The Student Assessment Processes - Essay Example

How the National Curriculum Modern Foreign Language (MFL) Assessment System in UK affects the learning process of the I. Introduction Where the schools are given the prerogative to set their own curricula, there is a wider chance for the school to be able to produce students that are better able to cope with the demands of the workplace. However, since the government has introduced some standardized systems of assessing the students, the learning process of the students has been slowly diverted towards fulfilling the requirements set by the government (William 2001). In the field of Modern Foreign Language, there is a on-going debate as to whether or not the assessment system is working for the pupils. II. Principles and purposes of the Assessment The Modern Foreign Language assessment system is geared towards helping the students develop their ability to understand, analyze, communicate, speak, read and write the language of study. In the area of writing, the National Curriculum mandates that the students should learn how to “use correct spelling and punctuation and follow grammatical conventions”1. In speaking, pupils are to be taught, “to use the language precisely and cogently”2. In the same manner, when listening and reading, pupils are to use the language properly. In line with the National Curriculum, the principles behind the assessment are to ascertain the effectiveness of the program and to create a system that will make the educators accountable for the progress of the students. The MFL assessment is closely associated with other student assessment programs of the government. Two of the most common assessment programs, which include languages, are the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and the Advance level assessment. Unfortunately, the fault of the two other assessment systems is mirrored in the MFL. III. Practices and gaps in the system At present, there are at least two major methods of assessing the progress of the students. First, there is the classroom assessment and second, there is the self-assessment process. In the classroom assessment, the pupils are made to take timed written exams to assess their level of learning. There are at least three methods by which the performance of the pupils is measured such as the norm-referenced and cohort-references assessments3, the criterion-referenced assessment4 and construct-referenced assessment5. According to William (2000), the classroom assessment method has inconsistencies. First, it does not take into account the inconsistencies in the performance of the pupils being tested; second, since the test questions are being revised every year, and “the particular choice for the a particular test” would play a big role in how the pupils may fare in the exam and third methods of grading the tests have their own set of inconsistencies. (William (2000). Linn & Baker (1996) cited in William 2000) observed that “the unreliability caused by the variation in tasks is actually greater than that caused by disagreements among makers.” On the other hand, the self-assessment process which another option given to students is even more unreliable. Although the idea here is to give the students some room to perform better, the danger of students opting for easier exams cannot be ignored. Given this observation, one can deduce that the assessment is unreliable. To get a clearer picture of how unreliable the assessment system is, let us take look into the two major exams being given under the National Curriculum The GSCE and the A-level. The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is designed to test the specific skills, ability and knowledge of students on certain subjects including languages. Like the MFL that is designed to help the students, the GCSE was meant to work for the students and not against them. The GCSE has been subject to much discussions and criticisms from many sectors. Since passing this test is a legal requirement for the students to proceed to higher education as well as a benchmark for the performance of the school as learning institution, there have been many objections to this type of assessment. According to William (2001), the fact that GCSE is considered as a benchmark in the performance of the students and the school, many schools are trying to go around the system by concentrating their efforts in teaching only the subjects that are required under the assessment. As a result, the GCSE failed to deliver what it is mean to achieve. Although there are some improvements in the scores of the students, “when used as the sole index of quality, the manipulability of these indicators destroy the relationship between the indicator and the indicated.”(William 2001). Technically, since the educators know what is the desired outcome of the assessment, they work more around that area to meet the requirements. As a result, we get good scores on the areas required under the assessment but the students actually learn less because their learning was narrowed down to specific areas. (William 2001). On the other hand, the A-level assessment is a General Certificate Education qualification in the United Kingdom. Again, this assessment covers different types of subjects including languages. The purpose of the A-level assessment is to ascertain the proficiency of the student on certain subjects and to determine if they are ready for higher education. In 2001, the A-levels evolved when the government introduced the Curriculum 2000 which divided the A-level assessment into tow parts as follows: AS (Advanced Subsidiary) and A2 level. For the last 20 years, the A-level assessment scores in the United Kingdom have steadily increased6. Although the government have attributed to this steady increase to the fact that the new teaching methods are more effective and teachers are now more attuned to the educational needs of the students7, a lot of sectors posses serious doubts of the results of the A-level test. According to William (2001), “the fact that our systems of times written tests and examinations narrow the curriculum is hardly news”. Williams believe that the increase in the scores of students is attributable to the fact that teachers are focusing their efforts on some subject to the detriment of the other areas of learning. IV. Conclusion Arguments have been made on the issues of the reliability of the exams. Many people argue that the increase in the scores is attributable to the fact the test are now easier than it used to be8. Many Universities in the United Kingdom have constantly pointed out that the increasing number of A grades awarded to students is making it difficult for the ducators to assess or distinguish which students are really good and which ones are not.9 The student assessment processes such as the MFL, the GCSE and the A-level were born out of the noble idea of “selecting and certifying the achievement of individuals” (William 2001) and to “provide information with which educational institutions can be made accountable.” (William 2001) Unfortunately, along the course of the implementation of the assessment process, the system evolved into something that most of its creators have not foreseen. If we are to produce students that are well equipped to tackle the challenges of the modern times, it is essential that a closer evaluation of the system should be taken. There is a need to create a mechanism, which will prevent educators from teaching to the test. In other words, teachers should e guided into taking a broader look into the educational system and not be boxed in by the need to led their students into getting good scores. Teachers should teach the whole curriculum to the students instead of focusing only in the areas, which will be subjected to standard assessment. On the other hand, policy-makers should take a closer look into the policies that they are enacting. Although they may have good intentions, sometimes, good intentions could produce negative results. The National Curriculum is supposed to work for the students and not against them. References: 1. "Universities to see breakdowns of A-level results", EducationGuardian.co.uk, 10 August 2005. URL accessed on 11 June 2006. 2. “Exam watchdog unveils plans for A-level reform", EducationGuardian.co.uk, 29 March 2006. http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,1742007,00.html accessed on 11 June 2006. 3. Education and Skills - Third Report", House of Commons, 26 March 2003. URL accessed on 12 June 2006. 4. Howe, D. McWilliam, & G. Cross, (2005): "Chance favours only the prepared mind: Incubation and the delayed effects of peer collaboration." British Journal of Psychology, 96,i C. 5. J. Hayes, P. Smith, & V. Murphy, (2005): "Modality effects in compounding with English inflectional morphology"; D. Groome & N. Grant, "Retrieval-induced forgetting is inversely related to everyday cognitive failures." British Journal of Psychology, 96,iii 6. Modern Languages Reading and Writing Support Materials. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/resources/modern_languages_read_write.pdf 7. Plans to change university entry", BBC News, 22 May 2006 8. Pupils favouring ‘easier’ A-level subjects", EducationGuardian.co.uk, 10 February 2006. http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,1707027,00.html accessed on 2 February 2007 9. William D. (2000) The meaning and consequences of educational assessments. Critical Quarterly. 42(1), pp. 105-127 10. William D. (2001). What is wrong with our educational assessments and what can be dome about it. Education Review 15 (1), Autumn 2001 Read More