Assessment – Our Guiding Principles

Assessment is a central process in teaching and learning. I believe that when assessment is an integral part of teaching, it contributes significantly to all students’ learning. Hence, assessment should support the teaching and learning. Last week, my school leaders spoke about assessment in our school. One of the school leaders presented the guiding principles for assessment, which included validity of assessment, clarity of expectations, accurate placement of students to realize their potential and motivation to do classwork.

Four Guiding Principles

These four principles underpin my school’s assessment objectives and represent the shared view within the school of the processes and conditions that contribute to assessment. These described principles now serve to support the process of assessment – which teachers from different departments, various subjects and levels can work together to plan, develop and provide coherent assessment for our students.

Generally, it is through assessment that we know whether our students have learned what they have been taught, so that teachers can make appropriate adjustments to the teaching. Assessments are also used to describe the achievement of our students, so that decisions can be made about the kind of learning experiences that should follow. Students likewise would use the information from assessment for the process of continual self-improvement. Parents also use the results of assessment to learn about the progress their children are making in school, and to make decisions about the quality of teaching and learning in the school. And, of course, school leaders and middle managers use assessments to provide information about the quality of the school or programs. All these can be categorized under two broad purposes for assessment: (1) to “improve the teaching and learning process in the classrooms” and (2) to provide “reliable information to hold students, teachers and the school accountable for results”. Hence, there is a need for Principle 2: clarity of expectation of assessment for students, teachers and parents. In addition, I believe that middle managers including myself also need to have clarity of expectations of assessment.

Ultimately, I see all assessments being used to support decisions and my belief is that a decision made with the information from assessment is better than a decision that is made without such information. Hence, the quality of decisions will depend on the quality of assessment and so Principle 1: the validity of assessment is important. To me, validity refers to the extent to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure, and the accuracy of inferences and decisions made on the based on the assessment results. Another criteria for evaluating assessment indicated is of reliability, which refers to how consistent the assessment measures students learning (knowledge, skills, understandings…). Hence, to be reliable, the results of the assessment should be consistent across the level (Principle 1).  

Today’s reflection provided me with some clarity about assessment as I attempted to interpret the “whys” in some of the elements in the guiding principles for assessment. In my coming reflection, I will attempt to speak on the two assessment methods, namely summative and formative assessment. To be continued …