Assessment

Assessment of Students

(Written by Donna E. Alvermann, The University of Georgia, Athens and

Stephen F. Phelps, State University College at Buffalo)

Summarized by: Sukardi

A.    Introduction

            This chapter discusses about assessment of students, the problems related to it and the alternatives to explore, including authentic, performance-based, and portfolio assessment techniques, as well as the implication to Indonesian context.

B.     Assessing Students

There are two types of assessment based on its purpose. They are :

v  Formative-assessment

It is intended to help “form” or develop, a student. Formative-assessment is also needed by the teacher to draw conclusion on the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals of the students.

v  Summative-assessment

It is used to make a “summarizing” judgment of what the students have learned or done.

            Without caring on the purposes of the assessment, one thing that should be

considered is that good assessment practice should have the following characteristics:

Ø  Good assessment draws on multiple source of information.

No single test can tell a teacher the “true” state of a students’ knowledge.

Ø  Good assessment results in information that is useful to both students and teachers.

Ø  Good assessment gives students optimal condition for showing their capabilities.

Ø  Good assessment involves students in self-assessment.

Ø  Good assessment admits the potential of fallibility.

1.      Test and Testing: A Consumer Advisory

Due to the many stakeholders in education, the emergence of conflicts

often arise because of the different demands. School administrators have their own demand; the culture defenders also have their own sake, as well as politicians give their comments on the assessment. The professed purposes of testing are as varied and contradictory as the stakeholders. Reformers of all political stripes may see tests as a means to drive school reform. Some may look to state or national assessments as a way to raise student achievement, whereas others see alternative assessment procedures as a way to complement curricular reforms and increase students’ participation in their learning.

            The conflicting demands and claims surrounding educational assessment present several very real problems to classroom teachers. They are:

      Validity

      Credibility

      Time

      Influences on curriculum and teaching

      Teacher knowledge and training

      Equity

It also should be noted that there must be limitation of testing. A student

may do well or poorly on a particular test, but the test alone cannot tell definitely why the students perform that way  or why that is typical of the students’ performance. No best decision for the students is given based only on a certain results of tests. The best decisions about students will be made after carefully after considering many source of information.

            Teachers who work with students of diverse cultural backgrounds must especially be aware of cultural biases that can influence tests and testing. There are several sources of cultural bias in standardized tests proposed by some experts, namely:

v  Content and conceptual bias

As the test content as the reflection of the knowledge and values of mainstream society, it may be more or less familiar to members of different culture that may therefore assign different meaning to the same concept.

v  Linguistic bias

It is related to the lack of familiarity with academic English. Certain non standard English may cause bias.

v  Functional bias

The functional bias is caused by the fact that many tests are not flexible enough to fully assess the capability of English Language Learners.

v  Consequential bias

Because of certain conditions, the students undergo different things on the tests.

There are some ways to minimize the cultural bias. It can be done in several ways, some of them are:

a.       You can devise a variety of assessment forms to give all students an opportunity to demonstrate their competence.

b.      Include test and evaluation procedures that reflect diverse cultural content

and values.

c.       Follow up on apparent “wrong” answers by asking students for elaborated explanations or justifications for their responses.

2.      Types of Assessment

Here are common types of assessment used in schools. They are:

a.      Standardized test

Such kind of tests are commercially prepared tests used to assess the achievement of large number of students in reading, math, and other academic areas.

b.      Authentic assessment

It involves a broad range of assessment tasks and data that are based on everyday situations or realistic application of content knowledge and concepts.

c.       Performance assessment

Performance assessment tasks would look identical to what we have

described as authentic assessment. The difference is that performance assessments are graded according to externally established criteria and students usually are expected to achieve some benchmark score as an index of competency in the area being tested.

3.      Learning about Students

To plan effective instruction, we need to learn as much as we can about

students’ norms, values, tradition, language, and beliefs as well as their reading, writing, and study skill. Here is discussed the practical ways of assessing these variables.

a.      Interest and attitude inventories

It is related to the ways to find out what students think about a content area or a specific subject. It is helpful to know not only what the students feel about it but also what they know about it.

b.      Kid-watching

The informed judgments that teachers make by observing students is called kid-watching.

c.       Informal content text inventories

Textbooks can also be used to devise short, informal assessment.

4.      Grades and Grading

Though it causes dilemma whether a teacher should gives grade either using letters or number, in fact it has been applied for a long time. However, teachers also want to encourage all students and give each one a chance to show his or her capabilities.

Objectivity or teacher judgment?

Though it is a hard work to a good and objective assessment not the

teacher judgment but there are some strategies that might help you avoid

some of the pitfall of assigning grades to students.

a.      Tough but fair

It is needed to have a good assessment. There are five guidelines to develop “tough but fair” grading system:

Ø  Select assignment, tests or projects that reflect and measure what you value most as a teacher.

Ø  Provide a variety of opportunities to earn credit.

Ø  Be clear about your grading system and standards.

