Grace: Hi Amir! Welcome to Singapore and to NIE! Would you like to introduce yourself to the readers of AFAL?
Amir: I was born and grew up in a mountainous region with an opportunity to experience four seasons in the North-West of Iran. I did all my studies in Iran with specialization in Applied Linguistics and then moved to Canada (Queen’s University) to do my PhD in Education with a specialization in Educational Assessment. I then joined the University of Alberta and spent two years as a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Measurement program. During my doctoral studies, I had the chance to be the visiting student scholar in Australian Catholic University in Brisbane, where I contributed to examining classroom assessments for students with disability. I am now a lecturer in Educational Assessment in Learning Sciences and Assessment Academic Group in NIE, Singapore.
Grace: Happy to have you join us at LSA! How has your time been in Singapore?
Amir: It has been three months that I have been in Singapore so far. It is rather a limited time to appreciate the complexity of Singaporean education and society. In my interactions with graduate students (which are largely teachers) and visits to a few schools, I have noticed that Singapore teachers are very keen into continuing learning about various aspects, theories, and practices of educational assessment. Singapore is undergoing a policy reform towards assessment for learning and schools are trying to find their unique ways of engaging with this reform. It is exciting to be part of this reform and observe the many possibilities and potentials arising from enacting this policy. So, one of my biggest learnings in this short time was to think more about assessment leadership.
Grace: I am sure many of our readers are interested in learning about classroom assessment. What are some research areas that you are interested in?
Amir: My area of research is fairness and justice in Educational Assessment. I try to understand how assessment systems contribute to notions of justice in society and how notions of justice underpin various assessment practices. In this space, I analyze how assessment in schools can contribute to or can undermine the cause of justice in society given the significance of K-12 education as a key societal venue for undermining social and economic inequalities. I build on teachers, students, parents, principals, and researchers’ notions of justice to map out this space so that we better appreciate what justice values are being discoursed and enacted in educational assessment. From this space, there is a hope to build a more plural understanding of justice that caters better to various dimensions and diversities of our societies. I share all this understanding with teachers in my classes to mobilize fairer practices in classroom assessment. In addition, I am interested in assessment literacy, validity theory, and the philosophies underpinning the scientific and political dimensions of assessment theory.
Grace: I am definitely looking forward to learning more from you in the area of fairness and justice in Educational Assessment. Any further thoughts or advice would you like to share with our readers?
Amir: I do not think this is really any advice; however, I think we really need to sometime undermine our focus on procedures and outcomes and measure success in schools through only these two ways of discoursing and doing. Sometimes, it would be good to reflect also on what underpins assessment ideas and why they are the way they are. For teachers, this means why I practice the assessment the way I am doing. For students, this means what assessment means to me. For parents, this means whether grades are the only things that count and what would potentially go missing in their child’s education with such dominant focus. This will expand the ways we think about good assessment in addition to procedures and outcomes it produces.
Grace: Thank you once again for your time!