Assessment

Chapter 5 Assessment 5.1 Guiding Principles

Assessment is an integral part of the curriculum. It involves collecting evidence about student learning, interpreting information and making judgements about students’ performance for providing feedback and relevant information to students, teachers, schools, parents and other stakeholders. While planning and implementing assessment of the Arts Education curriculum, the following principles are to be observed.

 Design appropriate assessment tasks and assessment criteria to align with the curriculum aims, the four Learning Targets and the learning objectives of the Arts Education curriculum.

 Employ a variety of assessment practices to assess different aspects of student performance so as to embrace learner diversity.

 Track and record student learning to help them gain holistic understanding of their learning, so as to adjust their own progress and pace.

 Provide students with timely and constructive feedback continuously to enhance their learning motivation and help them reflect on their learning.

 Engage students in a proactive role of monitoring and reflecting on their learning with reference to teachers’ and peers’ feedback to enhance self-directed learning.

 Use assessment data collected at different stages to improve student learning, and adjust the pedagogies and curriculum contents.

Reflection and Action

 What are the strengths and weaknesses of your school’s current assessment practices in the Arts Education KLA? How would you make improvement?

5.2 Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative assessment attends closely to small “chunks” of learning and may take place during the learning and teaching process. Teachers need to provide timely and constructive feedback in response to students’ performance in various circumstances, e.g. practising a recorder ensemble piece, appreciating a piece of artwork, developing ideas for creating a painting or a song, and preparing for a stage performance, thus improving learning and teaching.

Summative assessment provides information about what students have achieved at the end of a teaching unit or a school term/year. Common examples of summative assessment are tests and examinations in schools and public examinations, which

involve measuring the standard or level a student has attained and reporting it in terms of marks or grades. It helps teachers check whether the learning objectives have been achieved. Teachers could use data obtained from summative assessment to review and revise the teaching plans for the improvement of student learning.

Summative assessment approach is often referred to Assessment of Learning.

Formative assessment serves two purposes, namely Assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning.

Formative Assessment

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for Learning integrates assessment into learning and teaching. It helps students understand what they are learning, what they have attained and what is expected of them. To improve student learning, teachers should provide students with timely feedback and adjust their teaching strategies.

Assessment as Learning

Assessment as Learning engages students in reflecting on and monitoring their progress. Students are actively involved in regulating the learning process, evaluating their own performance against the learning goals, and planning for the next step in learning.

Summative Assessment

Assessment of learning

Assessment of Learning is mainly used for reporting purpose which gives an overview of students’

performance of learning. It provides information about the level students have attained in learning and shows what they know over a period of time.

Example of Promoting Assessment as Learning

Assessment as Learning can be promoted when students are engaged in learning to perform a piece of music. Under teachers’ guidance, students set feasible objectives and monitor their own learning process, which may involve setting the assessment criteria, employing the criteria for self-assessment, and identifying ways for making improvement in performing the piece of music.

5.3 Internal Assessment

Schools’ internal assessment of student learning serves different purposes, including i) to review and monitor students’ learning progress; ii) to generate evidence for adjustment of curriculum plans and teaching strategies; iii) to ensure the achievement of learning and teaching objectives; iv) to help students understand their capabilities and improve their learning; and v) to inform parents about their children’s performance.

A variety of assessment activities and tasks can be used for schools’ internal assessment of student learning. In this regard, schools should adopt the following modes of assessment flexibly to meet different assessment purposes.

(i) Classroom Performance

Teachers should observe students’ classroom performance in different areas.

Through discussion, presentation, class work as well as raising and answering questions, teachers can understand students’ learning progress and identify their learning needs.

(ii) Arts Performance/Artwork

Students’ involvement in art making, singing, instrumental playing or acting allows them to apply arts knowledge and skills. For example, assessing students’ abilities in sight-singing helps teachers understand their abilities in reading notation, and assessing students’ abilities in painting helps teachers understand their abilities in handling materials and using art language.

(iii) Project

A project of an arts-related theme usually requires students to demonstrate their arts and cross-disciplinary knowledge, as well as their abilities in selecting, organising and presenting information for in-depth enquiry of the theme. A project can be conducted individually or in groups, and also helps provide evidence of students’

self-directed learning.

