Enabling_Learning_and_Assessment

Enabling Learning and Assessment Assessments are used to plan and enable learning for students. Kathryn Ecclestone’s theory looks at the key characteristics an assessment should have: “A method of assessment may have to demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics: reliability, validity, consistency, authenticity, dependability, fairness.” (2003, p33) I will look at all the assessments used within my current practice, evaluate them and compare then to Ecclestone’s interpretation of what makes a good assessment. I will also make suggestions for improvements which could be made for these assessments. The first step for all my students is an Initial Assessment. It is a formative assessment, which is a mandatory requirement in my organisation. A formative assessment is always needed to plan a student’s learning. The majority of these Initial assessments are completed on a computer, but there are written versions available if needed. The computer version of the Initial Assessment determines a student’s current level of knowledge in Maths or English by asking a selection of questions. If a student gets questions right then the overall level for the student is higher, and if they are answering questions incorrectly then their level is lower. Looking at Kathryn Ecclestone’s theory of the Key Characteristics of Assessment, I have found that the IA is not always reliable. The results are not always consistent with the learner’s actual level of knowledge, which means a further Diagnostic Assessment very often needs to be taken. I also carry out verbal assessments to try and determine whether the level that the IA has produced is accurate. I believe that to improve the IA and make it a fair assessment, all students should take the paper assessment rather than the computer based one. This would then mean that the results could be looked over in more detail and discussed more precisely with the student. It would then give me a chance to provide more effective feedback to the student, which the computer assessment does not allow me to do. If the student comes out at a low level 1 or level 2 in the Initial Assessment they are then required to undertake a Diagnostic Assessment. This assessment is more in-depth, and therefore the results are more reliable. As Ecclestone states it can: “diagnose strengths and weaknesses and learning needs for the forth coming programme” (2003, p14) The only Diagnostic Assessment my centre currently has available is a computer based assessment. Going back to Ecclestone’s Key Characteristics of Assessment, this brings up the issue of ‘fairness’. Not only that but it also brings up equality and diversity issues. Not all students are the same, and there is a diverse range of learners out there in terms of age, ethnic back ground, learning abilities etc. “It is part of our responsibility to demonstrate through our professional practice that we value and respect all learners equally.” (Wallace, 2007, p48) This assessment is not accessible to everyone, and if a student did not have the relevant ICT skills then they would not be able to complete the assessment on a computer. I have not come across this problem yet within my practice, but if I did then, to keep in line with equality and diversity policies, I would have to find another way of carrying out a Diagnostic Assessment to determine where their weak areas are. This would have to be using a mixture of verbal assessment and old paper-based exam questions. To improve the Diagnostic Assessment process it should be made more accessible. There needs to be a paper-based Diagnostics for people who do not have the relevant computer skills. Although I could find a way of carrying out some form of Diagnostic Assessment myself, I should not need to. The DA is a requirement in my organisation, so there should be a paper version available. The DA is also too long. There have been many negative discussions regarding it on my organisations online discussion board (Appendix A). One centre even noted that it took a learner 7 hours to complete their Diagnostic. This is very discouraging for the learner and can put them off continuing with their learning. I would like to make the Diagnostic assessment shorter. It is currently broken down in to sections, but I believe that if it were broken down further, and the sections were reduced to bite-size chunks then it would be more user friendly. During the learning process students have the option of classroom based or computer based learning. If a student chooses computer based learning then they are put on courses indicated from their Diagnostic results. Within these courses there are assessments at the end of the course to show how much the student has learned. There have been improvements already administered on these assessments. In the past a student could attempt the questions as many times as they wanted to, to achieve a good result. This has now been changed so that the student only gets three attempts, so you can tell that if they can still not achieve a good score by their third attempt then they need extra help. If the student has chosen classroom based learning then they are continuously assessed by means of informal verbal assessment and questions. Once learning has taken place, a practice test needs to be completed to assess whether the student is ready for their exam. It is a mandatory requirement, for government funding reasons, but can only be taken online. It is therefore not accessible to people without computer skills. If a student who did not have computer