NOTES - Article Review for School Experience 30-9-19

Harlen (2005) Teachers' summative practices and assessment for learning - tensions and synergies

Assessment for learning vs assessment of learning (formative vs summative) → +ve & -ve
↑ teachers' judgements in summative assessment
Summative assesment → 'some seriously detrimental effects'
BUT ∴ issues with reliability and validity

Assessment systems shld be planned and implemented enabling evidence of sts' ongoing learning to be used formatively and summatively.

Intro

Summative assesment  → internal (record keeping, choosing course, parents' meetinsgs) / external (certification, vocational, employment, FE/HE)

HIGH STAKES → pressure → learning experience and assessment

Impact of Summative Assessment on Teaching and the Curriculum

High stakes testing → focus on test content, repeated practice tests, training sts to answer test Qs, & transmission style teaching ↓ formative assessment

↑ Test scores ↓ achievement

Gordon Rees (1997) - teachers can train students to pass any test, even those intended to assess higher thinking skills.

Kellaghan et al. (1996:53) threat to test validity

Black and Wiliam (1998) achievement can be raised without teaching to the test.  Formative assessment requires lots of support and courage ↑ learner-oriented ↓ test-oriented

Impact of Summative Assessment on Student Motivation

Direct impact = ↓ anxiety, ↓ self-esteem.  Indirect = teacher & curriculum

MOTIVATION includes aspects relating to learning, incl. self-esteem, self-regulation, interest, effort, self-efficacy, and a person’s sense of themself as a learner.

Harlen and Deakin Crick (2002) Main findings:

• Ts resort to transmission style teaching;
• High stakes test become rationale classroom focus / dominate ts' own assessment interactions;
• Repeated practice test ↑ low self-image of lower-achieving learners;
• Sts misinterpret teachers intentions ↑ summative assessment;
• ↑ test anxiety;
• Judgemental feedback may influence sts' views;
• Teacher collegiality;
• Emphasis on evaluation & selectivity produces sts with strong extrinsic orientation towards grades and social status.

Suggested action:

• explaining to sts the purpose of tests and involve them in decisions about tests; 
• use assessment to convey sense of progress in their learning to students; 
• provide explanations to sts about the purpose of tests & other assessments of their learning; 
• provide feedback that helps further learning; 
• develop sts’ self-assessment skills & their use of criteria relating to learning, rather than test performance.

Implications:

• use wider range of indicators of school performance;
• more valid approach to tracking standards at national level - sample testing sts;
• more valid info about individual st performance required;
• more use of teachers' judgements. 

Issues and opportunities of using Teachers' assessment for summative purposes

Issues

+ve potential advantages - Ts make judgements about Sts attainment in  the course through normal interactions → attainment across full range of activities and goals = broader and fuller account than tests. This info can be used to help learning.  ∴ more open and collaborative approach to summative assessment → learning goals rather than performance goals.

This practice already evident in Queensland and Sweden - Ts' judgements used for assessment on which important decisions for students are based.

-ve arguments against - unreliability and bias.  Additional work required when considering external use → external moderation procedures. Requiements of moderation wld constrain ts' use of full range of evidence available e.g. ephemeral evidence.

Harlen (2004a, 2004b)

Summative assessment = The process by which teachers gather evidence in a planned and systematic way in order to draw inferences about their students’ learning, based on their professional judgement, and to report at a particular time on their students’ achievements.

Dependability - the interdependence between the concepts of reliability and validity means that increasing one tends to decrease the other.


>Is that so???

= a combination of the two, defined in this instance as the extent to which reliability is optimized while ensuring validity.

MAIN FINDINGS***

Opportunities

• Importance of non-judgmental feedback to help stst know where they are in relation to learning goals;
• Need for teachers to share with sts the reasons for, and goals of, assessment;
• the value to Ts of using assessment to  learn more about sts and to reflect;
• less emphasis on comparisons among sts & more on individual development;
  
• help sts to take responsibility for their learning & work towards learning goals rather than performance goals;

 Using summative assessment to help learning

Let sts know where they are in their learning - self-assessment and feedback / teacher and peers.
Relies on sts knowing the goals and the quality criteris used in assessing it.
T uses feedback to adjust teaching, create materials and provide opportunities for learning.

Dependibility of assessment is enhanced when Ts have thorough understanding of goals and of the nature of progression towards them.

→ Schools being able to make own work plans
→ Regular paticipation in moderation
→ Time and respect for professionalism of Ts

Three main ways of

Motivation in Second and Foreign Language Learning

'Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained'

Pintrick and Schunk 1996:4

Motivational psychologists - focus in the motors of human behaviour in the individual rather than in the social being. (drive, arousal, cognitive self-appraisal).

Social psychologists - see the action as the function of the social context and the interpersonal/intergroup relation patterns, as measured by the social attitudes.

The gap between the perspectives is gradually narrowing.

Social cognition - cognitive concepts integrated into traditional social psychological models.

Reasoned Action theory

The chief determinant of action is a person's intention to perform the particular behaviour.

- attitude towards the behaviour

- subjective norm' i.e. the person's perception of the social pressures put on him/her to perform the behaviour in question.

Planned behaviour theory

'perceived behavioural control' i.e. the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour.

Approaches: expectancy-value theories, goal theories and self-determination theory.

Expectancy-value theories:

According to the main principles, motivation to perform various tasks is the product of two key factors: the individual's expectancy of success in a given task and the value the individual attaches to success in the task.

Underlying expectancy-value theories - similarly to most cognitive theories - is the belief that humans are innately active learners with an inborn curiosity and an urge to get to know their environment and meet challenges, and therefore the main issue in expectancy value theories is not what motivates learners but rather what directs and shapes their inherent motivation.

Researchers emphasise various different factors that form the individual's cognitive process; from an educational point of view, the most important aspects include processing past experiences (attribution theory), judging one's own abilities and competence (self-efficacy theory), and attempting to maintain one's self-esteem (self-worth theory).

• The guiding principle in attribution theory is the assumption that the way humans explain their own past success and failures will significantly affect their future achievement behaviour.

• Self-efficacy theory refers to people's judgement of their capabilities to carry out certain specific tasks, and, accordingly, their sense of efficacy will determine their choice of the activities attempted, as well as the level of their aspirations, the amount of effort exerted, and the persistence displayed.

• In self-worth theory of achievement motivation, the highest human priority is the need for self-acceptance and therefore 'in reality, the dynamics of school achievement largely reflect attempts to aggrandise and protect self-perceptions of ability' (Covington & Roberts 1994).

Value:
A model of task values by Eccles and Wigfield consists of four components: attainment value (or importance), intrinsic values (or interest), extrinsic utility value, and cost.

p120

References:

Dornyei, Z. (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Thames Valley University, London.

Pintrick and Schunk (1996) Motivation in education: theory, research, and applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.