qaaet conference - the purposes of assessment last- dr tina issacs

The Purposes of

ssessment

Sunday, February 13, 2011 Quality Education & Training:

Towards a Better Future 1

It’s the economy, stupid (Clinton campaign slogan, 1992)

James Callaghan, Ruskin College speech, 18 Oct 1976

I am concerned on my journeys to find complaints from industry that new recruits from the schools sometimes do not have the basic tools to do the job that is required….to the teacher, I would say that you must satisfy the parents and industry that what you are doing meets their requirements and the needs of our children.

Quality Education & Training:

Towards a Better Future

Three questions to ask of any assessment:

1. What is the principal purpose of this

assessment?

2. Is the form of the assessment fit for

purpose?

3. Does it achieve its purpose?

Three broad groupings:

1. Selection and certification

2. Determining and raising standards

3. Formative assessment – assessment for

learning

3 Quality Education & Training:


Assessment = the process of firstly gathering evidence, and secondly interpreting that evidence in the light of some defined criterion in order to form a judgement (Harlen, 1994)

Why do we assess? (P. Black et al, 1987):

• Diagnostic assessment to identify students’ learning needs

• Formative assessment to support and encourage learning

• Summative assessment to identify learning outcomes

• Evaluative assessment which is directed at assessing the quality of provision in institutions and in the system as a whole



• Certification of achievement (competence)

• Selection (competition)

• The evaluation of provision (content)

• The control of both individual aspirations and systemic

functioning (control)

Importance of the relationship between curriculum and assessment

Who assesses (teachers, students themselves, government)?

What is assessed (knowledge, practical skills, social/emotional

skills)?

When to assess (for formative purposes, as summative use)?

How to assess (norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, ipsative)?



Chinese civil service selection tests 1st century

A.D. – early 20th century

• High point during Ming dynasty (1368 – 1662)

• Relied on rote knowledge

• Extremely low pass rate

• Despite extraordinary security, people still found

ways to cheat

• Still, ‘it is estimated that up to 60 percent of the

successful candidates came from families that were

not part of the administrative elite’ (Stobart 2008)



19th Century enthusiasm for testing

• Antithesis of corruption and patronage

• Testing of basic abilities as well as attainments and

skills

• Ability = merit

• Talent = virtue



Diagnostic assessment

• Origins in ascertaining who would profit from specialist schooling

• Alfred Binet 1905 – 1908, one to one diagnostics, spatial, verbal and numerical sub-tests

• US and Great Britain change to written IQ tests – assumption that intelligence is fixed

Assessment to set and raise standards

• Entrance examinations to universities

• Backwash effect on curriculum

Assessment as accountability

• Payment by results



The children … were drilled in the contents of those books until they knew them almost by heart. In arithmetic they worked abstract sums, in obedience to formal rules, day after day, and month after month; and they were put up to various tricks and dodges which would, it was hoped, enable them to know by what precise rules the various questions on the arithmetic card were to be answered. Not a thought was given, except in a small minority of schools, to the real training of the child, to the fostering of his mental (and other) growth. To get him through the yearly examination by hook or by crook was the one concern of the teacher. As profound distrust of the teacher was the basis of the policy of the department, so profound distrust of the child was the basis of the policy of the teachers. To leave the child to find anything out for himself, to think out anything for himself, would have been regarded as proof of incapacity, no to say insanity, on the part of the teacher, and would have led to results which, from the ‘percentage’ point of view, would probably have been disastrous.



• The term ‘assessment purpose’ can be interpreted in

a variety of different ways: judgement level;

decision level; impact level

• The uses to which assessment results are put are

often categorized misleadingly

Purposes/uses

Where assessment systems are supposed to

support more than one purpose, the purposes

must be prioritized

•



• Distinction between formative and summative

assessment is spurious

• Summative characterises a type of assessment

judgement = summing up appraisal of

performance

• Formative characterises a type of use to which

assessment judgements are put = using

assessment to achieve a formative purpose,

which can include summative assessment



student monitoring

to decide whether students are making sufficient progress in attainment in relation to expectations or targets; and, potentially, to allocate rewards or sanctions

formative

to identify students’ proximal learning needs, guiding subsequent teaching

social evaluation

to judge the social or personal value of students’ achievements

diagnosis

to clarify the type and extent of students’ learning difficulties in light of well-established criteria, for intervention



provision eligibility

to determine whether students meet eligibility criteria for special educational provision

screening

to identify students who differ significantly from their peers, for further assessment

segregation

to segregate students into homogeneous groups, on the basis of aptitudes or attainments, to make the instructional process more straightforward

guidance to identify the most suitable courses, or vocations for

students to pursue, given their aptitudes



transfer to identify the general educational needs of students who

transfer to new schools placement to locate students with respect to their position in a

specified learning sequence, to identify the level of course which most closely reflects it

qualification to decide whether students are sufficiently qualified for a

job, course or role in life – that is, whether they are equipped to succeed in it – and whether to enrol them or to appoint them to it

selection to predict which students – all of whom might, in principle,

be sufficiently qualified – will be the most successful in a job, course or role in life, and to select between them



licensing to provide legal evidence – the licence – of minimum

competence to practice a specialist activity, to warrant stakeholder trust in the practitioner

certification to provide evidence – the certificate – of higher

competence to practice a specialist activity, or subset thereof, to warrant stakeholder trust in the practitioner

school choice

to identify the most desirable school for a child to attend

institution monitoring

to decide whether institutional performance – relating to individual teachers, classes or schools – is rising or falling in relation to expectations or targets; and, potentially, to allocate rewards or sanctions



resource allocation to identify institutional needs and, consequently, to allocate

resources organizational intervention to identify institutional failure and, consequently, to justify

intervention programme evaluation to evaluate the success of educational programmes or

initiatives, nationally or locally system monitoring to decide whether system performance – relating to

individual regions or the nation – is rising or falling in relation to expectations or targets; and, potentially, to allocate rewards or sanctions

comparability to guide decisions on comparability of examination standards

for later assessments on the basis of cohort performance in earlier ones

national accounting to ‘quality adjust’ education output indicators



Any questions? [email protected]



mailto:[email protected]

qaaet conference - the purposes of assessment last- dr tina issacs

Education

better future

assessment results

assessment fit

needs formative assessment

learning summative assessment

term assessment purpose

diagnostic assessment

quality of provision