PERCEPTION OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT PRACTICES AMONG TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Assessment can be seen as an umbrella term which includes the use of various strategies and methods to determine the extent to which students are achieving the predetermined learning objectives and outcomes of a lesson (Mussawy, 2009). There are various forms of assessments that can be used to gauge students’ present proficiency in particular courses and test their knowledge. According to Birenaum and Feldman (1998), there are two main forms of evaluation that are frequently used: performance-based assessment and traditional forms of assessment. According to Birenaum and Feldman (1998), performance-based assessments involve students performing a task instead of choosing from pre-arranged options, and their performance is evaluated based on how well they meet performance outcomes and how closely those outcomes relate to rubrics or feedback tools. Traditional assessment tools, on the other hand, are typically knowledge-based and include tests like multiple-choice questions, short answer essays, constructed responses, and standardized tests. Authentic assessment is performance-based and requires students to exhibit the extent of their learning through a demonstration of mastery (Poikela, 2004).
The core of both teaching and learning is assessment. To make defensible conclusions about students’ learning capacities, placement in suitable levels, and accomplishments, assessment data is required. Sadler (2009) states that assessment is the process of evaluating a student’s entire performance and drawing conclusions about their educational production and learning, including the caliber of work completed on assignments, projects, reports, and exams. This criticism has given rise to authentic assessment, which promises to design evaluation in a way that advances teaching and learning. There is merit to the criticism. For instance, traditional testing from the classroom to the national level predominates in Nigeria’s assessment of social studies. Nevertheless, most analysis has been uncritical, and the focus on real results raises issues as well as offers answers. The topic of assessment is still at the heart of the intense discussion surrounding educational reform. Whether the evaluation is alternative or standardized, the measure of student learning invariably incorporates theories, approaches, practices, applications, and outcomes (Greenstein, 2004). According to Greenstein (2004), there is a case to be made for assessment as a gauge of educational outcomes since it is thought to enhance instruction and lead to general school improvement. According to Wiggins (1998), evaluations should be used to inform and improve student performance rather than just auditing it. Instead of offering students feedback on how to learn and teach, schools frequently focus on teaching them to pass simple multiple-choice tests that do not assess our principles. The tendency is to settle for scoring efficiency and correctness at the expense of what we truly want to investigate. Assessment tasks should not adhere to the mechanical idea that claims enhancing the exam would improve the teaching; rather, they should represent the actual teaching and learning processes (Cumming & Maxwell, 1999). Furthermore, Boud and Falchikov (2005) argue that educators should shift away from the traditional paper-and-pencil assessment method, which emphasizes details, standards, and immediate results, and toward a more sustainable method that can help students become more active learners who assess themselves for life after the course and manage their own learning. They went on to question the inadequacy of current classroom teacher assessment processes as well as external examination. According to Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser (2001), because authentic assessments allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, they provide more methods to demonstrate learning than standard exams, such as completing multiple-choice questions with little flexibility. According to Craddock and Mathias (2009), authentic activities provide individuals more freedom to demonstrate their abilities. Examples of these tangible items include business ideas, projects, portfolios, artwork, and films.The primary purpose is to help youth develop the abilities needed to make defensible decisions for the common good as citizens of a democratic, multicultural society in a globalized economy. When employing an outcome-based approach, we must truly assess the information, skills, beliefs, and attitudes deemed to be most important. As a result, if the capacity to think critically, solve issues, have positive attitudes and beliefs, analyze information, and be civically competent is highly valued, students should be able to demonstrate mastery of these skills through meaningful activities that meet societal standards. As a result, the importance of employing genuine assessment in our diverse classrooms depends on how educators perceive authentic assessment.
Authentic assessment is a method that uses several types of performance measurement to reflect a student’s learning, accomplishment, motivation, and attitudes toward instructionally important tasks (Mussawy, 2009). However, in recent years, authentic assessment has been considered in terms of widening assessment procedures across all disciplines and levels of education and aligning them more closely with intended learning outcomes (Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner, 2004). Using real assessment in senior high schools will encourage instructors to adopt a strategy that rewards true effort and in-depth learning rather than assessing luck (Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner, 2004). The debate remains whether pupils are educated to thrive on standardized tests or to develop meaning that will be sustained throughout time. The extent to which authentic assessment methodologies help students apply concepts outside of the classroom, rather than teaching students to the exam, should never be underestimated (Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner, 2004). According to Marzano, Pickering, and Mctighe (1993), authentic assessment is a subset of alternative evaluation techniques based on the idea that a much broader range of student performance can be presented than is limited by short-answer and standardized examinations. This broader spectrum should include real-world learning scenarios as well as relevant challenging tasks that cannot be answered with simple solutions from a menu of possibilities (Marzano, Pickering, & Mctighe, 1993). Authentic assessment is typically based on the assumption that graduates should be capable of performing the jobs they will encounter after graduation; thus, their assessment should require them to perform meaningful tasks that replicate real-world challenges (Marzano, Pickering, & Mctighe, 1993). The need of modifying assessment techniques to match the learning process becomes evident when one considers that students learn what they expect to be assessed on (Marzano, Pickering, & Mctighe, 1993). Doyle (as described in Marzano, Pickering, and McTighe, 1993) revealed that American schools quickly realized that not everything studied is equal: “you are tested on some and not on others” (p.11). Doyle (as described in Marzano, Pickering, and McTighe, 1993) noticed that most students today prefer to disregard topics on which they are not tested. Teachers also tend to focus their instruction, whether consciously or unconsciously, on the learning objectives established and tested by the school, district, or nation.
