Assessment of Student Achievement

161 Pages·2017·0.76 MB·English

by  Gavin T. L. Brown

Assessment of
Student Achievement
Assessment is a concept familiar across the fi eld of educa-
tion and is inherent to the work of professors, administrators,
teachers, researchers, journalists, and scholars. A multifaceted
and politically charged topic, assessment ranges from infor-
mal interactions with learners in classrooms to systematic
high-stakes testing and examination. Written by a leading
expert on assessment, this book situates the topic within the
broader context of educational psychology research and theory
and brings it to a wider audience. With chapters on the fun-
damentals of assessment, explanations of its uses, and advice
for best application, this concise volume is designed for any
education course that includes assessment in the curriculum.
It will be indispensable for student researchers and both pre-
and in-service teachers alike.
Gavin T. L. Brown is Professor and Director of the Quantitative
Data Analysis and Research Unit in the Faculty of Education
and Social Work at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Ed Psych Insights
Series Editor: Patricia A. Alexander
Assessment of Student Achievement
Gavin T. L. Brown
Self-Efficacy and Future Goals in Education
Barbara A. Greene
Self-Regulation in Education
Jeffrey A. Greene
Strategic Processing in Education
Daniel L. Dinsmore
Cognition in Education
Matthew T. McCrudden and Danielle S. McNamara
Emotions at School
Reinhard Pekrun, Krista R. Muis, Anne C. Frenzel, and Thomas Goetz
Teacher Expectations in Education
Christine Rubie-Davies
Classroom Discussions in Education
Edited by P. Karen Murphy
GAVIN T. L. BROWN
Assessment
of Student
Achievement
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of Gavin T. L. Brown to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-06184-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-06186-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16205-8 (ebk)
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Contents
One: Purposes and Functions of Assessment 1
Two: Embedding Assessment Within
Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning 13
Three: Classroom Assessment—Teacher
Judgement 29
Four: Involving Students in Assessment 57
Five: Feedback, Grading, and Reporting 73
Six: Objectively Scored Assessments 87
Seven: Scores and Statistics 109
Glossary 126
References 135
Index 150

One
Purposes and Functions of
Assessment
‘Educational assessment’ refers to the set of methods and
processes by which evidence about student learning is
designed, collected, scored, analysed, and interpreted. These
processes are meant to support decisions about teaching
(e.g., What material needs to be taught again or differently?),
learning (e.g., What material does a student need to revise?),
administration (e.g., What students are ready for promotion
to the next grade?), policymaking (e.g., What areas of the
curriculum need teacher development?), and accountabil-
ity (e.g., Which schools add more value? or, Which student
should be given the supreme scholarship prize?). The pro-
cesses depend on expert judgment and statistical analysis
of the quality of the assessment methods, their relation-
ship to intended objective or outcomes, and the validity of
consequences.
However, everyone already ‘knows’ what the purposes and
functions of assessment are because of their own assessment
careers (i.e., a person’s experiences throughout life related
to being tested, examined, or evaluated1 ). People have had
various experiences of being assessed in school, sports, artis-
tic endeavours, clubs, and at home. Take a moment to ref lect
on your last assessment experience. What happened with the
assessment? Here are some possible consequences, some edu-
cational and others not so much.
2 Purposes and Functions of Assessment
• Was it reported to your parents?
• Was it filed and forgotten?
• Was it used to put you or someone else in a different learn-
ing group?
• Did the teacher go back over some topics?
• Did you get a grade or score?
• Were you told how well you were doing compared with
other people just like you?
• Were you held back a year or term because you didn’t do
as well as someone thought you should?
• Was it sprung on you with no warning?
• Was it marked fairly?
• If you did well, were you told what you had to learn next?
• If you did poorly, did the teacher ever suggest that maybe
the test wasn’t quite up to scratch or that the teaching was
the problem?
• Did you go home with a happy smile, knowing that you
would be rewarded for your A or 97%?
• Did the teacher announce—with concern, scorn, or
pride—your score to the class?
• Was the assessment even marked?
Based on the multiple and diverse experiences learners have
with assessment across their lives (i.e., assessment career), their
personal beliefs concerning the purposes and functions of assess-
ment begins to form. The research literature variously calls these
beliefs ‘conceptions’ or ‘perceptions’ of assessment.2 The goal of
this chapter is to formalise the multiple purposes and functions
of assessment so that an educational approach to assessment can
be taken. The goal of this volume is to help readers develop a
conception of assessment that is focused on using assessment to
improve the quality of teaching and the quality of learning.
Purposes and Functions of Assessment 3
I consider that why and how we use assessment (not
the form or type of assessment) is what really matters in
assessment, and so how assessment is conceived matters. If
assessment is conceived as oppressive, students who gain
greater understanding of assessment theory will not neces-
sarily believe that assessment improves their life chances (a
situation documented in a case study of New York teachers in
a masters level assessment course3 ). This approach is consis-
tent with theories of reasoned or planned behaviour that state
that an individual’s beliefs, which are inf luenced by peers
(i.e., social norm), relate to intentions and practices. 4 Thus,
a conception of assessment is highly likely to shape anyone’s
uses of assessment.
PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT
Newton5 describes 17 different purposes for assessment and
others provide different functions, though attempts have been
made to simplify the list by aggregating the functions into
meaningful groups. 2 I organise my thinking about assessment
around three fundamental questions:
1. Is assessment useful?
2. If it is useful, when does assessment take place in the edu-
cational process?
3. Independent of timing, is assessment aimed at informing
improvements in the processes or at evaluating the quality
of the processes?
The fi rst question raises the possibility that assessment is fun-
damentally pointless, irrelevant, and possibly even bad.6 The
second question raises the importance of timing: Is it done
early enough to lead to some useful change or is it done at