.

In the first session of the workshop the presenters will give an overview of the Swedish test system and will present what some concrete examples of innovative paper-based items in science look like in the tests.

In the second session the participants will have an opportunity to present some concrete examples of innovative items and share their knowledge, experiences and issues concerning the development and design of different types of innovative items in a paper-based and/or a computer-based test system. In this session the participants also will get the opportunity to answer the items. This opportunity will bring space for wider reflections around the developing potentiality.

The third session will focus on collaboration and development of ideas. During this session the participants will work in small groups with practical tasks. The purpose is to develop concrete suggestions of ideas for some selected items, and see how the digital format can be used to given the purpose of the items e.g. start formulating items based on ideas presented in earlier sessions and develop items from new ideas. 

In the fourth session each group will will be given an opportunity to provide feedback concerning the items discussed in session 3 in terms of opportunities, constraints, challenges and threats.

Finally we will summarize the sessions by discussing what to bear in mind when developing different types of innovative computer-based items, how to move forward and how to create a future international network.

Föreläsningen presenterar resultat, analyser och slutsatser från de fyra genomförda ämnesproven, 2009-2012, enligt Lpo94. Utifrån erfarenheter från ämnesproven 2009-2012 presenteras därefter en inblick i de nya ämnesproven enligt Lgr11, så som provens utformning, följt av en diskussion om de utmaningar, möjligheter och problem som proven medför.