As has been briefly discussed in the previous sections, Indonesia has administered the NE for more than three decades. The NE aims to be a tool for improving the quality of education in Indonesia (Firman & Tola, 2008, Ministry of National Education, 2006c;
Ministry of National Education, 2010b). Indonesia has conducted this national assessment since 1980 for grade 6, grade 9, and grade 12 (Ministry of National Education, 2010a; Coordinator Ministry for Social Affairs, 2014). This assessment takes place at end of every final semester in the different school systems: the 12th semester of primary school in grade 6, the 6th semester of junior secondary school in grade 9, and the 6th semester of senior secondary school in grade 12. Students must receive a passing grade on the NE because it is part of the requirement to graduate and move on to a higher schooling system. The passing grade for 2014 was a 5.50 average score (on 1-10 scale), and students must score above 4.00 on all NE subjects assessed (Ministry of
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National Education, 2013b; Ministry of National Education, 2014, Nuffic, 2014). The passing grade was a 5.25 average in 2005, and students were required to score above 4.25 on all NE subjects assessed (Kasro, 2010). There were approximately six million students who participated in this assessment in 2014 (Solopos, 2014).
The subjects assessed in grade 6are Indonesian language, math, and science. The subjects assessed in grade 9 are Indonesian language, English, math, and science (Ministry of National Education, 2010b; Republic of Indonesia, 2013). The subjects assessed in grade 12are Indonesian language, English, and math. In addition, different majors will have additional subjects to be assessed: physics, chemistry, and biology for science majors; economics, geography, and sociology for social knowledge majors; and Indonesian literature, anthropology, and one international elective language (Mandarin, Japanese, German, French, or Arabic) for language majors (Ministry of National Education, 2010b; Republic of Indonesia, 2013). Through the NE results, the central government learns which group of Indonesian students is still weak and in which subjects they perform poorly (Aziez, 2011; Fahmi et al., 2011; Firman & Tola, 2008;
Sulistyo, 2009). Based on this information, the government plans quality improvement programs and supports local education offices with more funding to hire more teachers, for example.
Because of the ideal objective of the NE and its reinforcement of the passing grade, NE implementation has created anxiety for students. Students feel that the NE is a big challenge, especially for students in rural Indonesia, which has limited educational resources (Daud, 2006; Evans, 2010; Kuo & Daud, 2015; Tjalla, 2010; Yusuf, 2011).
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Some schools can provide students with additional classes as preparation for the NE.
Some parents even spend a substantial amount of money to hire private tutors for their students to help them pass the NE. Wealthy families send their students to crammed schools; however, this is not always feasible for schools or parents in most parts of Indonesia.
NE challenges become more dynamic when third parties are involved and take advantage of this situation. Consequently, the leaking of items prior to the administration of NE has become a major issue in recent years (Kuo & Daud, 2015;
Maryono & Purnama, 2012; Rahmi, 2011; Sulistyo, 2009; Tjalla, 2010). The leaks are caused by people who want to benefit financially by selling NE items (Solopos, 2014).
Another existing challenge of the NE is related to the late arrival of the test materials to some schools in remote provinces. This happens because the Indonesian government, through its MONE offices, insists on administering the NE at the same time nationally (Ministry of National Education, 2013b; Ministry of National Education, 2014). The situation could occur because Indonesia still relies on the P&P traditional test application. To ensure that the test materials arrive on time for all schools in Indonesia, the P&P test requires substantial human resources in terms of manual work. Many of the challenges could be eliminated if a computer-based test, a computerized adaptive test in particular, were to be used for the NE (Kuo & Daud, 2014b; Kuo & Daud, 2015).
In summary, this section has discussed the biology curriculum and the different types of biology assessments. The discussion has also explained the challenges of the NE. The different types of assessments in the school systems measure the students’
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abilities in biology. The assessments provide feedback to students, but they only cover some parts of the curriculum for a particular semester. The national assessment (NE) provides feedback for students, but the feedback is based on their overall abilities only.
As a result, the feedback is not very helpful for remedial instruction, which students really need to be successful on the NE in order to move to the next level of the Indonesian education system. The psychological pressure experienced by students to pass the NE has added challenges to the existing challenges of the NE in its P&P format.
Third parties have also worsened the challenges through item leakage for personal benefits (Kuo & Daud, 2015; Solopos, 2014).
Finally, an assessment system that covers all topics in the biology curriculum and provides feedback in all domains tested is required to adress these issues. This study will present a case for using a computerized-based test for biology assessments with the aim of alleviating the challenges of the existing NE and the challenges of the P&P form of the assessment. It is envisaged that the assessment system proposed and analyzed in this study will enable students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in different domains of biology and to improve their knowledge based on the results before attempting the NE.