skills needed to take the practice test they would need to be assisted. We do have paper-based practice test, but they would be classed as unofficial. This again brings up the issue of ‘fairness’. This unfortunately is something we cannot change; but I would prefer want to have paper-based practice test that could be recognised for our funding purposes. One good point the practice test does have is that once it is completed I can let the student see which questions they have got wrong, and they can take note of this so that they know which areas to revise before their exam. This to me makes the practice test both a formative and summative assessment. It is summative because it is testing everything the student has learned, but because you can see which answers are wrong, it can also show the areas for improvement. If the student does not pass the practice test then there are other practice test that can be taken after more learning and revision has taken place. It is necessary for the practice test to be redeemable in this way because it is used to assess whether the student is ready for their exam. The online practice test is multiple choice, which means that the answers can be guessed. The final examination is also multiple choice, which means that the answers can be guessed. A student has a 1 in 4 chance of guessing the answer. Ecclestone discusses the matter of ‘authenticity’ in her theory of assessment. If a student can guess the answer, is it still classed as their own work' The online exam is provided to our centre by City and Guilds, which means that it cannot be changed by us. If I could change this assessment however, I would prefer it not to be a multiple choice exam. This would then ensure that the students were actually working out the answers rather than having the option to guess them. This is not to say that all of my students guess the answers and don’t work them out! It would just make it a more authentic and valid assessment of a student’s knowledge if they had to confirm the answer in their own words. The final exam is accessible, as there are paper exams for people who cannot use computers. Although if a paper exam is taken then it can take two weeks to get the results back, where as the results from online exams are given straight away. The results are another area of this assessment that should be changed. At the moment the student just receives their score and a rough idea of what they have answered incorrectly (Appendix B). From feedback from students I think that it would also be useful if the students could see which questions they got wrong in the final exam. This would mean that I could give valuable feedback to them as to the exact questions they got wrong, and in turn advise on what they could do to further their learning. It would also be a lot more satisfying for the student if they knew the exact questions they had got right and wrong. One point that I have not yet addressed is the fact that roughly half of my students attend the centre to improve their English skills. With the majority of assessments being carried out on a computer; is this really the best way to assess English skills such as speaking and writing' This is why it is so important in my job to provide support to the students. Without appropriate support and guidance the whole system would just turn in to ‘learning for the exam’. I need to be there, along with my colleagues, to carryout verbal and hand written assessments with the students and help and encourage them throughout the learning process so that they are not simply learning to pass an exam. They are learning for their own personal development. E-learning can be an effective way of learning, but it does need to have a human element to it as well, with tutors on hand to help the students throughout their learning experience. I disagree with Race and Pickford when they say: “Even though ‘teaching to the exam’ is seen by most teachers in higher education to be undesirable, their students don’t think so!” (2007, p110) In my experience, if the student really wants to learn then they want to improve all their weak areas, not just the ones that fit the exam. In conclusion I have found that there is room for improvement in all my practice’s assessments. A good assessment should be reliable and dependable. The assessment should always work, and produce true results. It should be a valid assessment that actually measures the skills and knowledge that it is designed to. The results need to be consistent, where if one student gets a certain result then another student of the same ability should be able to achieve a similar outcome. The assessment should be authentic, meaning that it is a student’s own work, and most of all it should be accessible for every student. All students are different, but should all have the equal opportunities to complete assessments and learning. There are shortfalls in these areas of my assessments but, due to my organisation procedures, they cannot be changed. It does however, then raise the question as to how students achieve in their exams, when the assessments leading up to it may not always be as dependable as they ought to be. I believe that this is down to the support they are given. Assessment results are always subject to interpretation, and it is my belief that because my colleagues and I analyse the results and use other informal methods of assessment so effectively, the student are still able to gain the knowledge they need to not just pass their exam, but also improve their skills for their own personal development. Word Count: 1,921