Assessment is undergoing a paradigm shift, from psychometrics to a broader model of educational assessment, from a testing and examination culture to an assessment culture. This article explores three assessment paradigms: psychometric paradigm, contextual paradigm, and personalized paradigm. Understanding different assessment paradigms can help us carefully decide how we attempt to discover what students know and we can do. Furthermore, assessment and learning are intimately intertwined and often indistinguishable from one another. Three relations between assessment and learning are discussed: “assessment of learning”, “assessment learning”, and “assessment as learning”. These three approaches all contribute to student learning but in vastly different ways. All three assessment approaches have their place; to maintain the right balance is the key challenge. It is important to understand them all, recognize the inevitable contradictions among them, and know which one you are using and why. Finally, implication and reflection on assessment paradigms are discussed.
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