Welcome to Education IV:
Assessment
The 2019 Assessment team:
•
Dr Laura Dison
•
Dr Glynnis Vergotine
•
Ms Pamela Lilian Mubviri
•
Dr Gloria Erima
•
Dr Preya Pillay (Course co-odinator)
Assessment block one – 04 February –
13 March
Mode
Day and Period
Time
Venue
Interactive Lecture
Monday
Periods 1 and 2
8.00 – 9.45
L101
Tutorial 1
Monday
Period 4
11.15 – 12.00
TBC
Tutorial 2
Wednesday
Period 5
12:30- 13:15
TBC
Independent Study
Wednesday
Periods 7&8
15.15 – 17.00
Library
Admin issues
Collect course readers and tutorial workbooks
• If not collected already, can do so from the
administrator in L144, between 10am and
12pm, this week only.
Assessment
Formative assessment
Summative assessment
Group Portfolio File
MCQ SAKAI Online test
40 %
20%
June Examination
40%
• The Portfolio file (4 of 6 tutorial tasks), are to be submitted to the
administrator in Room L144, Leseding Block, and not to the lecturers. The
due date for submission is Monday 1 April 2019, between 10am -2pm.
Please ensure that you make a copy of your tutorial tasks before
submission. There will be a group reflection on individual participation
which indicates each member’s contribution to the group process.
 The online test will be an MCQ test and will be opened on the course site on Wits-E on
Wednesday 6th March, 2pm and will stay open for 24 hours. It should take you about
an hour (and there is a ‘save’ button if you want to take a break).
June examination
• The Education IV June examination will be one
and a half hours. It will contain both short and
long answer questions covering the course
work and a reflection on the core assessment
concepts. Your marks for this examination will
constitute the remaining 40% of your course
mark.
Consultation times and class rep.
• You will be allocated to particular staff will
send on SAKAI; check consultation times on
the allocated door.
• Decide on and Vote for a class rep
Course outline
• Lecture 1: Assessment terminology and historical overview of assessment
practices in SA (and the course structure) (PP)
• Lecture 2: The emotions of assessment (CN)
• Lecture 3: Fairness: Validity and Reliability (Tanya Bekker)
• Lecture 4: Designing effective assessment tasks (LD)
• Lecture 5: Using and explaining assessment criteria (LD)
• Lecture 6: Giving feedback (BWT)
All of these topics integrate educational debates, professional and
practical knowledge, technical and administrative skills, ethical
dilemmas and reflection, and trade-offs
Learning from the course
Our desire is for you to learn
• Our responsibility: to be knowledgeable about the subject of
assessment, give clear explanations, answer your questions, mark
your work fairly.
Your responsibility: to learn.
• Allow yourself to learn during lectures: ask (and bring) questions
• participate in the discussions.
• READ the articles –prior knowledge enables you to absorb more.
• Your choice: fulfilling your responsibility with a compliance mindset or a learning mind set.
Why assessment ?
• Next year you are changing roles from
recipient to implementer of assessment . An
understanding the purposes, tensions and
ways of doing assessment can help you to
avoid causing damage to your learners
Lecture one
Dr Preya Pillay
Assessment terminology and historical overview
of assessment practices in SA (and the course
structure)
Drawing on
Rob Siebörger
Reddy et al
Purpose of education
• What is education ? What purpose does
education serve ?
Epistemological foundations
Definitions of Assessment:
• The word assessment is derived from the latin
verb , assidere which means “to sit besides”.
• This means in order to determine what learners
know , it is necessary to be close to them ,
perhaps even moving alongside them as they
engage in learning.
• At the simplest level assessment can be seen as
the ability to observe learners, to perceive what
they can do , in the hope of understanding how
they learn , so as to support their learning.
…
• The systematic process of collecting, reviewing and using data, for
the purpose of improvement in the current performance.
Assessment should be both informal (Assessment for Learning) and
formal (Assessment of Learning). In both cases regular feedback
should be provided to learners to enhance the learning experience.
