Notable Thoughts on Assessment

What is Assessment?

We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers -- and by their students in assessing themselves -- that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London

What should be assessed?

To begin at the beginning, the choice of tasks for classroom work and homework is important. Tasks have to be justified in terms of the learning aims that they serve, and they can work well only if opportunities for pupils to communicate their evolving understanding are built into the planning. Discussion, observation of activities, and marking of written work can all be used to provide those opportunities, but it is then important to look at or listen carefully to the talk, the writing, and the actions through which pupils develop and display the state of their understanding. Thus we maintain that opportunities for pupils to express their understanding should be designed into any piece of teaching, for this will initiate the interaction through which formative assessment aids learning.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London.

How can assessment improve learning?

The research indicates that improving learning through assessment depends on five, deceptively simple, key factors

• the provision of effective feedback to pupils;
• the active involvement of pupils in their own learning;
• adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment;
• a recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation
  and self-esteem of pupils, both of which are crucial influences on learning;
• the need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and understand how to
  improve.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1999. Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box, Assessment Reform Group, University of Cambridge, School of Education

Beliefs about learning affect assessment

Methods of assessment are determined by our beliefs about learning. According to early theories of learning, complex higher-order skills had to be acquired bit-by-bit by breaking learning down into a series of prerequisite skill, a building-blocks-of-knowledge approach. It was assumed incorrectly that after basic skills had been learned by rote, they could be assembled into complex understandings and insight. However, evidence from contemporary cognitive psychology indicates that all learning requires that the learner think and actively construct evolving mental models.

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook

How can the concept of quality assist in learning?

In assessing the quality of a student’s work or performance, the teacher must possess a concept of quality appropriate to the task, and be able to judge the student’s work in relation to that concept. But although the students may accept a teacher’s judgment, without demur, they need more than summary grades if they are to develop expertise intelligently. The indispensable conditions for improvement are that the student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar to that held by the teacher, is able to monitor continuously the quality of what is being produced during the act of production itself, and has a repertoire of alternative moves or strategies from which to draw at any given point. In other words, students have to be able to judge the quality of what they are producing and be able to regulate what they are doing during the doing of it …

Stated explicitly, therefore, the learner has to (a) possess a concept of the standard (or goal/reference level) being aimed for, (b) compare the actual (or current) level of performance with the standard, and (c) engage in appropriate action which leads to some closure of the gap.

Formative assessment includes both feedback and self-monitoring. The goal of many instructional systems is to facilitate the transition from feedback to self-monitoring.

Sadler, R. 1989. Formative Assessment in the Design of Instructional Systems. Instructional Science. Vol. 18, pp119-144.

Why is self-assessment essential?

Self-assessment is essential for progress as a learner: for understanding of selves as learners, for an increasingly complex understanding of tasks and learning goals, and for strategic knowledge of how to go about improving.

Sadler, D. R. 1993. cited in Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

How does assessment help to make an effective school?

Assessment for learning can contribute to the development of effective schools. If assessments of learning provide evidence of achievement for public reporting, then assessments for learning serve to help students learn more. The crucial distinction is between assessment to determine the status of learning and assessment to promote greater learning.

Stiggins, R. J. 2002. Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment FOR Learning, in Phi Delta Kappan Vol.83, No.10 pp758-765.

What is the effect of assessment for learning?

In short, the effect of assessment for learning, as it plays out in the classroom, is that students keep learning and remain confident that they can continue to learn at productive levels if they keep trying to learn. In other words, students don't give up in frustration or hopelessness.

Stiggins, R. J. 2002. Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment FOR Learning, in Phi Delta Kappan Vol.83, No.10 pp758-765.

What is meaningful learning?

From today's cognitive perspective, meaningful learning is reflective, constructive, and self-regulated. People are seen not as mere recorders of factual information but as creators of their own unique knowledge structures. To know something is not just to have received information but to have interpreted it and related it to other knowledge one already has. In addition, we now recognize the importance of knowing not just how to perform, but also when to perform and how to adapt that performance to new situations. Thus, the presence or absence of discrete bits of information-which is typically the focus of traditional multiple-choice tests-is not of primary importance in the assessment of meaningful learning. Rather, what is important is how and whether students organize, structure, and use that information in context to solve complex problems

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook

What do the best teachers do?

