The overlooked benefits of large-scale student assessment
Charles
Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission
to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
In last week’s blogpost,
I expressed my dismay that advocates for social justice are often strongly
opposed to large-scale assessment, one of the most powerful tools for
demonstrating the value of schooling and drawing attention to places that would
benefit from additional resources. I acknowledged that assessment information
can be used to show that, despite effort and resources, there has not been
visible evidence of improvement. But I am an optimist who believes that such
information can help make a difference for all students and especially for
those for whom school success has been elusive.
Opponents of large-scale student assessments have
mobilized many arguments to make the case against them. They
say large-scale student assessment prompts teachers to teach to the test; wastes
valuable time and resources; doesn’t assess everything that is important; is
stressful for students and teachers; doesn’t take into
account differences among students; makes invidious comparisons among
schools; etc.
Teaching to the test is a sin for some critics of
large-scale assessments. I am uncertain how teaching to the test is a bad thing
if the test assesses things that are regarded as important and they are
assessed well . . . and no one has the test in advance. Poorly designed and
developed large-scale assessments that measure things that are not socially
valued will have a short shelf life.
Opponents of large-scale assessments often quote the
amount of money that is devoted to such assessments, claiming that the money
could be better spent. As far as I can determine, there have not been studies
of the value-for-money of large-scale assessments and the information they
provide. I would be keen to see such studies. In fact, I think we need more program
evaluations that consider the effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of large-scale
assessments and many of the other practices we employ in schools.
The argument about a “waste of time” is a variation on
the waste of money argument. Something of value (time) is being used poorly
when it is used for large scale assessment. Here too we need some careful study
of time allocation and use in education so that we can compare the time devoted
to assessment with other practices to which we devote time.
It is true that large-scale assessments do not assess
everything that is important. We should file that claim in the “all or nothing”
fallacy drawer. I would like to see more assessments rather than fewer. If what
is measured counts, I would like to see well-designed and developed assessments
in social studies, the arts, mental health, and other areas to which we devote
our scarce time and resources.
I do not dispute that some large-scale assessments can
cause stress for teachers and students. There is ample evidence from contexts
in which assessments are “high stakes” that they are stressful and sometimes prompt
cheating. But, in their absence, we would not know whether graduates possess
the knowledge that the graduation diploma is supposed to signify.
Large scale assessments do not consider differences
among students at the time of administration, but they are crucial to producing
equitable outcomes for students who may have entered school with differences
that schools are supposed to eliminate. Without the information provided by
large scale assessments, we cannot know if Charles who performed poorly at
grade 3 has improved by grade 6, or whether a gap between Indigenous learners
and their non-Indigenous peers has diminished over time. The analysis of the
data from large scale student assessments allows the system to identify the things
over which the system has control that can facilitate or impede student
success. Such information is essential for student and system improvement.
As I said in a previous blog,
some individuals and organizations use the information from large scale student
assessments to make invidious comparisons among schools. But those who make
such comparisons are unaware or willfully ignore (my hunch is the latter) that between
school differences have a relatively small influence on student achievement when
compared to within school differences. Eliminating large
scale assessment because the results are sometimes misused is like eliminating the
food guide because it is sometimes ignored.