Addressing the challenge of STEM skills assessment

A major new €2.3 million EU funded project that launched in Dublin City University earlier this week is aiming to address the challenges in STEM education across Europe.

Representatives from thirteen partner organisations, from eight countries across Europe gathered for the inaugural meeting at DCU's St Patrick's Campus, Drumcondra.

The project is the largest of its kind in Europe and funded under the Erasmus+ call Key Action 3: Policy experimentations in the area of formative digital assessment.

Project partners include Dublin City University, the Department of Education and Skills, University of Tampere, University of Santiago, University of Cyprus, Danube University Krems in Austria, the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, the National Education Institute Slovenia, Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, Municipality of Haninge Sweden, Galician Department of Education, University and Vocational Training, GO! Council of Flemish Education, Kildare Education Centre and Irish industry partner H2 Learning. The DCU team comprises of Dr Eamon Costello, Associate Professor Eilish McLoughlin, Professor Deirdre Butler and Professor Michael O'Leary.

The project focuses on experimenting with digital assessment strategies in STEM Education.

It will develop a conceptual framework for STEM Education to guide the creation and testing of learning and assessment activities in schools. Digital technology will underpin the creation and utilisation of these tasks in 120 schools across seven countries.

Detailed research evaluation of the field trials will be carried out to find out what works and why. DCU draws on the expertise of key researchers and research centres in its leadership of the ambitious project; specifically,

The National Institute for Digital Learning , CARPE - The Centre for Assessment Research Policy and Practice in Education and CASTeL – the Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning.

In launching the project DCU President, Professor Brian MacCraith, spoke of the strong commitment to STEM education, digital learning and assessment at DCU but also praised the ambitious scope of the project partnership and its potential to impact STEM education.

“The close cooperation of researchers, teachers and Education Ministries in each participating country should ensure that the outcomes of this project are practical, scalable and deliverable.

In addition, the scale of the initiative across eight EU member states has the potential to develop new solutions that will significantly impact on the future of STEM Education in Europe.”

*The project is co-funded by the Erasamus + programme of the European Union