Key Topics Covered

From Data Availability to Instructional Value

The Teacher’s Construct of Digital Assessment Literacy Explained

Digital Assessment Literacy in Teacher Development Policy

Mapping TALiDE Roles to Policy Levers

Digital Assessment Literacy as a Strategic Professional Capacity

The importance of teachers’ assessment literacy was first formally articulated in the Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students (American Federation of Teachers et al., 1990), which established assessment competence as a foundational requirement for effective teaching and shared professional practice. At the time, the focus was clear: teachers needed to understand assessment in order to support learning fairly and responsibly.

Three decades later, the context has fundamentally changed, especially with the increased use of digital assessments and tech advancements in the assessment domain, such as learning management systems, adaptive assessment tools, and data dashboards integrated in everyday classroom practice. To illustrate this shift, in traditional conceptions of teachers’ assessment literacy, the focus was largely on authoring assessments, administering them, and sharing results. In contrast, digital assessment literacy involves managing larger volumes of real-time, granular data and using this evidence to inform immediate instructional and system-level decisions. In short, modern assessment practices are now mainly understood as digital platforms, online formative tools, and integrated reporting systems, and system-level awareness that shape how evidence of learning is generated, accessed and interpreted. While these technological advances have expanded the availability of data, they have also reshaped what it means for teachers to be assessment literate in a digitally rich environment. 

The concept of teachers’ digital assessment literacy draws on established definitions of assessment literacy (Popham, 2009) and extends it into digital contexts. According to the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu), digitally competent educators are expected to demonstrate competence across six areas, one of which - Area 4: Assessment defines three core competence dimensions: (1) assessment strategies, (2) analysing evidence, and (3) feedback and planning (DigCompEdu, Redecker & Punie, 2017). More recently, one study has extended this definition to a more granular level by articulating specific roles within digital assessment literacy, referred to as Teacher Assessment Literacy in Digital Environments (TALiDE) (Banitalebi, Estaji, & Brown, 2025), which we will also explore in this article.

This article reflects on how strengthening teachers’ digital assessment literacy, specifically their capacity to access, interpret, and act on assessment evidence has become a strategic condition for moving toward digital transformation in education.

From Data Availability to Instructional Value

Education systems often focus on collecting assessment data, but challenges remain in turning those results into practice. From a system perspective, many content-focused education systems have long prioritised the availability of assessment data, often in the form of scores used for comparison, accountability, or selection (OECD, 2013). However, without sufficient emphasis on interpretation, such data tend to reinforce linear judgments rather than inform teaching and learning. As a result, the instructional potential of assessment data remains underutilised. Teacher education and professional development have historically placed less weight on data interpretation, reflecting the field’s strong social and humanities-oriented traditions and a limited integration of quantitative reasoning into pedagogical practice. This creates a critical policy challenge: clarifying what teachers at different stages of their professional careers need to know and be able to do in order to use digitally generated assessment evidence. The discussion that follows examines what teachers at different levels need in order to translate digital assessment data into instructional action.

At the same time, digital assessment literacy increasingly requires teachers to situate their classroom-level evidence within a broader frame of reference. Teachers are now more frequently exposed to indicators that relate student learning not only to individual progress, but also to school-, district-, and national-level benchmarks, enabling comparisons with average learning outcomes across contexts. This introduces an additional dimension of literacy: the capacity to interpret local classroom data alongside aggregated system data, and to understand how individual teaching practices contribute to wider patterns of learning and equity at city, regional, or national levels. When supported appropriately, this perspective can strengthen teachers’ sense of professional agency, helping them see their instructional decisions as part of a larger educational picture rather than as isolated classroom outcomes.

The Teacher’s Construct of Digital Assessment Literacy Explained

The TALiDE construct (Banitalebi, Estaji, & Brown, 2025) captures the multidimensional roles and competencies teachers need to use assessment effectively in digitally mediated contexts. The authors developed a scenario-based inventory that identifies five core competence domains summarising teachers’ roles in digital assessment: Judge, Communicator, Moral Agent, Knower, and Technologist. Each role reflects distinct aspects of assessment practice and includes facets such as attitudes, agency, access to resources, training needs, and actual classroom practices in digital environments. This framework emphasises that teachers’ assessment literacy in digital settings is not a single skill but a complex constellation of knowledge, professional dispositions, and improved practices important for interpreting and using digital assessment data meaningfully.

Digital Assessment Literacy in Teacher Development Policy

Since teachers are now expected to act as judges, communicators, moral agents, knowers, and technologists, policy makers should ask a simple but consequential question: do current teacher development policies recognise and support these roles in practice? In many education systems, professional development remains organised more around tools, platforms, or short-term training inputs, than around the professional judgments teachers are expected to exercise in digitally mediated assessment environments. A TALiDE-informed policy approach requires shifting attention from what technologies teachers are trained to use to what decisions teachers are expected to make with assessment evidence. 

From a policy perspective, this implies several practical directions, explained below: 

1. Strengthening Professional Judgment and Interpretation. Professional development frameworks should be designed to strengthen teachers’ professional judgment and interpretive capacity in digital assessment literacy, rather than focusing primarily on technical proficiency with tools. For example, in Singapore, lead teachers are expected to build the capacity of teachers and senior teachers in content, pedagogy, and assessment, with professional mastery in assessment and evaluation explicitly recognised as a key competency within the performance management framework (OECD, 2025, Summary of Education Systems: Singapore). In contrast, Japan’s Platform for Teachers and Staff Development integrates digital tools into professional learning to support reflection, collaboration, and system-level insight aligned with teachers’ professional judgment and continuous development (OECD, 2025, Summary of Education Systems: Japan). Both of these country cases point to a future policy direction in which professional development centres on digital assessment literacy as an ecosystem for personalised learning, professional judgment, and system awareness.

