Modes of Assessment

In line with the purposes of assessment, there are three assessment modes.

Assessment

of Learning Assessment for evaluating the quality of education or understanding students’ standards.

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for helping students to understand their strengths and weaknesses in learning and to make continuous improvement. This also enables teachers to review and adjust their teaching objectives, teaching plans and teaching strategies to facilitate learning.

Assessment as Learning

Assessment for enabling students to be more active in connecting learning and assessment, thereby developing their self-directed learning abilities.

5.2.1 Assessment of Learning

To understand students’ learning performance, schools usually use tests and examinations as summative assessment at the end of a teaching module or a semester. These assessment results, apart from being used to examine whether students have achieved certain pre-defined academic standards and to understand their learning difficulties, can also be used as feedback for the school’s curriculum development. Teachers should make constant reference to the learning objectives of the GS curriculum framework to ensure that not only students’ knowledge and understanding, but also their skills, values and attitudes are included in the assessments.

Schools should avoid over-relying on written tests/ examinations as they cannot be comprehensive assessments of student performance in learning.

Regarding the use of daily marks, please refer to “Internal Assessment Guide for Schools” (Chinese version only).

Website: http://cd1.edb.hkedcity.net/cd/gs/Guideline_for_School_Internal_

Assessment.pdf

Reflection: Do the GS teachers

1. rely totally on written examinations to assess students’ learning performance?

2. use this type of examination to find out students’ learning strengths and difficulties?

3. use the assessment data as feedback for school-based curriculum development?

4. collect and analyse the assessment data to understand students’ learning progress and provide feedback for enhancing learning?

5. adopt other assessment modes? need diversified assessment modes?

5.2.2 Assessment for Learning

Learning is a continuous process. Therefore, assessment should not only focus on learning outcomes, but also student performance during the processes of learning. Through meaningful learning and assessment activities in regular classroom teaching, teachers know whether students can achieve the learning targets, thus understanding their learning difficulties. They can adjust their teaching strategies based on the learning abilities of students and help students construct knowledge, cultivate attitudes and develop generic skills by making reference to students’ learning abilities. The ‘assessment for learning’

activities can be carried out through diversified modes including observation, questioning and learning tasks in everyday learning.

• Teachers should take the prior knowledge and previous learning experiences of students into consideration when devising contents of the assessment tasks so that previously learned ideas are integrated with the new one to form a structured understanding.

• Teachers should give positive and constructive feedback according to student performance so as to strengthen their learning. Quality feedback can provide concrete information for students to clearly identify their strengths and weaknesses. Timely feedback helps students understand their learning progress and make improvement. Feedback is much more significant than mere marks in developing students’ learning potential.

Assessment Reflection: Do GS teachers

1. adopt relevant assessment modes (design of tasks and activities;

questioning and observations) that best review students’ performance in particular learning contexts?

2. focus on students’ learning progress (i.e. how they learn)?

3. devise assessment activities that involve knowledge acquisition (which include both application and transfer), attitudes cultivation and skills development during the learning processes?

4. provide students with opportunities for self-directed learning (including self-reflection, peer learning and response to teacher’s feedback)?

Different from summative assessment, formative assessment can provide high quality feedback on learning effectiveness, thus helping students strive for improvement. Both formative assessment and summative assessments should be used progressively to compile a comprehensive profile of each student’s learning. The relationship between formative assessment and summative assessment in GS is illustrated in the figure, ‘A Framework of Assessment Practices for General Studies’.

Over the past decade, schools have attached importance to both summative and formative assessments in formulating their assessment policies and measures.

Both assessment modes should complement each other in evaluating students’

performance. At the same time, schools have adopted diversified modes of assessment, and emphasised more on feedback to students from various stakeholders (e.g. students’ self-assessment and parents’ involvement in the assessment process). Some schools have reviewed and analysed assessment data for subsequent curriculum development.

5.2.3 Assessment as Learning

With the advancement of Formative Assessment in schools, teachers can further assist students to become self-assessors and provide their own feedback to their self-directed learning. Self-assessment becomes part of learning if students can reflect on their progress when engaging themselves either in self-studies or interactive peer learning. More meaningful learning could be resulted if students become more capable of self-monitoring and seeking feedback for adjustment of their own learning methods, and reflect on their learning strengths and difficulties.

Figure: A FRAMEWORK OF ASSESSMENT PRACTICES FOR GENERAL STUDIES FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT (informs learning and teaching)

Leads to mor e successful r esults

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT (measures attainment) ● Sharing learning objectives with students ● Effective questioning

(e.g. wait/ pause time, a variety of question types – open/ closed questions, content-centred to student-centred)

● Observation (e.g. body language, facial expression) ● Peer learning (e.g. listening and reflecting on other students’ answers in whole class setting) ● Effective feedback (e.g. clear advice for improvement/ reinforcement) ● Active involvement of students in their own learning

● Raising of students’ self-esteem

● Diversity ● Different modes of assessment (e.g. pen and paper tests, projects, portfolio, etc.) to match learning objectives and processes

● Different parties (e.g. self/ peer/ teachers/ parents) ● Different strategies to assess the quality of learning (e.g. setting assessments that are both challenging and suitable to students’

competence other than reward and punishment) ● Tests which are used diagnostically

to inform learning and teaching ● Opportunities for students to learn and correct rather than compare marks with others

● Tests/ examinations which are used to assign grades or levels (e.g. end of school term/ year) ● Recording ● For tracing students’ learning progress ● Reporting ● Qualitative feedback, reducing reliance on grades and marks

Assessment