The best teachers constantly monitor what is happening to students as they set about learning and investigate when things do not proceed as planned or expected. They also enquire their own practice so they might get better at ensuring that their students learn successfully.

Demos 2004. About learning, Report of the Learning Working Group, Demos, London www.demos.co.uk

What gains has formative assessment made?

Formative assessment - the frequent assessments of student progress to identify learning needs and shape teaching - has become a prominent issue in education reform. The achievement gains associated with formative assessment have been described as "among the largest ever reported for educational interventions". While many teachers incorporate aspects of formative assessment into their teaching, it is much less common to find formative assessment practised systematically

OECD. 2005. Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,2546,en_2649_33723_34340421_1_1_1_1,00.html

The growth of self-evaluation at student and school level

The growing importance of self-evaluation at the institutional level has also resulted in attention for student self-assessment. The main idea behind school evaluation and student self-assessment is that it is more important to focus on development than to compare your school or yourself with other schools or students. The process of student self-assessment and school- evaluation is as important as the outcomes are, because they will inform further development.

Voogt, J. & Kasurinen, H. 2005. Finland: Emphasising development instead of competition and comparison. In Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, OECD/CERI.

What are the elements of formative assessment?

Elements of formative assessment:

The key elements that have emerged form the case studies and related research are:

1. Establishment of a classroom culture that encourages interaction and the use of assessment tools

2. Establishment of learning goals, and tracking of individual student progress towards those goals

3. Use of varied instruction methods to meet diverse student needs

4. Use of varied approaches to assessing student understanding

5. Feedback on student performance and adaptation of instruction to meet identified needs

6. Active involvement of students in the learning process

OECD. 2005. Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, OECD publishing

Assessment analogy

When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.

Stake, R. cited in Earl, L. 2004. Assessment As Learning: Using classroom achievement to Maximize Student Learning. Experts in Assessment. Corwin Press Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

How can new approaches to formative assessment be developed?

For teachers to be able to develop new approaches to formative assessment and relate them to different theories of learning, they must be able to investigate and reflect upon their own classroom practices – particularly the way they question and give feedback to students.

Torrance, H. & Pryor, J. 2001. Developing Formative Assessment in the Classroom: using action research to explore and modify theory. British Educational Research Journal. Vol.27, No.5, pp615-631.

How can diagnostic information inform teaching?

There is a diagnostic aspect to all formative assessment, and diagnostic information can inform both students’ studying and teachers’ teaching. The key is having a concept of the goal or learning target, which originally is the teacher’s, but which ideally the student will internalise, eventually setting his or her own goals and monitoring progress toward them (Sadler, 1989; Gipp, 1994 cited in Brookhart 2001).

Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

What is wrong with assessment?

While assessment has the potential to improve learning for all students, historically it has acted as a barrier rather than a bridge to educational opportunity. Assessments have been used to label students and put them in dead end tracks. Traditional tests have been soundly criticized as biased and unfair to minority students. And, the assessment of language minority students has been particularly problematic

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook.

What effect does classroom assessment have?

In reality it is through classroom assessment that attitudes, skills, knowledge and thinking are fostered, nurtured and accelerated – or stifled.

Hynes (1991) cited in Earl, L. 2004. Assessment As Learning: Using classroom achievement to Maximize Student Learning. Experts in Assessment. Corwin Press Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

The link between formative and summative assessment

Theory about classroom assessment and formative assessment may need to include some references to summative assessment, and vice versa, in order to describe more adequately the cyclical process successful students apparently construct for themselves.

Sebatane (1998) cited in Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

How do students move forward with their learning?

Over time, students move forward in their learning when they can use personal knowledge to construct meaning, have skills of self-monitoring to realize that they don’t understand something, and have ways of deciding what to do next.

Earl, Lorna. (2003). Assessment As Learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning. Experts in assessment series, Corwin Press Inc., Thousand Oaks, California.