Malaysian Instructors’ Assessment Beliefs in Tertiary ESL Classrooms

Language assessment can be a valuable tool for providing information regarding language teaching. Given the importance of assessment that has undergone much change, there are important issues that warrant investigation, particularly those related to language instructors. Understanding the assessment beliefs of ESL instructors, especially at the tertiary level, is important since it can help improve the quality of assessment practices as well. Therefore, this study investigated English language instructors’ assessment beliefs in the Malaysian context. This study adopted a cross-sectional research design. The survey method was utilized to collect data from six Malaysian universities using a purposive sampling strategy. English language instructors (n= 83) were selected via purposive sampling for the study. Findings of the study revealed that English language instructors believed that the purpose of assessment was to improve teaching and learning. Regarding the assessment beliefs that are related to the assessment purposes, analyses of data showed that the items that received the highest percentage of agreement were diagnosing strength and weaknesses in students, providing information about students’ progress and providing feedback to students as they learn, respectively. Although they reported using both formal and informal assessment of their students’ work, English language instructors relied heavily on paper and pencil assessment while giving more weightage on formative assessment. The majority of English language instructors reported employing marking schemes for the courses they taught, carrying out sample marking and

The Relationship between Teacher-Assigned Course Grades and the Ohio AIR End of Course 8th Grade Science Test

For over a century, teacher-assigned grades have been criticized and maligned as a subjective hodgepodge of academic and non-academic factors that varied from teacher to teacher and generally failed to communicate student academic achievement. Standardized tests focused more objectively on student achievement rather than leveling the playing field by eliminating the subjectivity it seems to have tilted it in favor of white middle-class students. The purpose of this correlational study was to better understand the relationship between standardized tests and teacher assigned grades. This study examined the Ohio End-of-Course exams for 8th grade Science and the teacher assigned final grades for the same sample of students using scores and grades from the 2014-15 school year. The participants in the study were drawn from an accessible sample consisting of 2077 eighth grade students from Northeast Ohio. A bivariate correlation tested the overall strength of the relationship, while Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient analyses determined if the strength of the correlation for students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students varied. The correlation coefficients for all for groups were positive correlations. The strongest correlations were for the students without disabilities (.537) and the all students group (.536), while students from a low socio-economic background correlated medium strength (.463) and the weakest group was the Students with Disabilities (.248). These results generally fall in line with the literature and call for further research studies in how to better engage and educate students with disabilities and students from low socio-economic backgrounds

Innovative Strategies for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Student Assessment and Examination - Special Focus on Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Assessment of student learning outcomes (ASLO) is one of the key activities in teaching and learning. It serves as the source of information in determining the quality of education at the classroom and national levels. Results from any assessment have an influence on decision making, on policy development related to improving individual student achievement, and to ensure the equity and quality of an education system. ASLO provides teachers and school heads with information for making decisions regarding a students’ progress. The information allows teachers and school heads to understand a students’ performance better. This report reviews ASLO in three South Asian countries—Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—with a focus on public examinations, national assessment, school-based assessment, and classroom assessment practiced in these countries

Using assessment data to support the learning of young pupils in four Kent primary schools

This thesis discusses how assessment data are used to support the learning of pupils aged four to seven years in four Kent primary schools. The sample was 451 pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2; the researcher collected and analysed quantitative data from pupil attainment on school entry – either as Baseline Assessment or the Foundation Stage Profile – and from results in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of KS1, both as SATs and Teacher Assessment. These data were triangulated with qualitative data collected from a semi-structured questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews with the Reception class practitioners. The author – a head teacher with many years’ experience of primary schools and the Early Years – outlines recent and current government policy and links these to assessment theory and existing practice in the four schools studied. She identifies some possible influences on attainment and looks at how value-added data are currently used as measures of pupil performance. The three research questions look at whether benchmark data can be used to predict future achievement, the educational implications of using value-added data as measures of pupil performance, and whether benchmark data can be used to support learning in the primary classroom. The findings led the researcher to conclude that accurate prediction from prior attainment is not possible at the present time and that contextual value-added data are only useful when other variables are taken into account. However, the findings showed that benchmark data – when used formatively – can be useful in supporting pupils’ learning. This study will help head teacher colleagues to look at data in a fresh way, and to identify and target the needs of individual pupils to optimise their performance from the beginning of the Foundation Stage to the end of Key Stage One

Student outcomes and learning environments at the tertiary level in New Zealand: the develpment of an assessment framework

