Assessment

Assessment. Assessment is used in the teaching sector for many reasons. Firstly as an initial assessment of a learner, allowing for identification of learning difficulties and needs. It is used to give both the student and teacher feedback on the learner’s abilities and progress, therefore outlining strengths or weaknesses in both the teaching strategies and learning styles. Of course all of the above is used as motivation for the students and teachers involved. Finally the purpose of assessment is used to moderate standards in the institute. Granting students with certificates, which in turn allows for progression to another course/career. The assessments carried out will also inform QA data and allow institutes to highlight lower and higher performing areas, areas of growth and decline. Following initial assessment there are essentially two types of assessment used to inform the teacher and learning institution on the progress and final achievement of learning; formative and summative. Summative (or “final”) assessment is used at the end of a course to assess grading and certification; it is used to demonstrate an objective assessment of the level achieved by a learner at the conclusion of a programme of learning. It will also facilitate the progression of a learner to further study to a higher level. ‘A good set of A level results, for example, will give a student entry into a university.’ (Cox et al. 2002, 7) by demonstrating – using nationally (in some cases internationally) recognised assessment - to the Higher Education Institute (HEI) that the learner has achieved a level of learning that will enable them to embark on and cope with HE learning level. Formative (or “on-going”) assessment however, is used during the course with the intention of informing both the teacher and student what level has been achieved and therefore provides an objective and standardised view of the learner’s progress towards the ultimate conclusion of the programme. It is therefore important that the assessment is well planned and thought through so that all reasonable steps have been taken to remove subjective opinion. In this way formative assessment tracks progress and provides feedback which helps students to identify what they should do next to improve. As an example of these two types of assessment within my organisation; students on the games development course are set small projects which adhere to units, 18 units are needed to complete the course. Formative assessment is used to give students an idea of what their final grading will be, by assessing such small projects, giving detailed feedback and allowing for improvements before the final portfolio hand-in. The portfolio hand-in is the final stage of assessment for each learner, and therefore, provides a form of summative assessment. All small projects are handed in, covering all 18 units. These are then marked and a final grade along with a certificate is sent to the student. Summative Assessment in FE Describe in general how the results of summative assessment (pass rates, success rates, final exam results) are used as part of internal and external quality reviews in your institution. Assessment Task – Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) MCQs are used for a variety of tests; attainment tests for schoolchildren, driving tests and even televised quiz programmes. I chose to use MCQs as an assessment task for two reasons. Firstly I wanted an assessment task which would give almost instantaneous results. According to Reece and Walker both multiple choice and true/false tests have a ‘quick’ speed of marking as opposed to short answer and essay style assessments which are ‘medium’ and ‘slow’ in terms of speed of marking. Secondly I wanted to further the courses development of web based learning. I already have online tutorials set for students to use out of college time, and I thought this a good idea to develop that. I set about designing an online MCQ using ‘MOODLE’, the institute’s online learning environment. I wanted to assess my learners’ understanding of animation; the key principles, their previous research on the history of animation and the skills needed to become an animator and timing/frame counts. This also raises an important point for me to consider about the method of assessment and its content; i.e. that it must be relevant to the programme’s subject matter (in this case the skills of an animator and history of animation) and appropriate to the learner’s ability and learning styles (in this case the MCQ requires no lengthy written response – as would for example an essay – which is relevant to my learners as they tend not to have high academic achievement when starting my programmes and tend to respond to kinaesthetic learning activity). I feel that my learners will prefer the rapid and easy to complete questionnaires and is therefore a fairer assessment of their learning relevant to the requirements of the programme’s learning objectives rather than simply an assessment of how well they can write on certain topics which may not necessarily translate into their practical abilities with animation. I deal with these and other similar considerations below as they are relevant to fairness and also to equality and diversity where, for example, a MCQ with appropriately worded questions should not prove a barrier to learners with ESOL and other skills for life needs. At this point I was very aware of the fact MCQs could be guessed by the students and therefore an inaccurate account of their learning would be a result. To try to combat this I set about designing the MCQ. I removed any obviously incorrect answers which could have been eliminated by any student with very little knowledge, worded the questions so not to confuse students nor give away any clues as to the question’s answer. Other areas of importance were to ensure that the questions were all linked to the learning outcomes of pervious sessions. I wanted the MCQ to measure not only their knowledge of animation but to include minimum core, calculations were added in the form of questioning z amount of frames = x amount of seconds etc, along with vocabulary and spelling; some questions were phrased using subject specific wording, others had two answers the same however one was incorrectly spelt. Embedding ICT would be covered in the test being online and computers needed to complete it. This I understood would provide me with information to help with any student learning needs in the use of ICT. In order to support feedback, the questions will be split into groups; the first section