SECTION C: ASPECTS OF SCHOLARLY TEACHING

(iii) Method of Assessing

 

Assessment as another aspect of Method

In the previous section we discussed "Teaching Method" as the means by which we attempt to achieve or realise the Content Aims of a subject or course of study. Assessment, from this perspective, is yet another kind of "method" - the means by which we attempt to find evidence that the Content Aims have been achieved, or the extent to which they have been achieved.

Accordingly, there is the strongest possible logical nexus between Assessment, Aims/Content and Method. It is impossible to engage in assessment without a knowledge of the Aims/Content specifications, as well as a knowledge of the Teaching Method that was chosen for trying to achieve them.

A paradoxical - and highly contentious - point arises when we ask about the relationship between Assessment and Evaluation. It comprises two aspects, the first of which is straightforward enough; it is the second proposition that raises very difficult questions:

1. Evaluation of teaching, to be comprehensive, must include evaluation (an attempt to measure the effectiveness or quality) of the assessment methods used. That is, evaluation includes evaluating the assessment processes to see how they stand up.
2. The problems arise when we ask "If assessment is to be a measure of the achievement of content aims in individual students, why is assessment not thereby the primary datum of the evaluation of teaching?". "If students have failed to learn what was intended, or in the manner that was intended, does not this provide the first and most telling evidence of the quality of teaching?"

Most commentators will argue, however, that proposition (2) is false. It is strongly recommended that you seriously consider why it is almost certainly false; read, discuss, think, and compare your conclusions with others.

Notwithstanding the virtually unanimous rejection of proposition (2) as a whole, the paradox remains that, in evaluating teaching, there nevertheless do appear to be reasons why we should look at student assessment outcomes and results. In effect, we both reject and accept the proposition. What reasons would you give (and what ones would your colleagues accept) for including some consideration of student assessment results in an evaluation of teaching? Under what conditions? In what manner? This issue will be taken up again in the following section on Evaluation.

Topic 1.2: How is assessment related to student learning; what is its significance from a student learning perspective?

It is here that the inadequacy of a merely instrumental (means to an end) understanding of educational methods in general can be most acutely seen. We have already argued that teaching methods need to be understood as part of (integral to) the very end (student learning) which is our aim. The experiences and perceptions of the student whilst studying and whilst being taught are inseparable from the outcome - they directly influence it and become part of it. The same, perhaps even more pointedly, can be argued for assessment.

On a purely instrumental view, assessment might be conceived as a piece of educational investigation; a way of discovering what is in the mind (or the capacities, attributes, competencies or abilities) of the student. We wish to know what those are, so that we can grade, rank, and eventually acquit the student as "satisfactory" or worthy of the credit or title they have studied for. The more accurate and reliable we can make this "method", the better we can trust our final decision (pass, failure, distinction or whatever). This view has broadly prevailed throughout education in this century - it is the dominant assessment paradigm.

On a student learning (integral) view, assessment is a crucial part of the environment, the context, in which learning will take place. By its very presence, whether as something that is to take place, or that is taking place, or that has taken place in the past, it is one of the key determinants of how the student will understand and approach their study tasks. It does not merely try to tell us what the outcome of that studying has been; it substantially determines the quality, the very nature, of that outcome. In brief, we might claim that in the most substantial ways, what is learned is determined by whether, and how, it is assessed. It is one of the "Process" variables in the "3P" model.

How assessment operates as a process variable has been interpreted in a number of different ways. Some critiques of inappropriate assessment speak about "what" is being assessed; others with "how" it is being assessed, and others still with the pressure or dominating effect of assessment demands.