This thesis reports the findings of a case study into the outcomes and learning environments of students studying for a Diploma of Technology at a New Zealand Tertiary Education Institution. The primary focus of the study was to develop an assessment framework that would facilitate simultaneous assessment of the local Institute achievement-based Diploma of Technology and the competency-based assessment of a National Diploma that the local diploma subsumed. From this primary focus on assessment, the study provided the opportunity to undertake a grounded theory study of literature that impacted on the learning environment, supported the necessity to rationalise the student learning outcomes from both an academic and work skill perspective, and presented a suitable situation in which to take a fresh look at the method of grading and marking students’ assessment material.The grounded theory study grew out of the need to condense the vast amount of literature that was gathered in the process of searching for background material to use in the building of a foundation on which to construct a dual assessment model. Although no literature was found that specifically dealt with the simultaneous dual assessment, a large amount of material was found that related to various aspects of the learning environment. Through the process of a grounded theory study, this material was condensed into categories of data that in turn were used to develop a theoretical model of an ‘ideal’ learning environment. Into this model was also added the results of a questionnaire based research study into the perceived need for diploma graduates to have a range of employability skills. This study involved a range of employers who considered themselves likely to employ a diploma graduate. Because the learning outcomes for the two diplomas covered essentially the same material yet the actual wording of the outcomes were substantially quite different, there was a need to rationalise the sets of learning outcomes for each diploma. This process led to a common set of outcomes that in turn were used as a focus for students’ learning and assessment.Once these common outcomes had been identified, a rubric based marking/scoring system was developed so that both students and teacher could quickly grade students’ assessment material and then convert that grade into a mark. The use of the grade facilitated the assessment of achievement against a unit standard and the resultant marks satisfied the need for an achievement mark. The results and findings from the various studies were then translated into a working model that was used for two courses over one semester. Various other research methodologies were then used in order to provide some evaluation of the working model.The thesis does present some of the difficulties facing tertiary teachers in an environment that is becoming more and more of a production line business rather than a service to provide learning opportunities for students. However it also presents solid evidence that teachers can take measures to prove themselves through study and initiative and provide those focussed learning environments where students can attain the outcomes necessary for a successful career in tomorrow’s world

Exploring EFL Assessors’ Assessment Literacy in an English Preparatory Programme in Kuwait

This exploratory study is conducted to understand, re-conceptualise, and possibly develop Teachers’/Assessors’ Assessment Literacy (TAL/AAL) in an English Preparatory Programme (EPP) at one university in Kuwait. It has been observed that the evaluation practices adopted in the described context depend mainly on tests and that the adopted Assessment Practices (APs) therefore do not fulfil one primary purpose of assessment, which is supporting learning. Exploring TAL could provide an understanding of their assessment awareness and if their APs are informed by solid assessment knowledge or not. Understanding the source of existing APs can guide assessment improvement and development in the described context. In order to explore TAL, different data collection tools were used to collect qualitative data from eight assessors about their Assessment Literacy (AL). The research used an open-ended questionnaire, an open-ended checklist, a semi-structured interview, an open-ended report, and an unstructured interview to explore all components of AL suggested by Teacher Assessment Literacy in Practice (TALiP) framework (Xu & Brown, 2016). It was found that the participants' pre-and in-service training had not prepared them theoretically or practically for their assessment tasks. Their assessment knowledge base has not been developed through accredited channels or on the job. The participants were not confident with most of the components of the knowledge base proposed by the TALiP framework. However, they did show full awareness of assessment complexities in their teaching context. They were able to distinguish appropriate and inappropriate practices and their washback on learning. Their beliefs about assessments also resonated with recommended APs in the AL literature. It is recommended that the participants should receive theoretical and practical training in the assessment knowledge base. If they had a more substantial assessment knowledge base, they could have revealed better solutions to uncertainties surrounding them, and they could have been more precise in specifying their assessment needs

75%: grading scale interpretations from students and teachers at Sun Prairie High School

Includes bibliographical references

Comparability and Examination Performance: Technical and Social Approaches to Its Study

This thesis is concerned with examination comparability and the assumption that achieved grades in GCSE examinations have common currency across subjects. Technical treatments commonly used to investigate examination comparability are discussed along with the assumptions upon which they are based and their limitations. A variety of technical treatments, taking into account population sampling, tiering, coursework and cognitive skill demands, are used to investigate comparability for GCSE science results from Welsh and English examining groups. Examination comparability is shown to be undermined by fluctuations in relative ‘difficulty’ across time, different correlations between subjects, curriculum changes, and sub-group effects. Interviews with science teachers are then related to the technical findings to examine schools’, departments’ and individuals’ responses to national assessment structures and practices and how these mediate ‘gradeness’. The interviews’ initial focus on teachers’ tier entry decisions reveals that their judgements about students are constituted through interaction between their beliefs about mind, subjects and gendered behaviours amongst others, departmental and school practices, and wider social influences to do with national assessment and examining group policies and practices. The interviews show how structures and beliefs shape arena practices and teachers’ practice, the consequences for students’ access to science, and the consequent validity of assessments of their science ‘achievements’. The allocation of students to ability groups as they enter secondary school and the interactions between these groups and KS3 SAT tier allocation effectively ‘lock’ students on to an assessment pathway from Year 7 - a pathway which school structures make it almost impossible to break away from. The findings show how school practices and individual practice can disrupt or compound this and the consequences for students’ access to learning opportunities, which, the thesis argues, is a major source of invalidity in assessment that comparability studies cannot begin to take account of