Curating Provocative Engagements with Assessment in Education: A Mysterious Thing

This study intervenes in commonsensical ways of exploring and understanding educational assessment within an audit culture of measurement. Drawing on sociomateriality and methodological approaches associated with material culture and narrative inquiry, we curated an exhibition based on interviews with 13 informants and the things they brought to convey their assessment experiences. Based on analysis of their narratives, we clustered our findings and organised them into a gallery of two thing-centred installations: "Assessment and Tools," and "Assessment and Arts/Crafts." Curating the gallery led us to a creative way of articulating concerns about excessive assessment into a thing-interview protocol to be used in future inquiry, involving interviews with people and things. We showcase these installations, along with interview prompts, as an online exhibition. The aim is to continue the conversation on the future of assessment in connection to purposeful, equity-oriented education.