As a student, the bulk of my experience has been positive both with respect to the process of learning and the demonstration of that learning. That is, I’ve been successful as a student and performed well on assessments of my learning. However, my experience of those assessments has been mixed. Specifically, I am aware that my performance while being formally assessed has not always been reflective of my learning.
There are three key aspects of assessment which determine the efficacy of the assessment. Namely, the validity, reliability, and authenticity of the assessment instrument influences the utility of the assessment both with respect to assessing student learning and teacher efficacy. In my experience, the nature of many of the formal assessments I’ve been subjected to, especially teacher-made assessments, have been undermined by ease of design, administration, and grading considerations.
For instance, the assessment of experiential learning of a manual skill with a paper and pencil formal assessment seems counter-intuitive. In this example, it seems likely that what is being assessed is the ability to articulate the nature of the skill rather than demonstrating the acquisition of it. Similarly, the selection of the appropriate text book quote on a multiple-choice science test seems to test the memorization skill of the student rather than whether the student has learned and can apply the scientific subject matter.
In my experience, when assessments do not really measure what they purport to measure; do not consistently measure the same thing over time; and are not based in the real application of knowledge, the assessor risks gathering spurious data with respect to student learning and/or teacher efficacy. One common flaw teachers fall victim to, with respect to formal assessments, is because the construct of the assessment is fact-based and relies on student recall to answer questions, students can memorize enough facts to perform well on the exam without having really “learned” anything.
Formal assessment, however, should be (and I think in my experience in elementary and secondary school, largely was) only one piece of data. Teachers must be informed by both formal assessment data and their own modes of informal assessment. Together, these data should be consistent. Consistent data across modalities of assessment assists teachers in validating their assessment methodologies. Inconsistencies in these data bring light to possible issues that the teacher can investigate and rectify.
My most positive experiences with respect to being assessed have involved both formal and informal modes of assessment coupled with different approaches to assessment – not simply paper and pencil “tests”. Further, assessments that employ higher levels of thinking (i.e., synthesizing) have contributed to the positive experiences I’ve had. A well designed, broad assessment methodology is informative to the teacher with respect to assessing student learning and their own efficacy. A well designed, broad assessment methodology is also instructive for the student with respect to helping them to understand their own learning and how they might improve.
