III. OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC

WHAT IS ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING?

Assessment of learning refers to strategies designed to confirm what students know, demonstrate whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their individualized programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about students’ future programs or placements. It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves, and sometimes to outside groups (e.g., employers, other educational institutions).

Assessment of learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of assessment of learning be credible and defensible.

Planning Assessment of Learning

The purpose of assessment of learning is to measure, certify, and report the level of students’ learning, so that reasonable decisions can be made about students.

There are many potential users of the information:

• teachers (who can use the information to communicate with parents about their children’s proficiency and progress)

• parents and students (who can use the results for making educational and vocational decisions)

• potential employers and post-secondary institutions (who can use the information to make decisions about hiring or acceptance)

• principals, district or divisional administrators, and teachers (who can use the information to review and revise programming)

Assessment of learning requires the collection and interpretation of information about students’ accomplishments in important curricular areas, in ways that represent the nature and complexity of the intended learning. Because genuine learning for understanding is much more than just recognition or recall of facts or algorithms, assessment of learning tasks need to enable students to show the complexity of their understanding. Students need to be able to apply key concepts, knowledge, skills, and attitudes in ways that are authentic and consistent with current thinking in the knowledge domain.

In higher education, the term "assessment" has taken on a rather broad meaning. It has been defined by D. Rowntree (1977) as "getting to know our students and the quality of their learning". P. Ramsden (1992) describes it as a way of teaching more effectively through understanding exactly what students know and do not know. Thus, assessment enables the teacher/lecturer to understand the processes and outcomes of student learning. It helps to determine what students actually achieve in their study. Such meaningful information on student learning can be used for academic improvement. It is not an end in itself but a means to an educational purpose. Assessment plays a key role in determining the quality of student learning. If students perceive that their learning will be measured in terms of producing facts, they will adopt surface approaches to learning. Therefore, whatever assessment methods we adopt will encourage different approaches to learning. D. Boud sums it up succinctly, "assessment methods and requirements probably have a greater influence on how and what students learn than any other single factor. This influence may well be of greater importance than the impact of teaching methods".