Ø  Be clear about how you will assess specific assignments and tests.

Ø  Collaborate with students to set and achieve goals and to deconstruct the language of both official and teacher-devised

standard.

b.      Grading system

By having a good grading system will be fair to students. We can apply the followings, namely giving credit, contracting, weighted average system, a straight point system.

c.       Rubrics

By having a rubric, the students may be able to know “what the teacher is looking for.”

d.      Content-area quizzes and tests

It is usually used in simply space at the end of an objective test where students can qualify their answer.

5.      Portfolio assessment

The compilation of the results of the work usually refers to portfolio.

There are three portfolio models, with each purpose:

v  Ownership portfolios

It is the collection of the students’ work which emphasize on the student choice, reflection, and self assessment. The purpose is to allow the students to display and reflect on their accomplishments.

v  Feedback portfolios

These are co-constructed by the teacher and the students, the purpose of which is to guide students learning and to communicate with parents.

v  Accountability portfolios

This a kind of portfolios which are used as performance assessments.

The purpose of such kind of portfolios is to demonstrate student achievement for accountability or program evaluation.

            The results of researches show some advantages of using portfolios, such as the use of portfolio assessment can be more effective than single, static measure of student achievement. Another advantage of portfolios is their potential to inform and improve interaction. However, the followings are some issues related to portfolios.

a.      Student involvement

Portfolios allow students to be active participant-observers of their own growth and development.

b.      Implementing portfolios

Due to the much advantages of using portfolios, we should know and realize that to make the implementation of portfolios surely successful

you provide  guidance and modeling for students as they put them together.

c.       Portfolio pros and cons

Those who are in pro to portfolios say that there is much advantageous of using it. It increases the students’ awareness and involvement in their own learning. Portfolios can also provide detailed, authentic representations of what students have learned and what has taken place in a classroom for parents , colleagues, and administrators. The last but not least, portfolios can give us an opportunity to reflect on our practice as teachers.

To those who are in cons to portfolios tend to say that there also failure of the teacher implementing it. The following negative potential of portfolios is the possible infringement of students’ personal privacy.

Finally, it is believed that the potential benefits of portfolio assessment far outweigh any potential harm.

C.    Conclusion

Many variables require many decision about students, teaching methods, materials , and assessment. The more information a teacher has, the better quality of the decisions will be. There is no right “way” to assign grades,

no “best” test of reading ability, no “perfect” text for any subject, but good teachers keep looking and experimenting. Everything is right or wrong in its own time and place.

D.    The Implementation to Indonesian Context

Based on the discussion on the Assessments of Students above, there are

some points can be drawn, namely:

1.      There is so called formative and summative assessment terms. The formative assessment is carried out after some basic competences are learned. As its purpose discussed, this assessment is intended to develop students, to know the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals. It is often known as daily test. Whereas, the summative assessment is carried out at the end of the semester. It is to make judgment of what has the students have done. However, the is still one term of assessment, so called mid-test which is carried out in the middle of the semester. The results of the formative test, mid-test and the results of summative one are combined used to give the final grade of the students in the form of the grade in the report book at the end of the semester.

2.      In the national scope, there is also a kind of assessment called the national examination which is undergone by the last year students. As we know that in testing there are many stakeholders involved, the national examination often becomes debate. Some reject it whereas others accept it.

Those who accept it say that it is needed to have nationally mapping on the education standardized quality. The side who rejects it says that the assessment should be done by schools independently. It is no use to have national examination. In addition, such activities need very much fund to spend. However, up to now the national examination is still our national program that must be done regularly once in a year regardless the existence of cons.

3.      Due to the diverse cultural background, there may happens so called the cultural biases that affects tests and testing. There may be content and conceptual bias, linguistic bias, functional bias, and consequential bias.

4.      Some ways of reducing the bias are always developed for the sake of the national needs, namely devising variety of assessment forms, including test and evaluation procedures that reflect diverse cultural content and values, and asking students for elaborated explanations or justifications for

their responses.

5.      In relation to the types of the assessment, it is noted that either standardized tests, authentic assessment, or performance assessment are all applied in Indonesia to meet the need of certain conditions.

6.      The role of interest and attitude inventories is taken into account in constructing and applying the assessment.

7.      Teachers tend to give grade to the students hoping that it will give spirit to do better. The range of the score is usually 00—100. This one may be the most popular among teachers of English as it is easy to do. This is also what usually done in Indonesia.

8.      To complete the sixth point above is carried out the grading system. The implementation using rubrics, quiz, and tests are basically a must in order to meet the requirements. Such kinds of ways to do assessment are easily found out among the teachers of English in our environment.

9.      It is not something new that portfolio is also used in assessment program. Portfolio assessment is applied almost in all level of education. Even recently the use of portfolio is also applied in the teacher’s assessment and evaluation, such as in the certification program.

10.  Although they may be some cons on the use of portfolio is considered the better one. So, there is no reason to avoid portfolio assessment.