ARTICLE #1 © 21C IETS Co-authors: S K Morgan & H. McDonough, October 2, 2020

THE ASSESSMENT QUESTION:

What are the constituent elements of and the criteria for the most effective form of assessment?

Assessment is a complex process. Many decades ago, Scriven’s seminal work on evaluation made a distinction between goals and roles of evaluation and urged caution against confusing the two (Scriven, 1967). Using evaluation and assessment interchangeably, Taras built on this and also urged caution against another source of confusion – that between summative assessment (SA) and formative assessment (FA). Writes Taras (2005):

“by recognising that SA is central and necessary to all assessment, it should stop the demonisation of assessment for validation and certification, and instead see it as a stepping stone to learning. This would be true particularly if FA can be seen as a necessary step which justifies and explains SA.”

With these thoughts, the initial complexities of assessment become apparent: assessment, as an evaluative judgement with processes within its process, has different dimensions which are further justified by considering not only values underpinning it, but also its goals and roles/functions.

McAlpine (2002) also adds:

“Process-based assessments are best where the learning is skill or ability-based, while product-based assessments are best where the knowledge content of the course is fundamental. Most assessments are mixtures of the two forms. The balance is critical in ensuring that the assessment is fit for the purpose.”

And yet, ‘fitness for purpose’ is not enough to ensure assessment is genuine or authentic; it is accepted also that assessment must be valid, reliable, flexible, explicit, accessible, inclusive, equitable and integral to the programme or curriculum. To these general principles, the ACER Centre for Global Education Monitoring adds ‘clarity and consistency of purpose’, ‘objectivity and independence’, ‘transparency and accountability’, ‘technical rigour’, and ‘ethicality and fairness’ (ACER, 2017).

Wiggins (1989) approaches the issue by responding to the question he poses: ‘what is a true test?’ –

‘a true test of intellectual ability requires the performance of exemplary tasks … authentic assessments replicate the challenges and standards of performance … Second, legitimate assessments are responsive to individual students and to school contexts.”

From this radical perspective, assessment or evaluation:

“is most accurate and equitable when it entails human judgment and dialogue, so that the person tested can ask for clarification of questions and explain his or her answers.”

So far, it is evident that the treatment of the assessment question is directed by a variety of approaches; assessment can be explored in terms of its analytics, its design, its application and even its evaluation. Returning to Scriven is inevitable: the approach that one takes depends, obviously, on one’s ‘goals’ and/or ‘roles’. As such and from the perspective of a classroom practitioner, it becomes very challenging to adopt a particular role and to set a boundary in terms of goals. In the quest for the most effective approach, methods and techniques of assessment, the answers, for the practitioner, become more elusive (yet, one that cannot be abandoned without risking the very essence of the profession). Indeed, for Black and William (1998):

“The answer usually given is that it is up to teachers: They have to make the inside work better. This answer is not good enough, for two reasons. First, it is at least possible that some changes in the inputs may be counterproductive and make it harder for teachers to raise standards. Second, it seems strange, even unfair, to leave the most difficult piece of the standards-raising puzzle entirely to teachers”

The assessment question becomes even more complicated when the traditional context of teaching practice is moved to an on-line environment where, clearly, there are changes in the dynamics of teaching and learning, the nature of relationships and interactions, in short where the experience of assessment takes on a different form. Even in this space, as in the traditional context, the challenge to the assessment question is further amplified when both the subject of assessment, the learner, and the objects of assessment, the curriculum, the learning and the outcomes, are added to the equation.

To this complex and perplexing assessment question, Hayward (2012) offers a possible approach:

“It may be that learners’ voices, their reflections of their experiences in their own classrooms, might open up a space where teachers and learners together can explore the relationship between evidence of what matters in assessment for learning and what might be done in their classrooms to bring theory and practice into closer alignment.”, the assumption being that:

“young people do have the potential to become ‘agents for change’ (OECD, 2005) in schools and classrooms, a role likely to be crucial if the quiet revolution is ever to roar.”

At this juncture, there is a need to recall a paradigm shift in teaching based on the principle of autonomy and agency approach. This shift has increasingly placed an emphasis on a child-centred pedagogy driven by the theory of active learning. In relation to the assessment question, a connection is then established, in the domain of classroom practice, between assessment and assessment for learning, resulting in the prominence of formative, self and peer assessment methods as most effective.

In light of these considerations, and in spite of these positions and changing learning directives, and indeed environments and relationships, the assessment question still persists for a classroom practitioner: what are the constituent elements of and the criteria for the most effective form of assessment?

REFERENCES

• Scriven, Michael (1967), ‘The Methodology of Evaluation’, Social Science Education Consortium, Publication 110, accessed at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED014001.pdf on 2.08.2020

• Black, P. & William, D (1998), ‘Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment’ https://kappanonline.org/inside-the-black-box-raising-standards-through-classroom-assessment/ accessed on 12.09.2020

• Taras, Maddalena (2005), Assessment – Summative and Formative – Some Theoretical Reflections’, accessed at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.468.8395&rep=rep1&type=pdf on 1.10.2020

• Wiggins, Grant (1989), ‘A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment’, accessed at https://grantwiggins.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/wiggins-atruetest-kappan89.pdf 1.10.2020

• ACER; UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2017). Principles of Good Practice in Learning Assessment. Melbourne: ACER. https://research.acer.edu.au/monitoring_learning/35/ accessed on 2.10.2020

• Hayward, L (2012), ‘Assessment and Learning: The Learner’s Perspective’ in ‘Assessment and Learning’ by Gardner, J (editor)