Teaching Today A Practical Guide Fourth Edition - part 9

44 Summative assessment Summative, or terminal, assessment takes place at the end of a module, course or academic year. As mentioned at the beginning of the previous chapter, the aim may be to sum up what the candidate can do (criterion referencing). This might be done with the aid of a checklist of skills or competences, and/or by reports or profiles. Alternatively, the aim may be to grade candidates, or place them in a rank order (norm referencing). This is usually done by means of an examination, designed to differentiate between candidates on the basis of the breadth and depth of their learning. Summative assessment in school and post-school education is in the middle of a turbulent revolution at present. Practice varies from subject to subject, but it also varies from year to year for any given subject. I will give only a brief outline of the basic methods here. It is vital that you discover the detailed requirements of assessment for the courses on which you teach, and any personal responsibility you may have in this respect. Do this as soon as you know what you are teaching, and ask experienced teachers for advice. Methods used for summative assessment: a brief outline Profiles Everyone is familiar with the school or college report. Profiles and records of achievement extend reporting to include a systematic coverage of the learner’s achievements, abilities, skills, experiences and qualities. As mentioned in the section on self-appraisal in the previous chapter, they can be used formatively, as well as summatively, and are commonly used for both. Like any report or refer-ence they are subjective, but they give information which cannot be measured objectively. They typically report only positively, and are written by the learner, but drafts are agreed by the teacher. They give information on the learner’s: • personal and social development, self-awareness and social skills • attainment progress and motivation • career aspirations • interests and hobbies, both in and out of school or college • achievement in key skills such as problem-solving, communication, informa-tion technology, numeracy or other skills, such as manual dexterity, etc. Ideally, the students should be self-assessing and setting themselves targets for improvement as described in Chapter 34, with the profile acting as the outcome of this process. Profiles are the property of the learners, and can be used, if they 496 wish, when seeking employment or educational progression. Summative assessment Some profiles are in a grid format, listing core skills and achievement in those skills in terms of hierarchically ordered descriptors. This may mislead readers of the profile into believing the assessment was more objective than it really was, and the format is too restrictive to allow adequate description of more subjective criteria. Ticking a box labelled ‘Can present a logical argument’ is meaningless unless the context is clear, as everyone can present a logical argument at some level. Other profiles are in an open-response format: effectively, they are a series of headings under which the student records their accomplishments. Combinations of the grid and open formats are common, and profiling design and practice vary markedly from institution to institution. Profiles have been criticised by teachers for the work they generate; for lacking validity and being unreliable; and for giving unrealistic impressions, in that they report only positively. Some commentators doubt whether employers read the longer grid-style profiles. However, since the learner’s academic achievements often make it very clear what the learner cannot do, it seems fair to redress the balance with a profile, especially as the self-assessment involved is so valuable. If you use profiling, make sure the learners do as much of the work as possible! Competences Assessment can also be carried out on the basis of checklists or a set of compe-tences; this is a widely used method where a criterion-referenced assessment is required. The achievement of these competences is usually on a ‘passed’ or ‘not passed’ basis. Re-attempts are encouraged when a pass is not attained. Competences are the method used to define the content and organise the assess-ment of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs). Let’s take as an example an NVQ in horticulture, which addresses the ‘key purpose’ of ‘providing ornamental beds and borders’. The units of competence in this NVQ might be: • Produce plants from seed. • Establish ornamental beds and borders. • Maintain ornamental beds and borders. Each of these ‘units of competence’ has a number of ‘elements of competence’. For example, the unit ‘Maintain ornamental beds and borders’ might have the following elements: • Weed a bed and/or a border by hand, with or without the aid of tools. • Maintain the appearance and health of plants. • Maintain the soil condition and physical appearance of the bed or border. Each of these competences can be assessed separately, or in any combination, at any convenient time by an accredited assessor. The assessment of each compe-tence is then checked by an external verifier from the awarding body offering the qualification, such as City & Guilds. The ‘scope’ of a competence is usually given. For example, a competence such as ‘Assist with planting ornamental plants’ might be given the following ‘scope’: ‘Container-grown shrubs, herbaceous plants, bedding plants and bulbs’. 497 Putting it all together The learner, or ‘candidate’, submits evidence to an assessor in an attempt to demonstrate the attainment of a particular competence or competences. This might involve the candidate being observed. If the assessor agrees that the compe-tence has been achieved, it is ‘signed off’ by the assessor; if not, any further work required to demonstrate the competence adequately is usually made clear. Such competence-based schemes have the advantage that they set realistic work-based standards, agreed by experts in the vocational field (the industry’s ‘lead bodies’). Hence they ought to have the support of the relevant industry. They are accessible to learners in work, in that they encourage (indeed, may even require) work-based evidence and do not require the candidate to attend a course. Past evidence of skills can be used to meet competences by a process called ‘Accredi-tation of Prior Learning and Experience’ (APL/E) – though this can be a time-consuming and costly process. Criticisms of NVQs include the suggestion that the lack of grading means both that the able are not stretched, and that potential employers have no means of using