The idea that learning is more than merely memorizing facts, but also includes critical thinking and practical application of information, serves as a foundation for the growing importance of real evaluation in the classroom. This is what Campbell (2000) calls “authentic education,” because it is based on reality and performance. “Authentic” refers to an evaluation designed to measure this type of “valid” knowledge (Campbell, 2000). Winograd and Perkins (1997) conducted a study on the need for authentic assessment in the United States of America and found that traditional evaluation approaches have generated challenges. According to them, the scenario recounted from the perspective of a first-grade teacher and her students demonstrated how students begin to doubt their own worth and competency when they discover that just a handful in their class “did a good test.” Fortunately, the students’ teacher, like most outstanding teachers, recognized her pupils’ abilities and the importance of feeling good about themselves as learners (Winograd and Perkins, 1997). Again, they argue that the classroom experience is not unusual, and that many teachers are aware that tests do not reveal all about students.. They contend that authentic assessment is a more beneficial form of evaluation that looks at certain methods and approaches that educators may apply in the classroom and is appropriate for usage throughout the curriculum and grade levels. Additionally, Crafton (as cited in Winograd and Perkins, 1997) asserts that there is a true audience other than the teacher, a personal intent, and a motive to engage in authentic evaluation. He goes on to say that practical experiences serve as a reminder that “school is not for getting ready to do the real stuff of life sometime in the near future, it is for doing real things for real audience and for ourselves right now” (p. 13). With authentic assessment, each stage’s performance assessments are standardized and given to teachers. A set of scoring guidelines is included with each assessment activity so that student work can be assessed. Teachers at every stage and level in the Senior High School are expected to help pupils develop toward the aim of becoming responsible citizens by using standard assignments and scoring processes (Todorov & Brousseau, 1998). “Disconnected lessons without a central theme or focus, without opportunities for in-depth learning, lessons that do not require higher-order thinking, or that are not related to the child’s personal world of experience are doomed,” contend Todorov and Brousseau (1998). Authentic assessment is necessary since they are perplexing to kids, irrelevant, and quickly forgotten (p. 18). Mussawy (2009) argues that it is ineffective to gauge a student’s aptitudes by merely measuring a single skill or remembered fact. An evaluation method must look at a student’s overall competencies in order to appropriately assess what they have learnt. According to Birenbaum (1996), the constructivist approach to education views the instructor as a mentor and facilitator who gives students the chance to create their own meaning. This aligns with the role of the instructor in authentic assessment. According to Black and William (1998), the constructivist method views learning as a process in which students (learners) make sense of a lesson or subject on their own and draw on their past knowledge, abilities, and capacity for critical analysis and problem-solving.
Statement of the Problem
According to Wiggins and McTighe (2007), traditional assessment has focused on efficient exercises and examinations that are thought to demonstrate a student’s educational ability. It is claimed that authentic assessment is becoming more popular, to the point where more comprehensive approaches to student evaluation are required. According to Winograd and Perkins (1997), real assessment goes beyond standard rote and memorizing methods and allows pupils to develop their own responses. According to Flexer, Marison, and Mayfield (1994), when faced with high-stakes accountability pressure, teachers align instruction with the content of basic skills tests, frequently ignoring science and social studies, as well as untested reading and mathematics objectives. Furthermore, training on tested skills closely resembles the pattern of multiple-choice examinations, with students learning the correct answers rather than developing their own solutions (Flexer, Marison, & Mayfield, 1994). Such measurement-driven education has proven detrimental to learning, as indicated by a drop in higher order thinking skills on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the United States during the 1990s. Another prevalent issue about traditional tests is that they contain cultural biases that make them unfair to minority students; situating the examination in a real-world environment is viewed as a solution to this problem (Fusco & Barton, 2001). Callison (1998) further contends that assessment processes do not capture the whole range of important student outcomes, and teachers struggle to apply the information gathered for instructional planning. He goes on to explain that multiple-choice exams, for example, have stressed the assessment of specific skills while excluding accurate representations of classroom activities, social interactions, the use of numerous resources, and real-life scenarios. Despite these criticisms, schools continue to emphasize conventional assessment as the sole assessment strategy for pupils. Furthermore, at the Senior High School level, traditional assessments have frequently been criticized for emphasizing the gap between the restricted range of abilities taught in the classroom and what the student will experience in the’real world’ (Prestidge & Williams-Glaser, 2000). Poikela (2004) contends that in traditional evaluation, reflective and social knowing skills are minimally appraised, which can and should be remedied through the use of more authentic assessment.