Assesslog

Eva suggested we have a look at the first chapter of Gipps (1993) – Beyond Testing. As expected from an introductory chapter, this text threw out a bundle of interesting concepts to grapple with.

I was startled to be confronted with the concepts of construct validity and factor analysis, a year after finishing my Research Methods assignment and feeling relieved that I’d never have to think about them again (yes, I was delusional). The paradox presented by the assumptions of universality and unidimensionality was probably the muddiest point of the chapter for me; however, I think the points that was being made were: 1) as many attributes (e.g. reading) are multidimensional, attempting to assess only one dimension of an attribute (e.g. comprehension) is illogical, and 2) if multidimensional attributes are being tested, two identical scores (for example) will not tell the same story. These points fit with the concluding paragraphs of the chapter, where it is implied that (regardless of the purpose of the assessment, I think), both the assessment and the presentation of the outcomes should ideally be in a format that gives a fuller picture of exactly what competences pupils and students have – notwithstanding the fact that a student’s learning will not necessarily fit neatly into an ordered set of performance descriptors. Gipps uses the National Curriculum as an example, which I found rather amusing – I remember playing at a friend’s house – it must have been around 1991 - and listening to my friend trying to explain to her mother what her recent maths scores meant. Her mother just wanted to know a) a percentage and b) where her daughter was in relation to the rest of the class. To be honest, that was all we wanted to know at the time as well! Recalling this made me realise just how pervasive such paradigms can be.

This first chapter focused mainly on the different purposes of assessment – e.g. monitoring, accountability, supporting learning, and the fitness for purpose of different styles of assessment. It makes sense that tests and exams used for monitoring and accountability at a class, school or national level will need to be quick, manageable and reliable. If assessment is to be used for the purpose of certification, there will need to be more of a balance struck between efficiency and depth/detail. However, assessment used on an individual level, for the support of learning, is a rather different kettle of fish – it needs to be detailed in quite a granular way so that individual strengths and weaknesses can be identified and ‘executable advice’ (Glaser 1963) can be given, and it needs to measure competence (best performance) rather than average performance. There are evidently problems with reliability in this kind of developmental assessment, and Gipps cites the work of Stiggins (1992) in suggesting that the differences between the types of assessment are so fundamental that attempts should never be made to blend the two.

Gipps highlights quite frequently that, as different assessment practices (via their effect on teaching) encourage different styles of learning, it’s vital to consider the kind of learning that we wish our students to achieve when choosing or designing a method of assessment. Gipps cites the work of Goldstein (1992) in reminding us that assessment also impacts directly on students’ learning to some extent – students never pass through the assessment process totally unscathed – it will always result in some kind of learning. Gipps uses the UK SATS as a shining example of authentic assessment (sometimes called ‘performance assessment’) that models the learning activities taking place, and therefore doesn’t lead to so much distortion of instruction. My year group was the first year to sit the Year 9 SATS. I remember feeling particularly bereft at the lack of ‘coaching’ that took place beforehand – we were so used to being given past papers for homework, practicing in exam conditions, etc – we really felt the difference and it wasn’t comfortable for us at all to not have what we saw as formal preparation for the assessment process itself. Many of my peers did rather badly, simply because they weren’t used to being asked to think rather than to recall - they assumed the questions were asking them to regurgitate some sort of prior knowledge that they didn’t have, so they left it blank and moved on.

I’d be interested to hear about anyone else’s experiences of the National Curriculum, and SATS, and how they resonate with the concepts that Gipps presents…!