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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching,
Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 8 (Aug., 2004) Winnie Wing Mui SO Assessing primary science learning: beyond paper and pencil assessment
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching,
Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 8 (Aug., 2004) Winnie Wing Mui SO Assessing primary science learning: beyond paper and pencil assessment
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Formative and summative assessment
Planned assessment is often employed so that teachers can determine how well each pupil understands and how well pupils are doing. Lowery (2000) describes two common approaches. The first involves traditional evaluation strategies, which are usually known as summative assessment, that rely heavily on paper and pencil tests and examinations that rank the learning of pupils with scores and grades at a specific time in the school term. The second approach involves continuous and formative assessment strategies, with which teachers can check on the progress of pupils from time to time throughout the school year, and can thus obtain a general picture of what pupils understand and what they are able to do. Reinhartz and Beach (1997) suggest that assessment must help to improve teaching, and thus needs to be both formative and summative.
Traditional strategies are commonly used to evaluate primary science achievement. These strategies include filling in the blanks for sentences and diagrams, matching components from different columns, judging items to be true or false, choosing the right answer from multiple-choice items, and giving short answers to questions, all of which are easy to administer and mark. The achievement of pupils in these traditional assessment strategies is only ranked by scores and grades, but Black (2000) comments that short, affordable, and externally set and marked tests cannot produce a reliable and valid assessment of a student’s capability except in particular and limited areas of science achievement. Lowery (2000) further states that these traditional strategies provide information about how well pupils recall knowledge and retain information, but do not allow for the expression of creativity or the development of original solutions to problems. It seems that the current practices in summative assessment are more deeply flawed than are generally realized with regard to both reliability and validity (Black, 2000). Moreover, the results from the traditional evaluation procedures give no information for either teachers or pupils on how to improve.
However, Hollins and Whitby (1998) argue that summative assessment involves a summing up of the point that a pupil has reached at the end of a particular time, such as at the end of a year or term. While Hayes (1998) opines that because of the emphasis on summative assessment in primary schools, planning and teaching with assessment in mind is developing slowly. There is thus a need to shift the emphasis to more meaningful assessment strategies to improve the association between assessment and pedagogy.
The idea of formative assessment for science educators (Bell, 2000, Cowie & Bell, 1996, Black & Williams, 1998) is that the teacher gives feedback to the pupils, and then the teachers and pupils take action to improve learning during the learning process. Daws and Singh (1996) further elaborate that formative assessment is a process of learning by which pupils are encouraged to reflect on their learning in a structured and systematic fashion, and to discuss their progress with their teachers with a focus on what they need to do to improve.
Formative assessment is an inherent part of the teaching and learning process. It is usually informal and pupils are not aware of it (Hollins & Whitby, 1998). Information is gathered regularly in the course of day to day teaching, and is therefore used to make decisions about ongoing work for the pupils. It allows the teacher to adjust the activities that are given to the pupils to ensure an appropriate match. An illustration of formative assessment is given by Driver (1989), in which pupils are given feedback about how the concepts that pupils currently hold relate to scientifically accepted concepts, after which the teacher helps them to modify their thinking accordingly. This is both a part of formative assessment and of the teaching of conceptual development, and demonstrates the association between pedagogy and assessment.
In a review of studies of formative assessment, Black and Wiliam (1998) state that formative assessment does improve learning. However, Black (2000) finds that the use of formative assessment is still very weak, and ought to be developed further. In a review of literature on formative assessment, it is found that most assessment of this type focuses on individual authentic strategies of science assessment. Hence, this article attempts to give an overview of the different assessment strategies that teachers can choose from to better evaluate science learning in their pupils.
Copyright (C) 2004 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 5, Issue 2, Article 8 (Aug., 2004). All Rights Reserved.