NVQs to differentiate between candidates with the same qualification. Some say they lower standards, and put too little emphasis on the candidate’s understanding of the skills and techniques assessed, but good teaching can overcome this difficulty. NVQs are overseen and ‘kite-marked’ by the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority). There are five levels: Level 5: professional Level 4: for people in a supervisory role Level 3: roughly A-level standard Level 2: roughly GCSE standard Level l: basic level – introductory. Do not let yourself be tyrannised by competences. It is almost never a good idea to teach a course competence by competence, or even unit by unit. Teach first, get your candidates to do real work in a real context, then look for evidence for assessment. If your tasks and course are well designed, the assessment will fall into place quite easily. For example, some horticultural students could be given the task to design, stock and maintain a flower bed. Photographic records could be taken and they might write about their experience, putting references in the margin as to the competences they are claiming for each part of the job. This holistic experi-ence is much more natural and meaningful than picking off competences one by one in the order given in documentation. Continuous assessment or coursework This is the process by which work done during a course is assessed as part of the learner’s summative assessment. Most full-time vocational courses, and part of some GCSEs and A-levels are assessed in this way. Like most developments in education, this ‘internal assessment’ is more work for the teacher, though it does have the advantage of increasing student motivation considerably. In many instances, the assessment conditions, and therefore its findings, are much more realistic – who, for example, would want to write a poem or complete an engineer- 498 ing design in one time-constrained sitting? Summative assessment Don’t assess key or ‘common’ skills such as ‘problem-solving’ or ‘working with others’ without teaching these skills! In order to ensure that internal assessment has been carried out in the prescribed manner – and to the same standard – in different schools and colleges, an external verifier or moderator will usually view all or part of the marked coursework (see Chapter 49). Again, procedures vary greatly, and it is imperative to ascertain quickly exactly what is expected of you. For example, when must coursework be submitted to the moderator or verifier? The examination board or validating body will provide written guidance on such matters, but some of this material is famously voluminous and opaque. Seek guidance from an experienced teacher in the first instance. Examinations Make sure you are aware of the form of the final examination, and ensure students have had some months of practice in answering papers of the appropriate type. Past papers are available from the appropriate board and are an excellent homework source. Examiners’ reports on past papers are published by some examining boards, and these give valuable information on common mistakes and omissions made by candidates. If students find past-paper questions daunting, it is often because they fi nd the language used to frame the questions difficult. Give them a glossary, and play ‘deci-sions, decisions’ games to develop their ability to tell an evaluation from a descrip-tion. Work through past-paper questions yourself on the board; then do some as worked examples with the class volunteering the answers; then let them loose on a few questions in pairs. Make use of spoof and peer assessment. Even so, they may take some months to gain confidence. If the first time they see a past paper is in their mock or practice examination, their marks will be a big disappointment. Graded tests Graded tests use the mastery-learning philosophy for summative assessment. A pioneer in this field has been the Graded Objectives in Modern Languages (GOML) movement, with tests similar in principle to the music examinations of the Associ-ated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. The GOML tests are criterion referenced, taken when the learner is ready, and can be retaken. They have been popular with students, aiming to provide the frequent positive reinforcement of certifi cated success through the setting of attainable short-term goals. Psychometric tests Psychologists have devised special tests to measure intelligence quotients, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, manual skills, basic skills in reading 499 Putting it all together and arithmetic, etc. Other tests measure aptitude – for example, the candidate’s aptitude for learning how to use a computer, or their mechanical aptitude. Yet more tests claim to measure personality, and to indicate whether a candidate would be suitable for management training. Such tests can be expensive, and most require special training in their use. It is generally recognised that there is a danger in relying too heavily on the results of such tests since, for example, they do not take motivation into account. Moreover, the results, are not as stable as is sometimes claimed; education can raise IQ scores by as much as 30%. Research reviews, like that of Ericsson et al. (1993), have shown that potential or aptitude is very hard to measure and that ability is more learned than innate (Chapter 45). Question styles Here is some advice if you are about to write examination questions. Don’t, if you can possibly help it! Writing examination questions, especially objective test items (multiple-choice questions), is very time-consuming. Why reinvent the wheel? Try to obtain a store of past papers, and also to find internal papers used in your school or college in previous years; rifle textbooks or books of questions. Adapting these saves time. Be clear on the purpose of your examination. Is it to grade and differentiate, or to diagnose learning problems? Are your questions fit for your purpose? All questions should be clear, concise and unambiguous, and written in everyday language. This is harder than it sounds, and it’s easy to make a slip, so if you adapt or write questions, it is worth getting them checked by another teacher. The diagram below shows issues related to the type of questions you use. Characteristics of question types Problems with assessment Validity The validity of an assessment depends on whether it actually measures the knowl-edge or skills it is designed to assess. For example, an objective test cannot measure a candidate’s practical skill, or his or her ability to develop a coherent argument. 500 ... - tailieumienphi.vn