Innovation in

Assessment :
Common
Misconceptions
and Problems
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
Isnia Wulan Suci

Innovation in ELT
 Contents of This Topic

Introduction What is Assessment for learning

The nature of the innovation Assessment for learning

A comparative case study AfL in Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei

Assessment innovation Common misconceptions and problems

Reflection on assessment innovation

1
Introduction
Assessment for Learning : A concept first used
in the UK in the late 1980s.
Assessment for
Learning
Assessment for learning (AfL), a concept first used in the UK
in the late 1980s, and widely promoted through the work of
the Assessment Reform Group (Assessment Reform Group,
1999, 2001; Black & Wiliam, 1998), refers to any
assessment in which the primary purpose of the
information being collected is to improve learning. AfL
has been adopted as educational policy in a wide range of
educational systems around the world, including in English
language education.
2 The nature of the innovation:
assessment for learning
- Assessment for learning (AfL) is a core component
of assessment policy in a number of educational
systems internationally
- The term AfL was coined to ensure ‘a clear
distinction be made between assessment of learning
for the purposes of grading and reporting, which has
its own well-established procedures,
- and assessment for learning which calls for different
priorities, new procedures and a new commitment’
 Key characteristics of
assessment in AfL
● assessment is embedded in teaching and learning;
● learning goals are explicitly shared with students and
students are taught how to know and to recognize the
standards they are aiming for;
● students are engaged in continuous peer and self-
assessment;
● constructive qualitative feedback helps students to
recognize the next steps needed for learning and how to
take them;
● teachers, parents and students regularly review and reflect
on assessment data;
● it is assumed every student can improve (adapted from
the Assessment Reform
Group, 1999: 7).
 The term ‘Assessment for learning’

1 2
is often used synonymously in contrast to ‘summative’
with the term ‘formative assessment
assessment’
more formal planned
assessments at the end of a
informal and fairly frequent, unit or term/year used to
while they are still learning evaluate student progress
- In an assessment of learning culture,
formative and summative assessment are
distinctly different in both form and
function, and teacher and assessor roles
clearly demarcated,
- but in an assessment for learning culture,
even summative assessments of the students’
language skills can and should also be used
formatively to give constructive student
feedback and improve learning.
 Kennedy (2006, p.4) proposes that in this
more inclusive model of assessment:
1 2
All assessment needs to be Feedback needs to be seen
conceptualized as as a key function for all
assessment for learning. forms of assessment.

3 4
Teachers need to be seen as playing Decisions about assessment need to
an important role not only in be viewed in a social context since in
relation to formative assessment but the end they need to be acceptable to
in all forms of summative the community.
assessment as well – both internal
and external.
 In AfL, formative
assessment has two
key functions :
- informing and shaping the decisions about what to do
next, by helping both the teacher decide what to teach
next,

- and, even more importantly, the student understand

what they have learnt and what they need to learn
next (Black, 2001; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Black et
al., 2003).
Torrance (1993: 340)
argued
many teachers are at risk of assuming formative
assessment

 is at best ‘fairly mechanical and behaviouristic …

in the graded test tradition’;

 at worst summative, ‘taking snapshots of where the

children have “got to”, rather than where they
might be going next’:
 “The term ‘formative’ itself is open to a variety of
interpretations and often means no more than that
assessment is carried out frequently and is planned at the
same time as teaching. Such assessment does not
necessarily have all the characteristics just identified as
helping learning. It may be formative in helping the
teacher to identify areas where more explanation or
practice is needed. But for the pupils, the marks or
remarks on their work may tell them about their success or
failure but not about how to make progress towards
further learning.”

— (Assessment Reform Group,

1999, p.7)
AfL has been embraced much more
strongly as the centrepiece of
assessment reform in a range of
traditional examination cultures,
including Brunei, Hong Kong and
Singapore.
 English and other teachers in these small nation-states are
being called upon to: (Davison, 2007; Davison & Leung,
2009)

plan and/or implement

1 appropriate assessment
procedures to monitor and
evaluate student progress in
their own classroom including 2 3
designing and implementing actively engaging learners in and incorporating critical but
their own classroom-based self and peer assessment constructive feedback into
assessment tasks the assessment cycle
 3
A Comparative
Case Study
assessment for learning in Hong Kong, Singapore and
Brunei
 Hong Kong,
Singapore and Brunei
Commonalities :

all post-colonial societies

strong educational influences and ties

to Britain
striving to develop twenty-first century skills and high
levels of English language competence to ensure strong
employment and economic growth

receptive to the establishment of assessment for learning

as a way of raising student achievement, improving
literacy skills and enhancing global competiveness
AfL in Hong Kong
- Assessment for learning (AfL) underpins the recent development
of a school-based assessment (SBA) component in secondary
English language teaching (Davison, 2007; Davison & Hamp-
Lyons, 2009). The stated purpose of SBA is to provide a more
comprehensive appraisal of learners’ achievement by assessing
aspects of English language learning that cannot be easily assessed
in public examinations whilst at the same time enhancing teaching
and learning.
- The initiative marks a shift from traditional norm-referenced,
externally set and assessed examinations, towards a more student-
centered, teacher-based assessment system that draws its
philosophical basis from the assessment for learning movement
discussed above, officially adopted as educational policy in Hong
Kong in 2002 (Curriculum Development Institute, 2002: 5)
AfL in Hong Kong  In SBA, teachers are involved at all stages of the
assessment cycle, from planning the assessment
programme, to identifying and/or developing
appropriate formative and summative assessment
activities right through to making the final judgments.

