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3. The impact of assessment on learning has been more negative than we normally care to admit

• Assessment is not simply a technical act of measurement that leaves the student uninfluenced.

• It is the intervention that has the single greatest impact on them.

• This impact is not only a cognitive one, but deeply affects students. It causes them to avoid some areas of knowledge and learning, it ferments emotional barriers to learning and it influences major decisions about life choices. It encourages and, more significantly, discourages. It distorts what people can and cannot do.