ETHICS

Assessment of Student Learning 1

Overview

 This chapter centers on ethical issues and responsibilities of teachers in the assessment process.

 Teachers are accountable in ensuring that their assessments are valid and reliable.

 Validity and Reliability are aspects of FAIRNESS.

 FAIRNESS is an ethical value.

 Other aspects of Fairness include:

 Students’ knowledge of learning targets and assessments

 Opportunity to learn
 Prerequisite knowledge and skills
 Avoiding student stereotyping
 Avoiding bias in assessment tasks and procedures
 Accommodating special needs

Ethics in Assessment

 The term “ETHICS” refers to questions of right and wrong.

 Ensures that teachers should set aside personal bias and give away to fairness in the
assessment of students learning.

Students’ knowledge of learning targets and assessments

 This aspect of fairness speaks of:

• TRANSPARENCY - is defined as disclosure of information to students about assessments.
• TEST-TAKING SKILLS – all students should be familiar with the test strategies before
they take the assessment.

Opportunity to learn

 Assessment has to be viewed as an opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity to weed

out systematic learners.

 In the classroom, teachers envision to make all students learn.

 This opportunity should be provided to all students regardless of race, creed, or religious
denomination.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

 The students should have acquired prerequisite knowledge and skills.

  Teachers should deal with the issue of prior knowledge in teaching.

 This is the role of placement evaluation – knowing the students entry behavior.

Avoiding student stereotyping

 The teachers should refrain from stereotyping.

 Stereotyping is caused by preconceived judgments of people one comes in contact with

which are sometimes unintended.

 Typecasting - giving prejudgment that one child is better than the other violates the
principle that all students can learn. This pre judgment reduces teacher’s objectivity in
evaluation.

 Stereotype threat claiming that for people who are challenged in areas they deem
important like intellectual ability, their fear of confirming negative stereotypes can cause
them to falter in their actual test performance.

5 recommended concrete changes to alleviate stereotype threats:

1. Be careful in asking questions about topics related to student’s demographic group.

2. Place measures of maximal performance at the beginning of assessments.

3. Do not describe tests as diagnostic of intellectual capacity.

4. Determine if there are mediators of stereotype threat that affect test performance.

5. Consider possibility of stereotype threat when interpreting test scores of susceptible

typecast individuals.

Avoiding bias in assessment tasks and procedures

 Assessment must be free from bias.

Two forms of assessment bias:

1. Offensiveness: happens if test-takers get distressed, upset or distracted about how an

individual or a particular group is portrayed in the test.

2. Unfair Penalization: harms student performance due to test content, not because items
are offensive but rather, the content caters to some particular groups from the same
economic class, race. Gender, etc., leaving other groups at a loss or a disadvantage.

Accommodating special needs

 Teachers need to be sensitive to the needs of students.

 Certain accommodation must be given especially for those who are physically or mentally
challenged.
  Accommodation does not mean giving advantage to students with learning disabilities, but
rather allowing them to demonstrate their knowledge on assessment without hindrances
from their disabilities.

Accommodation can be placed in one of six categories

1. Presentation

2. Response

3. Setting

4. Timing

5. Scheduling

6. Others (special preparation techniques and out-of-level tests)

To ensure the appropriateness of the accommodation supplied, it should take into account
three important elements:

1. Nature and extent of the learner’s disability.

2. Type and format of assessment.

3. Competency and content being assessed.

Relevance

 Relevance can also be thought of as an aspect of Fairness.

Additional criteria for achieving quality assessments:

1. Assessment should reflect the knowledge and skills that are most important for students
to learn.

2. Assessment should support every student’s opportunity to learn things that are
important.

3. Assessment should tell teachers and individual students something that they do not
already know.

Ethical Issues

 Here are some situations in which assessment may not be called for: 

1. Requiring students to answer checklist of their sexual fantasies.

2. Asking elementary pupils to answer sensitive questions without consent of their

parents.

3. Grades and reports of teachers generated from using invalid and unreliable test
instruments are unjust.

4. Resulting interpretations are inaccurate and misleading.

 Other ethical issues in testing (and research) that may arise include possible harm to the
participants are:

1. Confidentiality of results.

2. Deception in regard to the purpose and use of the assessment.

3. Temptation to assist students in answering tests or responding to surveys.