 In-class formal and informal performance assessment

of students’ authentic oral language skills using a
range of tasks and guiding questions and the use of
teacher judgments of student performance using
common assessment criteria are innovative aspects of
the new school-based assessment scheme, as is the
insistence on students playing an active role in the
assessment process, with self and/or peer assessment
and feedback vigorously promoted.
 AfL in Singapore

 For teaching and learning to be effective, teachers will identify and monitor
pupils’ changing needs, abilities and interests so that they can modify or
adapt their teaching methods to help pupils improve their learning. Teachers
will also give timely and useful feedback to pupils and provide them with
opportunities to act on the feedback to improve their learning. Together, the
processes of diagnosing pupils’ needs, abilities and interests, monitoring
pupils’ learning progress, and feeding forward to improve learning
constitute Assessment for Learning (AfL).
 However, in Singapore, unlike Hong Kong, there have been relatively few
changes to the traditional examination system thus far, but a much larger
investment in curriculum and professional development to establish
assessment for learning communities at the school level.
 AfL in Brunei
- The adoption of a new educational policy, called SPN 21, in 2008, led to the
introduction of school-based assessment in the fi rst two years of secondary
school, but without any fundamental change in the use of assessment
information or the mode of assessment, and no ‘move away from a summative
system to a more educational purpose of assessing student progress or
achievement’.
- Hence, from early 2010, assessment for learning has been systematically
integrated into school-based assessment to promote a change in the philosophy,
termed SBAfL, to integrate assessment with teaching and learning, ensure
students take more responsibility for their learning and provide teachers and
students with qualitative information on how students are progressing in
English, as well as in five other core subjects.
 Assessment in SBAfL encompasses a variety of modes such as research
projects, practical experiments, oral presentations, drama performances,
roleplay, portfolios, video productions, listening tasks, discussion leading
and journal writing, where the learning outcomes cannot be assessed
through conventional written tests.
 Teachers design lessons and assessment tasks to cater for all student
learning levels, ensure that students are aware of the learning outcomes,
develop rubrics for the assessment tasks and explicitly share them with the
students; encourage self and peer assessment, give effective feedback to
students
 (i.e. where they are on their ‘learning journey’ (a term also used in
Singapore), what the next level of achievement is and what they need to do
to reach that next level); make valid and reliable judgments of students’
achievements and share student samples with other teachers during social
standardization meetings.
 In all three systems, the widespread concern about lack of student
engagement in learning and the dominance of the exam-oriented
curriculum
Assessment Innovation
Misconception and Problems
4
 there was some initial confusion as
to the nature of the innovation
 simply meant changes in assessment
practice
Misconception and Problems
● First, as predicted in the literature, there was some initial confusion as to
the nature of the innovation with superficial adjustment in the format,
frequency and feedback of assessments
● followed much later by more fundamental changes to the purposes of
assessment (i.e., more emphasis on enhancing learning and teaching) and
teacher and student roles (i.e., involving learners more actively in
evaluating and improving their own learning).
● Teachers also vary significantly in how quickly and easily they will grasp
the central concepts of AfL.
‘It helps us to assess them, but it doesn’t help them to progress’.
Misconception and Problems

Second, also as predicted, there was an inevitable lack of

understanding among those initiating the assessment
reform of the nature and extent of support needed and the
time required to set up quality, teacher-based assessment,
including the development of differentiated assessment
tasks, much more difficult and time-consuming to
construct than traditional testing and/or impressionistic
marking (Fox, 2008)
Misconception and Problems
 However, the greatest stumbling block to assessment reform in
these three different educational systems was the initial
misconception among policy makers that assessment for
learning simply meant changes in assessment practice, when
what was required was a change in the whole assessment culture
(Davison & Leung, 2009).

 Contrary to most predictions, teachers were not the ‘problem’.

As soon as the new assessment systems were piloted, student
enthusiasm seemed to provide most teachers with the impetus
for change, with many teachers commenting that even though
the innovation greatly increased their workload, it was worth it
because of the significant improvement in student engagement
and in learning outcomes.
- Fullan (2001) concludes that whether or not implementation
succeeds depends on the congruence between the reformers
and local needs, and how the changes are introduced and
followed through.

- The quality of the relationships between reformers and those

impacted by the reform is crucial in supporting change
efforts when there is agreement, and to reconciling problems
when there is conflict among these groups: between
ministries, and local school boards, administrators, and
teachers; between state departments and local districts; and
between project officers and local authorities.
 5
Reflection
on
assessment
innovation
 This short case study demonstrates that to implement assessment for
learning,

systemic assessment reform needs to start with the institutional assessment

culture

and work backwards to the school communities and individual learners and
teachers.

 Thus, the key questions to guide AfL reform should focus on

what kind of learners, teachers and school communities does the system value
and want to develop.
Set of key characteristics of ‘assessment’ reform for the introduction
and development of AFL at the system level, adapted from the original
tenets of the Assessment Reform Group (1999: 7)

1. AFL is embedded in curriculum and assessment institutionally and pedagogically;

2. assessment reform goals are explicitly shared with all stakeholders and stakeholders together
work to identify how to know and to recognize the standards they are aiming for;

3. all stakeholders are engaged in continuous peer and self-assessment;

4. constructive qualitative feedback helps stakeholders to recognize the next steps needed for
reform and how to take them;

5. all stakeholders regularly review and reflect on assessment data;

6. it is assumed every school, teacher and student can improve.

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