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Title: Enhancing Effective English Language Assessment in Secondary Schools Teacher Conference, Hong Kong,


1
Enhancing Effective English Language Assessment
in Secondary Schools Teacher Conference, Hong
Kong, April 22nd, 2006
  • Towards more effective assessment in Hong Kong
    secondary schools Findings from the chalkface
  • Chris Davison
  • Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

2
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • Assessment is the practice of collecting
    evidence of student learning in terms of
    knowledge, skills, values and attitudes through
    observation of student behaviour when carrying
    out tasks, tests, examinations, etc.
  • (Curriculum Development Council, 2000)

3
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • Assessment practices in Hong Kong traditionally
    aimed to select students for education or
    employment (Biggs, 1995), but major educational
    reforms underway, with school-based and
    standards-referenced assessment being introduced
    as way to improve learning and teaching
    (Education Commission, 2000 CDC, 2000 HKEAA
    2003).
  • Official adoption of UK Assessment Reform Groups
    distinction between assessment for learning vs
    assessment of learning

4
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • Concerted move to adopt school-based assessment
    (Stiggins Conklin 1992 Black Wiliam 1998
    Brookhart 2003)
  • Integral part of teaching and learning
  • Teacher-mediated, evolving
  • Multi-modal (observation, inquiry, analysis,
    test, etc)
  • Co-constructed and dialogic
  • Context-dependent
  • Oriented towards individual improvement rather
    than system-wide comparisons

5
Integral part of teaching and learning
6
Teacher-mediated and evolving
7
Multiple and varied formats
8
Multiple and varied formats
9
Co-constructed and dialogic
10
Context-dependent
11
Individually-oriented
12
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • http//cd.emb.gov.hk/basicguide/BEGuideeng0821/ch
    apter05.html
  • Based on the beliefs that every student is
    unique and possesses the ability to learn, and
    that we should develop their multiple
    intelligences and potentials there should be a
    change in assessment practices and schools should
    put more emphasis on 'Assessment for Learning' as
    an integral part of the learning, teaching and
    assessment cycle

13
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • In other words, teachers should use
    assessments (e.g. as simple as effective verbal
    questioning, observation of student behaviour)
    and provide immediate feedback to enhance student
    learning in everyday classroom lessons. The focus
    is on why they do not learn well and how to help
    them to improve rather than just to use
    assessments to find out what knowledge students
    have learned

14
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • Supported by the development of
    standards-referenced assessment frameworks and
    "authentic" alternative school-based assessment
    activities/tasks embedded within the
    instructional program, as well as more formal
    summative school-based assessment (eg. HKCEE
    2007).
  • Such assessment seen as complementing the recent
    adoption of a more outcomes-oriented English
    syllabus.

15
From a testing to an assessment culture
  • BUT
  • experience elsewhere (and in Hong Kong with TOC
    and TAS) demonstrate conclusively that the shift
    from a "culture of testing" to a "culture of
    assessment" (Gipps, 1994) is fraught with
    difficulties - theoretical , socio-cultural and,
    above all, practical - thus must be carefully
    monitored, evaluated and supported.

16
Our research (studies), 2004-?
  • Aims
  • To stimulate, support, document and evaluate the
    development of effective formative and summative
    assessment practices in English language
    teaching, with a particular focus on the HKCE
    2005-07.
  • To identify and describe factors which may
    facilitate and/or hinder the connection of
    formative (and summative) assessment and feedback
    with learning and teaching

17
Our research (studies), 2004-?
  • 13 interlinked projects, part of a coherent and
    systematic programme of research and evaluation
    and professional development, funded by HKEAA,
    QEF, UGC and the Faculty of Education, HKU,
    http//web.hku.hk/sbapro
  • Data collected from all Form 4 English teachers
    and students in all HK secondary schools through
    questionnaires, individual and group interviews,
    focus groups, classroom observations,
    video-recordings, self-reflections and
    retrospective analysis.

18
The research (studies), 2004-?
  • Research school-based, co-participatory and
    action-oriented
  • Action research rejects the concept of a
    two-stage process in which research is carried
    out first by researchers and then in a separate
    second stage the knowledge generated from the
    research is applied by practitioners. Instead,
    the two processes of research and action are
    integrated (Somekh, 1995)
  • Results consistently demonstrate that there needs
    to be more attention to developing teacher
    assessment (un)readiness, and to system-level
    support.

