ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1654674
This article is part of the Research TopicAI for Assessment, Testing and Applied MeasurementView all 3 articles
Advancing Digital Item Development in Asian Assessment Systems: Insights from Kazakhstan's Unified National Testing
Provisionally accepted
- 1The National Testing Center of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Astana, Kazakhstan
- 2Buketov Karaganda State University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
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This study on the possibility of adopting a digital platform for item development in Kazakhstan's Unified National Testing (UNT) system employed a qualitative approach that incorporated both document analysis and semi-structured interviews with policymakers, item developers, and assessment experts. This study aimed to examine the current challenges, stakeholder needs, and global best practices. Thematic analysis identified issues such as fragmented workflows, limited metadata utilization, insufficient validation protocols, and security vulnerabilities in the existing system. These gaps hinder operational efficiency and raise concerns regarding test validity. The literature review and global best practices provided a hybrid framework of functional and organizational requirements for adopting digital platforms contextualized for Kazakhstan. The contributions include (1) an empirically grounded requirements specification that triangulates documentary evidence and stakeholder insights, (2) understanding the professional culture of assessment in the Central Asian context, and (3) policy recommendations for phased implementation, metadata governance, and localized platform design. The research findings and insights offer practical recommendations for policymakers and development partners involved in ecosystem assessment reform.
Keywords: Automated item generation, Unified National Testing, National exam, Kazakhstan, GradeMaker
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Didarbekova, Sarmurzin, Altybaeva, Abdrasilov and Karkenova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yerbol Sarmurzin, Buketov Karaganda State University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
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