(iv) Test/Examination

A test or examination can be used for formative and summative assessment. Apart from written types of assessment, practical tests (e.g. singing a song, playing a musical instrument and creating an art piece) can be used to help teachers understand students’ progress of learning over a certain period of time.

(v) Portfolio

A portfolio provides evidence of students’ learning process and achievements in appreciating, creating and performing the arts, as well as their abilities in self-reflection and self-directed learning. A portfolio may consist of sketches of music composition or artwork, analyses and interpretations of the arts, and reflections which can be kept in textual, visual or audio forms at different stages of learning.

(vi) Self-assessment/Peer Assessment

Self-assessment helps students check their progress of learning and informs direction for learning. Peer assessment promotes collaborative learning and encourages students to offer objective and constructive feedback to their peers.

Students can obtain different views for improvement and learn to respect others.

Self- and peer assessments can also enhance students’ ownership and learning autonomy.

5.4 Quality Feedback

Quality feedback should be given to students in a timely manner so as to recognise their strengths and identify areas for improvement. Constructive comments given by teachers are essential in enhancing and sustaining students’ learning motivation.

During the learning process, such as appraising works of the arts, developing ideas for art making and experimenting with the timbre of musical instruments, timely verbal and/or written feedback from teachers is valuable for students to gain insights, form new ideas and grasp key concepts to prepare them for the next step in learning.

After receiving students’ assignments, such as a piece of artwork, a music composition, a report after attending a concert or visiting an exhibition, and an arts portfolio, teachers should provide students with quality feedback to recognise their effort and provide suggestions on how further improvement could be made.

Teachers should guide students to make good use of the feedback to improve learning rather than just focusing on the grades and marks given.

Reflection and Action

 What modes of assessment do you adopt to assess students’ diverse abilities?

 How do you guide students to improve their learning based on your feedback?

5.5 Reporting

For internal assessment, teachers need to report on students’ performance to various stakeholders according to the assessment objectives. Reporting on students’

learning outcomes may take various forms such as grades, marks and written comments. However, using only grades and marks may not be effective in providing information about students’ learning performance and progress in the arts. Written statements should be provided to reflect how well students are doing according to their capabilities in various aspects.

At the senior secondary level, students’ learning experiences in the Aesthetic Development of OLE should be recorded in their individual SLP, which is a summary presentation of what a student has participated in and achieved in terms of his/her whole-person development during the senior secondary years other than his/her results in the HKDSE Examination. SLP aims to demonstrate and recognise students’ whole-person development, as well as facilitating students’ reflection on their ongoing learning experiences and goals set. In addition to the learning in Arts lessons, records of students’ performance, achievements or awards gained, and self-accounts of related learning of the arts both in and out of school also constitute essential evidence to demonstrate students’ learning in the arts. Refer to the EDB website for more information about SLP.

5.6 Public Assessment The implementation of the senior secondary curriculum under the New Academic Structure (NAS) since 2009 has initiated a fundamental shift in education in Hong Kong as curriculum changes have been accompanied by an assessment reform. A variety of strategies have been adopted to align the public assessment with the school curriculum and to promote the reform of the assessment culture of Hong Kong.

Upon completion of the six-year secondary education, students who study Music and Visual Arts as elective subjects of the senior secondary curriculum will take the HKDSE Examination administered by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) for measuring students’ levels of attainment in the two subjects. As for students who study arts-related ApL courses, the assessment is conducted by the respective course providers, while the HKEAA is responsible for the moderation and quality assurance of the assessment.

Public assessment aligns with the school curriculum. Schools should focus on helping students understand the expected learning outcomes and assessment criteria in order to help them attain better performance. While public assessment is conventionally perceived as summative assessment, the data from the HKDSE can be used for reviewing and adjusting the school Arts Education curriculum.

Refer to Chapter 5 of the relevant curriculum and assessment guides for details on the public assessment for the Music and Visual Arts elective subjects, and Chapter

5 of the Applied Learning Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Senior Secondary Level) (2015) for details on the public assessment for arts-related ApL courses.

5.7 A Framework of School Assessment Practices

A framework for organising school assessment is provided in the following figure.

It illustrates the interrelationship of formative and summative assessment, and the connection among learning and teaching, internal assessment and public assessment.

Schools can refer to this figure in developing their assessment plans for the Arts Education curriculum.   

Chapter 6