19
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
  • Hall, George, and Rutherfords (1977) Stages of
    Concern Model is one of best known
    individual-oriented models found in the
    educational literature which can be used to track
    the concerns of teachers adopting or implementing
    edcational innovations.
  • Hall et al. define concern as the composite
    representation of the feelings, preoccupation,
    thought, and consideration given to a particular
    issue or tasks (p.5).

20
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
  • Two key assumptions are made in the model
  • Assumption 1 Teacher concern is a
  • multi-dimensional construct.
  • 7 distinct stages of concern assumed to exist
    irrespective of the nature of the educational
    innovation
  • Self-concerns Awareness, Informational,
    Personal.
  • Task concerns Management.
  • Impact concerns Consequence, Collaboration,
    Refocusing.

21
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
22
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
23
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
24
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
  • Assumption 2 Teacher concern is a developmental
    construct.
  • Initially, a teachers self-concerns are
    expected to be the most intense. As the teacher
    becomes more comfortable, task concerns begin to
    dominate. Finally, impact concerns become most
    important and the teacher starts to demonstrate a
    strong sense of professionalism and control.
  • A teacher can move back and forth across several
    stages as they develop.

25
The contribution of theory The stages of
concerns model
  • Analyzing teachers stages of concern and their
    paths of development helps us to evaluate
    teachers assessment readiness and the nature
    of support they require. However, teachers are
    not unfettered free agents, but strongly
    influenced by their own personal histories and
    beliefs (including perceptions of self-efficacy),
    and the implicit and explicit discourses and
    practices at the institutional and societal
    level
  • All action is socioculturally mediated, both in
    its production and in its interpretation
  • (Ahearn, 2001, p. 112).

26
TEACHER KNOWLEDGE, BELIEFS AND ATTITUDESeg. Role
of education nature of assessment, teaching and
learning nature of (English) language and
language learning, prior experiences of
assessment/change, etc

SITUATIONAL FACTORS eg. Time, trust, collegial
support, student numbers/characteristics,
perceived impact of assessment, etc
EXTERNAL PRESSURES eg. Syllabus and exam
requirements, other educational reforms,
parental/community expectations, etc
Teachers assessment orientation and
decision-making processes
ASSESSMENT PRACTICES (Davison, 2004, in progress,
adapted from McMillan 2003)
27
Findings
  • Although a range of assessment activities are
    being practiced in the schools, they are mostly
    summative assessments for grading purposes.
  • Assessment activities like dictations, formal
    examinations are more common than portfolios,
    student-teacher conferencing and/or
    student-student conferencing, and self and/or
    peer assessment.
  • Alternative assessment activities are usually
    tried out on a more informal basis and account
    for a small percentage of marks.

28
Findings
  • In terms of assessment practice, teachers are
    still more likely to assess discrete skills (e.g.
    speaking, writing, reading, listening) rather
    than integrated skills (e.g. writing notes before
    speaking/oral presentation/
  • discussion).
  • Students tend to have more experiences of
    individually-based assessment rather than
    pair/group, self and peer assessment.
  • The focus of assessment is upon the final product
    rather than the learning process.

29
Findings
  • There is a wide range of teachers concerns about
    school-based assessment in both its formal and
    informal modes.
  • Our data suggest about 20-30 of teachers are
    still exhibiting Stage 3-type concerns about
    alternative assessments, about another 20-30
    are at Stage 5, or higher, with the rest still
    demonstrating characteristics associated with
    Stage 4, but with clear shift in the upward
    direction, especially after the experience of
    active group experimentation and sharing.

30
Findings
  • Examples (background, beliefs/understandings,
    attitudes, practices, changes)
  • Peggy not yet professionally trained, rather
    confused about fundamental concepts (eg.
    formative vs continuous assessment, training vs
    teaching), feeling totally overloaded, very
    uncertain, constantly seeking reassurance, has
    become more rather than less anxious over the
    last six months, needs much stronger support.

