Finnish Experiences Of OECD’s International Assessment Of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the implementation of International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) in Finland and to highlight ethical considerations of large-scale international assessments. The Finnish results of the AHELO feasibility study show that a fully-fledged project is possible to carry if special attention is paid to the participation of students in test sessions, if enough time is reserved for the implementation phase and if scoring of open-ended questions is carefully carried out and monitored.It is, however, important that large-scale international assessmentssuch as AHELO do not start to colonialise and converge understandings of what is considered a desirable end result, promote conceptions of ‘good’ teaching and learning in higher education and hence become (un)intentionally a powerful political tool to steer and justify national educational reforms.