(DBE CAPS Section 4)
• Assessment is diagnostic in nature, as it tends to identify areas of
improvement
• The assessment provides feedback on performance and ways to
enhance performance in future.
• The purpose of assessment is formative, i.e. to increase quality
• Assessment is concerned with process
• The relationship between assessor and assessee is reflective, i.e.
the criteria are defined internally
Evaluation
• A process of passing judgment on the basis of defined
criteria and evidence.
• Evaluation is judgemental, because it aims at providing
an overall grade.
• Evaluation ascertains whether the standards are met or
not.
• Evaluation is all about judging quality; therefore, in
most cases the purpose is summative
• Evaluation focuses on product.
• The evaluator and evaluatee share a prescriptive
relationship, wherein the standards are imposed
externally.
…………………
Purposes of assessment
• Assessment for selection – summative
• Promotion
• Grading
• Acceptance into courses
• Entry/ Exit mechanism (enabling or barring access)
• Based on the principle of prediction
Assessment to improve learning - formative
• Linking assessment and learning
• Learning-oriented assessment (Carless)
Assessment for accountability
• Taxpayers
• Society measures quality
McMillan (1997) explain the four essential components of
implementing classroom assessment
Purpose: Why am I doing this assessment
Measurement: What techniques should I use to
Gather information?
Evaluation: How will Interpret the results? What
Performance standards and criteria will I use?
Use: How will I use the results
Forms of assessment
Diagnostic assessment
Formative assessment for leaning
• Formative assessment is where the purpose is to get an
estimate of achievement which is used to help in the
learning process…formative assessment include
coursework where the student receive feedback which
helps him/her to improve their next performance.
• It grew out of a constructivist view of learning and of
knowledge
• Gained impetus from research that shows how fear of
summative assessment can inhibit learning and
teaching
• Is managed by teachers and schools
Needs to be criterion
referenced
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To measure the skills and knowledge a student has mastered
Students scores are given as a percentage
Assess a small number of students
Test last during a class period
Test are mostly teacher created
a description of what the learner is able to know and do (describe,
not evaluate; describe presence, not absence )
transparency –all teachers and learners know what is expected
All learners to be able to pass if given enough time to study and
practice
How well a student perform against an objective or standard as
opposed to against another students
Drawback – Assessment of complex skills are difficult to determine
through the use of one score on assessment
Encourages self
referenced assessment
• Compare performance against own
performance -earlier in time gives agency to
learner
• Is the best form of assessment to motivate
learning but the least used in classroom or
school practice
Summative Assessment of learning- For grading and selecting
students
• Summative because it sums up the learning
process / the achievement
• Trust in the measurement generates purpose of
selection the grades/marks function as a
selection mechanism for who can exit this level
and enter the next level
• It is both a tool for increased social equity
(enables access) and a gatekeeping
mechanism (bars access)
• It is managed at the level of schools, districts,
education departments
Uses Norm- referenced
assessment
• Compares performance against other students
at same level in same knowledge field
• Ideally wants an even distribution of marks –
some excellent, some fail, majority in middle
• Adjusts test or adjust marks, so that a norm is
generated.
Accountability Assessment For policy
decision-making
• For holding education department, district offices, schools and teachers
accountable for spending taxpayers’ money well
• Is standardised assessment at the level of the system, makes summative
assessment more reliable large-scale
• Is a way for a society to measure the quality of its education system
• Is managed by education departments or assessment institutes
• Consists of externally set and centrally marked examinations, often
multiple choice or short answer questions which are more reliable to mark
• Is given to all learners at a certain level in a certain area – provincially,
nationally or internationally e.g. TIMSS (5-9) and PIRLS (4) , ANA (4-9)
• Produces statistics that need to be interpreted – leads to ranking
• national tests assess the extent to which schools and learners are
achieving the standards
• clearly defined standards (common curriculum) make it clear what is to be
learnt
Dilemmas in the accountability
paradigm
high-stakes nature of the testing
component leads to distortions in
the curriculum
generates high levels of anxiety
among children
takes no account of the
value which a school adds
wide variability among
schools in their specific
responses to standardsbased reform initiatives