2. Recognising Communicative and Ethical Responsibilities. Policy makers should recognise the communicative and ethical dimensions of digital assessment. Assessment data increasingly mediate conversations with students, parents, and school leaders, raising questions of fairness, transparency, and appropriate use. In Ontario, government policy makes clear that “assessment, evaluation, and reporting practices and procedures must be fair, transparent, and equitable for all students” and that professional judgement in assessment is central to practice (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010, pp. 7, 11–13). These expectations align with broader principles of data ethics that call for responsible, equitable use of information (Canadian School of Public Service, 2024). 

3. Differentiating Support Across Career Stages. Teacher development policies should differentiate support across career stages, acknowledging that the needs of novice and experienced teachers differ. In high-performing systems such as Singapore, professional learning pathways are structured to progressively deepen teachers’ capacity to interpret evidence, design assessments, and make instructional decisions. 

The table below illustrates how the five TALiDE roles can be translated into concrete policy levers within teacher development frameworks, linking teachers’ professional responsibilities in digital assessment to system-level support mechanisms.

Mapping TALiDE Roles to Policy Levers

This mapping highlights how the TALiDE roles can be translated into concrete policy actions that support teachers’ professional practice in digitally mediated assessment and can serve as a checklist for policy makers to reflect on whether these actions are incorporated into their action plans or roadmaps.

Digital Assessment Literacy as a Strategic Professional Capacity

In conclusion, this article has shown that digital assessment literacy represents a fundamental shift in what it means to be assessment literate in contemporary education systems. As daily assessment practices are incorporated with digital platforms, real-time data, and system-level indicators, teachers’ roles expand beyond administering assessments to interpreting evidence, communicating with stakeholders, acting ethically, and situating classroom decisions within broader learning and equity contexts. In this context, frameworks such as DigCompEdu and TALiDE help clarify teachers’ roles within the digital assessment literacy and focus efforts on teacher development systems. Practically, mapping the TALiDE roles to concrete policy levers clearly illustrates how digital assessment literacy can be supported in an ecosystem of digitally mediated assessments and can serve as a checklist for policy makers to reflect on whether these actions are incorporated into their action plans or roadmaps. Ultimately, strengthening teachers’ digital assessment literacy will be a strategic investment in teacher professionalism, supporting a digital transformation in education grounded in learning, trust, and informed human judgment.

About the Author 

Vali Huseyn is an educational assessment expert and quality auditor, recognized for promoting excellence and reform-driven scaling in assessment organizations. He mentors edtech & assessment firms on reform-aligned scaling by promoting measurement excellence, drawing on his field expertise, government experience, and regional network.

He holds a master degree in educational policy from Boston University (USA) and Diploma of Educational Assessment from Durham University (UK). Vali has supported national reforms in Azerbaijan and, through his consultancy with AQA Global Assessment Services, works with Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic to align assessment systems with international benchmarks such as CEFR, PISA, and the UIS technical criteria. He also works as a quality auditor in partnership with RCEC, most recently audited CENEVAL in Mexico. In addition, he promotes awareness of the use of technology across the assessment cycle through his work with Vretta. Fluent in Azerbaijani, Russian, Turkish, and English, he brings a deep contextual understanding to cross-country projects.

If you would like to discuss your approaches to assessment modernisation or explore opportunities to showcase and promote your work, please feel free to contact Vali Huseyn at: vali.huseyn@vretta.com | LinkedIn

References

1. American Federation of Teachers, National Council on Measurement in Education, & National Education Association. (1990). Standards for teacher competence in educational assessment of students. Washington, DC: Author. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED323186 

2. Banitalebi, S., Estaji, M., & Brown, G. T. L. (2025). Measuring teacher assessment literacy in digital environments: Development and validation of a scenario-based instrument. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/386540145_Measuring_teacher_assessment_literacy_in_digital_environments_Development_and_validation_of_a_scenario-based_instrument 

3. Canadian School of Public Service. (2024). Data ethics 101. Government of Canada. https://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/tools/articles/data-ethics-101-eng.aspx 

4. OECD. (2025). Teacher professional learning: Drawing upon international practice for a future vision for Ukraine (Summary of education systems). OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/teacher-professional-learning_0cceeddf-en/full-report.html 

5. OECD. (2013). Synergies for better learning: An international perspective on evaluation and assessment (OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education). OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2013/04/synergies-for-better-learning_g1g274ba/9789264190658-en.pdf 

6. Ontario Ministry of Education. (2010). Growing success: Assessment, evaluation, and reporting in Ontario schools, Kindergarten to Grade 12. Queen’s Printer for Ontario. https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growSuccess.pdf 

7. Popham, W. J. (2009). Assessment literacy for teachers: Faddish or fundamental? Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 4–11. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00405840802577536 

8. Redecker, C., & Punie, Y. (2017). European framework for the digital competence of educators: DigCompEdu (EUR 28775 EN). Publications Office of the European Union. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC107466