will concentrate on their ability to recall information given in a recent discussion on animation principles. Secondly I will use questions to probe whether a student has researched various animators/companies. Thirdly, and extending the embedding of skills for life; there is a section to test the learners’ literacy skills, followed by a section to test numeracy skills. Using MCQs as a type of assessment ensures certain fairness; with the test being online and the answers pre-programmed into the software, there is no room for error in marking, the computer simply marks the work for me and gives me a read-out of the students’ results. Therefore reliability and fairness, sufficiency and authenticity of the assessment task I devised will relate directly to the assessment criteria, as all questions and answers are pre determined and will all be covered in the test, as opposed to a project type assessment, where students may find a comfortable place in the drawing aspects or writing aspects and not get a balanced assessment of their overall abilities. The suitability of the task for the learners who completed it in terms of their particular needs and abilities, making particular reference to equality and diversity issues. In a male dominated classroom I am aware how easy it is for me to slip a few male-oriented expressions that may cause barriers towards the only female in the room. For example when describing a walk cycle animation, I will generally refer to the character as a ‘man’, as opposed to a ‘person’, I often send the classroom on breaks by saying ‘ok guys, lets have a short break . . .’ or using male-dominated language to organise the learner in their groups, assigning roles; I would make one person in each group a ‘spokesman’. For this task I made sure each question wasn’t putting up any barriers to the female student I currently teach, or for any future female students I may teach using the same task, by being aware of my phrasing of questions and adjusting the language accordingly. Feedback In terms of feedback it was suggested by my mentor that to make constructive use of MCQs it would be beneficial to the students to know why a correct answer was correct and why the other answers were incorrect and to make sure that this is explained and learning is checked accordingly so that learning is reinforced using feedback regardless of the correctness of the learner’s initial response. In this way the form of assessment becomes integrated to the learning process. He also said it would be important to always use constructive feedback (i.e. that the feedback was informative in order to assist reflection and improve performance) regardless of whether the feedback was positive (to confirm success or good performance) or negative (to inform of a need to improve), by using supportive language that is genuinely designed to improve learning. My plan for feeding back to students is to adopt a feedback criteria sheet. This sheet will have all correct and incorrect answers with a description as to why. This method will be fast and effective in giving formative feedback to a large group. It will indicate areas where the students have done well and where they require support due to the questions being grouped into categories as stated above. By measuring and recording the results of the learner group I was able to identify their scores in relative terms (i.e. in relation to their colleagues’ scores and the scores required for attaining the required level). I chose to feedback to one of the mid range performing students. I was interested in his results as he completed the technical questioning and research questioning to a high grade. However, his grades dropped when it came to the sections on numeracy but even more so with literacy. The student in question is a very motivated and determined character, always punctual and polite. His confidence is at a high level and he thoroughly enjoys being on the course. From initial assessment he appeared to have no major learning difficulties, and was (according to assessment of his preferred learning styles) a very visual learner. From this information I made an assumption that he would respond best to a visual style of feedback. As the quiz is online and can be repeated, I chose to use this to my advantage and take the quiz with him sat beside me, pointing out his answers and mistakes, giving him written feedback but also showing him on the screen the correct box to tick. My concern with this student was that he may be suffering from Irlen syndrome. I therefore decided to ask him if he suffered from any of the common effects of Irlen during my feedback. As the feedback progressed it was clear that literacy was an issue for him, spelling words incorrectly and when reading the questions out loud he often missed out words or struggled with others. I asked him if he had trouble with concentration or use of computers due to the bright screens, did he ever get headaches or eye strain' I wasn’t surprised when he answered yes to all of the above, and we spent the last few minutes of the feedback discussing Irlen syndrome and as his tutor, making a note to book him in to have a test. Originally I wanted the learner to take away action points regarding his literacy, my intentions were to point out his poor spelling and possibly arrange for a talk with the student support team to help with his literacy, maybe take on an English class to help. Following the feedback session I have arranged for him to sit an Irlen screening and any handouts have been printed on blue paper to address the possible problem. I was very mindful that he may feel self-conscious about such a learning difficulty and was, therefore very careful to use a supportive approach and not to draw attention from the other learners in his group to the matters discussed. Summary As I mention above, while previous assessments within my learner group have not identified ESOL needs I am aware that this must be taken into account, along with any other Skills for Life and cultural issues that may prevent the learner from expressing their ability in such an assessment. I am confident from my understanding of my learners’ needs that the MCQ was a fair method of assessment for the reasons covered above. However my experience from using this method and providing feedback to the learner mentioned above, raises my attention for the need to scrutinise all methods of assessment otherwise there may be a danger that it could become a barrier rather than an enabling devise, to providing me with a fair and objective measure of my learners’ progress.