Assessment: Classroom Assessment
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Written by: robinmurphy
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Word Count: 792 |
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 |
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As the research summarized below reveals, assessment used during instruction can have a profound impact on student achievement. But to do so, the assessments must provide accurate information and they must be used in appropriate ways.
Research on Impact
In 1984, Benjamin Bloom published a summary of research on the impact of mastery learning models, comparing standard whole-class instruction (the control condition) with two experimental interventions–a mastery learning environment (where students aspire to achieving specific learning standards) and one-on-one tutoring of individual students. One hallmark of both experimental conditions was extensive use of formative classroom assessment during the learning process. Analysis of summative results revealed unprecedented gains in achievement for students in the experimental treatments–when compared to the control groups. To be sure, the entire effect cannot be attributed to the effective use of classroom assessment. But, according to Bloom, a major portion can.
Based on his 1988 compilation of available research, Terry Crooks concluded that classroom assessment can have a major impact on student learning when it:
Places great emphasis on understanding, not just recognition or recall of knowledge; as well as on the ability to transfer learning to new situations and other patterns of reasoning
Is used formatively to help students learn, and not just summatively for the assignment of a grade
Yields feedback that helps students see their growth or progress while they are learning, thereby maintaining the value of the feedback for students
Relies on student interaction in ways that enhance the development of self-evaluation skills• Reflects carefully articulated achievement expectations that are set high, but attainable, so as to maximize students' confidence that they can succeed if they try and to prevent them from giving up in hopelessness
Consolidates learning by providing regular opportunities for practice with descriptive, not judgmental, feedback
Relies on a broad range of modes of assessment aligned appropriately with the diversity of achievement expectations valued in most classrooms
Covers all valued achievement expectations and does not reduce the classroom to focus only on that which is easily assessed
A decade later, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam examined the measurement research literature worldwide in search of answers to three questions: (1) Is there evidence that improving the quality and effectiveness of use of formative (classroom) assessments raises student achievement as reflected in summative assessments? (2) Is there research evidence that formative assessments are in need of improvement?(3) Is there evidence about the kinds of improvements that are most likely to enhance student achievement? They uncovered forty articles that addressed the first question with sufficiently rigorous research designs to permit an estimation of the effects of improved classroom assessment on subsequent standardized test scores. They also uncovered profoundly large effects, including score gains that, if realized in the international math and science tests of the 1990s, would have raised the United States and England from the middle of the pack in the rank order of forty-two participating nations to the top five. Black and Wiliam go on to reveal that "improved formative assessment helps low achievers more than other students, and so reduces the range of achievement while raising achievement overall"(p. 141). They contend that this result has direct implications for districts having difficulty reducing achievement gaps between minorities and other students. The answer to their second question is equally definitive. Citing a litany of research similar to that referenced above, they describe the almost complete international neglect in assessment training for teachers.
Their answer to the third question, asking what specific improvements in classroom assessment are likely to have the greatest impact, is the most interesting of all. They describe the positive effects on student learning of (a) increasing the accuracy of classroom assessments, (b) providing students with frequent informative feedback, rather than infrequent judgmental feedback, and (c) involving students deeply in the classroom assessment, record keeping, and communication processes. They conclude that "self-assessment by pupils, therefore, far from being a luxury, is in fact an essential component of formative assessment. When anyone is trying to learn, feedback about the effort has three elements: redefinition of the desired goal, evidence about present position, and some understanding of a way to close the gap between the two. All three must be understood to some degree by anyone before he or she can take action to improve learning"(p. 143).
About the Author
Classroom assessments are those developed or selected by teachers for use during their day-to-day instruction. They are different from the standardized tests that are conducted annually to gauge student achievement, and are most frequently used to serve formative purposes, that is, to help students learn.
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