Why to assess students learning?

Hi everybody!

Assessment is not an easy task and there are some different points of view related to it. According to some authors, like Pellegrino (2004), assessment should identify the deep understanding of the topic being studied, not only a superficial knowledge. The deep understanding would be linked to the possibility of evidence that the student can create theoretical relationships and develop valid and acceptable solutions to a given problem.

We know that is some cases, like in Distance Education, some methods are quite quantitative. This could be controversy to the idea of understanding and assess students knowledge. One example is that in LMS (learning management systems), often used in EAD, one of the methods to assess students learning is the time that the student stayed logged on the system (on chat, for instance). Much of today's learning environments - based information systems - use forms as long as the student remained in a chat, the number of responses in a forum or the number of comments posted on communication tools, among others (BASSANI, 2006).

According to some theorists of education and learning processes assessment should be conducted on the whole process of learning, which is individual (Achtenhagen, 2001; PELLEGRINO, 2004). One can understand evaluation as a complex system that involves several elements that should not be conducted only by the traditional way, or the electronic form, as in most learning environments used in EAD (BASSANI, 2006; CAMPOS et al., 2003). Authors suggest that evaluations should be conducted consistently and should provide opportunities to practice with feedback, review and student reflection (Achtenhagen, 2001; PELLEGRINO, 2004).

The concept of assessment can be complex, and it could be classified in different ways. One of them is proposed by Bloom, Hastings and Madaus (1983). I have posted this three forms in a previous post, but I will repeat it here to explain better the idea:

a) diagnostic assessment - conducted early in the process, with the objective of obtaining information on the previous knowledge of the student. It is a mode that provides the teacher the opportunity to identify the preconceptions of students. It would be a kind of diagnosis, which is called "prognosis" when referring to the group of students, and "diagnosis" when related to the individual;

b) formative assessment - throughout the process, corresponding to the design is deemed that the student restructures their knowledge over the activities it performs. It gives the teacher the opportunity to monitor the student's development through successive approximations and permits the student to reflect about learning and what should be changed in the process;

c) summative assessment - emphasizes results at the end of the process, usually occurring at the end of periods (e.g., two months, semester, year). Checks whether the proposed goals were achieved by students. It is the predominant mode of assessment in schools and universities, at least in Brazil.

Bassani (2006) points out that one problem of assessment is that most of the Brazilians institutions use the summative evaluation as the only form of evaluation and it must be combined to other forms. Macedo (2002) reports that the assessment, in a constructivist perspective should be assign value to what is really important. Thus, the assessment would be the observation and control of what is believed to be better to student learning processes. In the words of the author, assessment:

“[...] should be an invitation to reason, to cause disturbances in order to choose the best alternative to a problem situation that was proposed. Despite the difficulties of its development, it is worth considering evaluation contexts that could be learning opportunities for students” (Macedo, 2002, p. 121).

According to what was written above, we can think about some ideas related to the theme:

• Why assessment: the idea s understand the development of students and help them to achieve their learning goals;

• What assess: it must be related to problems that they could face in their real life, with contexts related to the course;

• When assess: could be done along the course, emphasizing that previous knowledge is important also to define the students’ learning goals and to improve;

• How: using methods and a variety of artifacts that could be applied in which kind of assessment (diagnostic, formative, summative);

• Who: teacher and students must be involved in the process. The evaluation could be conducted individually and in groups, depending on each situation.

In short, it could initially perform a diagnostic assessment, subsequently running the process of resolution of learning situations, which had its formative assessments in groups and individually. In addition, the methodology can enable the self-assessment by students as a way to encourage their autonomy and identification of difficulties in their learning processes.

#assessment #studentslearning