31
Findings
  • Steven qualified, but fairly traditional,
    positive about direction of change, but focus of
    teaching on logistics, workload and time
    issues, still strongly influenced by current
    practice (eg. video-records show SBA group
    interactions still very stilted and unnatural,
    students encouraged to use memorized phrases and
    reliant on notes), not convinced he is doing it
    properly, but quick to change when has
    opportunities to discuss and compare with peers.

32
Findings
  • Mandy well qualified and experienced, very
    enthusiastic and creative, video-records show
    students confident and engaged, activities
    tailored to suit specific context, feels positive
    about student development, main concerns are
    about lack of systematic and school-wide
    approach, and misunderstandings of colleagues
    and in community, and the effect on students of
    such uncertainty.

33
Findings
  • All teacher informants concur that the aims of
    assessment proposed by EMB are good for learning
    and teaching, but they think that their schools
    assessment programme is not effective enough in
    meeting the new demands, schools and community
    still preoccupied with recording data about
    students progress for ranking/comparative
    purposes, including for promotion.
  • Teachers argue that schools have put too much
    emphasis on this aim, at the expense of
    assessment for learning

34
The need for more school-level support
  • Planning
  • The assessment activities are not well-planned
    and coordinated
  • From 4 teachers have never met together there
    is no common planning time
  • Provision of feedback
  • Students cannot get detailed individual comments
    about their own performance
  • Only marks or grades are given to the students.
    Teachers don't have time to talk to students
    individually

35
The need for more school-level support
  • The need for more formative assessment
  • Currently, almost all assessment activities are
    traditional and summative. They can give students
    some feedback on their progress but not quite
    effective in helping them to develop
  • Formative assessment tends to be neglected by
    both students and parents as they only believe
    studying for the exam is the ultimate goal of
    learning

36
The need for more school-level support
  • The need for (much) more whole school
    understanding and collaboration
  • I can try out some new methods in my own class
    provided that they don't interfere too much with
    the normal curriculum
  • It's hard. Many of these policy and practices
    are old and traditional. Unless I get most of my
    colleagues to agree to the new change, it will be
    difficult

  • The school is pre-dominantly composed of
    teachers who do not strongly believe in the
    effectiveness of assessment policy and practice.
    I'm not a heavy weight in the English panel




37
The need for more school-level support
  • The need for (much) more whole school
    understanding and collaboration
  • The management level of our school should update
    and equip themselves with policy for whole school
    assessment and to what extent SBA be incorporated
    into the curriculum.

  • More seminars should be given to school
    authority so that we don't have to fight for
    support when carrying out the new assessment
    policy
  • There is not much an individual can do

38
Conclusions
  • Need to continue to negotiate ways to develop
    assessment readiness which take into account the
    school community, not just the teacher, as the
    key unit of change, by
  • Reconceptualizing assessment not as a top-down
    change imposed upon schools, but as a process of
    dialogue between teachers, learners and the wider
    school community.

39
Conclusions
  • Providing teachers and schools with the
    opportunity to share evolving assessment beliefs
    and practices in order to develop a sense of
    ownership, common understanding of the assessment
    process, and a more critical but informed
    perspective on practice
  • Fundamental changes in school assessment
    practices need to be planned, discussed, shared,
    negotiated and agreed by all teachers in each
    school. A corresponding assessment policy and
    mechanisms to bring it about need to be worked
    out at whole-school and classroom levels
    parents (need to be informed) of the rationale
    underpinning the change in assessment practices
    (CDC, 2003)

40
Conclusions
  • Providing opportunities for teachers, students,
    parents and administrators to experience how
    assessment for learning looks and feels very
    different (Leung, 2002) to traditional
    exam-oriented assessments of learning.

41
Conclusions
  • Acknowledging that for most teachers
    understanding of theory only emerges through
    practice, and practice must not only be
    theoretically sound, but also totally practical,
    perhaps the greatest challenge of all
  • At the heart of change for most teachers is the
    issue of whether it is practical in the ethic
    of practicality amongst teachers is a powerful
    sense of what works and what doesnt, of which
    changes will go and which will not not in the
    abstract, or even as a general rule , but for
    this teacher in this context.
  • (Hargreaves, 1994 12)
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