Purposes of Assessment in Education

Purposes of Assessment in Education.

Student assessment needs to have a purpose. Instead of acting as an auditing tool, it should be used to assist and improve student performance. Useful feedback is absolutely essential with any testing; what purpose would it serve if not to help the student better understand their difficulties and reach their full potential? As well as an improvement to student learning, assessment also helps to inform and improve teaching methods.  

This essay concentrates on assessment in Mainstream Secondary Education, beginning with how schools use Key Stage 2 data.

Secondary schools initially obtain their assessment information from the Primary school KS2 data that is moved across with all children starting in Year 7.   This data is extracted from the results of SATs (Statutory Assessment Tests), administered to almost all children in mainstream schooling in Year 6.  There is a strong argument against putting young children through such stringent and rigorous assessment tests. However, the ruling behind the current SATs is such that the majority of children in mainstream schools are encouraged to undertake the testing. Even if the SATs were not in place, teachers will always need a method to assess and record the impact of their teaching.  Be it as a formal written assessment or an informal discussion; a level is needed to check how much progress has been made and to ensure that the next placement knows the students’ academic achievements or any significant difficulties that need to be addressed.

 In the last two years, the Department of Education (D of E) has changed the way that the SATs are taught and marked.    

[1] ‘The new national curriculum has been taught in all LA maintained primary schools, and some academies, in England since September 2014. Those pupils who are at the end of KS2 in May 2016 will be the first to be assessed against the new national curriculum.’   

Entrants are now assessed using a standardised score.  This should make the process of interpreting the assessment scores easier for the student’s next educational placement.  It will also make comparison much simpler as standardised scoring is used in the majority of specialist assessment tests across the UK.

As well as this data, some mainstream secondary schools instigate initial testing and assessment at the start of Year 7 to enhance decisions about setting and interventions.    At Heathcote Secondary School, the educational establishment where I am employed, Year 7 students are tested using the ART (Access for Reading Test), evaluating comprehension skills and giving individual scores for Literal comprehension, Vocabulary, Inference and Analysis. Whilst this is a valuable assessment,   what the test lacks is the ability to assess if a child has an issue with slow processing of information which may mean that they do not finish the whole test thus giving them a lower score than their actual ability.  The same can be said for many of the tests used by specialist assessors.  There is often a degree of personal judgement needed and knowledge of the individual student is essential.

The CATS (Cognitive Ability Tests) are another assessment method used in Heathcote School for the whole of Year 7 on entry.  It gives a full assessment under 3 test headings:  Non-Verbal, Verbal, and Quantitative.  The findings are then used in conjunction with the SATs and the ART scores to influence settings, intervention and teaching at both ends of the learning scale.

Beyond SATs, ARTs and CATs, progress of all students is monitored throughout the next Key Stages.  Assessment is used in all lessons on a continual basis.  Teachers assess using questioning to check understanding and to help develop thinking.  They model ideas and break down the learning steps.  Teachers use an on-going formative assessment-based approach, also known as Assessment for Learning.

(2) ‘Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there. Assessment for Learning is also known as formative assessment.’ 

 Through assessment for learning it is noted if a student or group of students do not understand or need further instructions and alternative teaching methods.  The teachers will need to differentiate their lessons, the language they use and the way they question to ensure that there is full comprehension by all learners.

 Once a student has been assessed and their needs have been identified, the teacher will look at fully developing their skills by scaffolding.  This teaching method enhances skills and knowledge until learners can perform complex tasks on their own.  By giving extra support, albeit using a Teaching Assistant on a temporary basis, help from the parent, a peer or student mentor or even a computer programme, the learner is enabled to complete a task that they would not have been capable of doing unaided.

Teachers can assess at every stage in the scaffolding process to check that the student knowledge is being increased and enhanced.  This process must include the learners.  They should be given continuous knowledge of their grades and how they can improve them.  They need to be taught to evaluate their own work and the techniques needed to make it better.    This serves to motivate them to succeed.

 (3) ‘If we assess to motivate students to try to learn, assessment FOR  learning motivates by helping students watch themselves succeeding—by helping them believe that success is within reach if they keep trying.’

There is a point in education where a teacher will have tried all of the various processes of differentiated teaching, challenging anomalies in many different ways, yet is still struggling to help the learner understand the lesson content or be able to complete the task in the time set.  It may be that the learner is unable to read well; they may be displaying dyslexic tendencies, be a slow writer, or be a slow processor of information.  This is when the teacher would ask the SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) to recommend a specialist assessment by a trained Educational Psychologist or a Specialist Assessor within the school.