Standardised educational assessments are now widespread, yet their development has given comparatively more consideration to what to assess than how to optimally assess students’ competencies. Existing evidence from behavioural studies with children and neuroscience studies with adults suggest that the method of assessment may affect neural processing and performance, but current evidence remains limited. To investigate the impact of assessment methods on neural processing and performance in young children, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify and quantify the neural correlates during performance across a range of current approaches to standardised spelling assessment. Results indicated that children’s test performance declined as the cognitive load of assessment method increased. Activation of neural nodes associated with working memory further suggests that this performance decline may be a consequence of a higher cognitive load, rather than the complexity of the content. These findings provide insights into principles of assessment (re)design, to ensure assessment results are an accurate reflection of students’ true levels of competency.

标准化的教育评估现在很普遍，但是相对于如何最佳地评估学生的能力，标准化的教育评估更多地考虑了评估内容。来自儿童行为研究和成人神经科学研究的现有证据表明，评估方法可能会影响神经加工和表现，但目前的证据仍然有限。为了调查评估方法对幼儿神经处理和性能的影响，我们使用功能磁共振成像来识别和量化当前各种标准化拼写评估方法在性能过程中的神经相关性。结果表明，随着测评方法认知负荷的增加，儿童的测验成绩下降。与工作记忆相关的神经节点的激活进一步表明，这种性能下降可能是由于较高的认知负荷而不是内容的复杂性的结果。这些发现提供了对评估（重新）设计原理的见解，以确保评估结果准确反映出学生的实际能力水平。