Challenges of school based assessment

In our last article, we indicated that School- based Assessment is the assessment done at the school level by the classroom teacher. If done well, its inherent validity and reliability justify that it replace the once off summative end of year examinations. No wonder one prominent author in the field called for its embracement and abolish the examinations which do not take into consideration students’ readiness; conducted in secrecy and strict security, following rigid rules.

In spite of that, school- based assessment is not fully implemented, particularly the one that forms part of the learners’ grade. It must be openly indicated that there are problems associated with its implementation and they include among others:

Large Class sizes: SBA is studentcentred. That is to say, the learner is at the centre of interest, not the teacher. The intention of assessment is to diagnose the individual learners’ deficiencies and inadequacies to ultimately device appropriate interventions to address them, and in the final analysis, determine progress. In most cases, classes are large translating to high teacher workload. This makes it practically impossible for the teacher to effectively assess. A normal class size should have 25 students to enable the teacher to give each learner deserved attention.

Insufficient resources: Implementing school- based assessment is costly. It requires a lot of resources and in the process, a lot of paper work is produced which requires prudent management. Thorough planning is required to integrate and schedule available scarce resources for effective utilisation. Because it is perceived to be expensive, all limited resources and time are directed towards standardised terminal examinations.

Inadequate In- service Training: whether teachers received adequate training in assessment at College or not, they need regular Continuous Professional Development workshops/ seminars, to update them on new trends in assessment, and also to exchange notes. Teachers should not go on prolonged periods of time without attending professional development courses or workshops. Such can be organized either in- house or by regional office.

Implementation of tasks of nonequivalent difficulty: Assessment is a highly technical area. Once mastered, it effortlessly enhances learning. Teachers can develop assessment instruments of different formats and implement the most appropriate format to each learner, simultaneously maintaining tasks difficulty equivalences. To achieve this, one does not necessarily have to administer the same tasks to all students, nor at the same time. But with inadequate training, implementation of tasks of varying demands from one school to another is most likely.

Low weighting: While the once- off examinations seem to have fewer problems, the reality is that they are given a lot of prominence. If the same status could be afforded to school- based assessment, we would see achievement improving significantly. Whenever school- based assessment contributes towards the learner’s final grade, its contribution is minimal, due to the factors outlined in this article. This tends to discourage those involved in its conduct as it is given secondary treatment. Teacher role conflict: Teachers play dual roles of facilitators and assessors of their learners. Naturally, it is sometimes difficult to suppress one when engaged in the other. Using learners’ performance as a basis for determining the teacher’s progress further exacerbated the problem. It is therefore not surprising to find low variance and a skew towards high marks of school- based assessment whenever it’s included in the learners’ grades.

Negative perceptions: school- based assessment involves a lot of paperwork, recording, analyses, planning, interventions design, and the likes. If the workload is high, in- service training is deficient, resources are inadequate, and learners’ performance is used against the teacher, teachers tend to view the conduct of school- based assessment as an extra workload. Worse still, when incorporated in the learners’ final grade, they view it as an external institution’s mandate which should be paid for. Consequently, they resort to inflating learners’ marks to meet the requirements. Plagiarism: in one of the articles, we talked about assessment- aslearning, assessment- for- learning, and assessment- of- learning. It is only when assessment is perceived as assessmentof- learning that we encounter such problems as plagiarism. This is whereby learners submit work which is not theirs, and sometimes colluding with others in doing so. In such circumstances where marks are deemed as a sign of effective learning, regardless of how they were generated, learners care less about learning and do everything possible to obtain high marks.

Lack of confidence in internal assessment: examination period generates a lot of interest among stakeholders. Learners spend sleepless nights preparing for examinations, parents start showing interest in their children’s education, newspaper stories are dominated by learners’ performances, there is a lot of talk about examinations results in the broadcast media, notwithstanding that learning and assessment have been going on side by side throughout the year, yet there was pronounced silence.

That shows how the public holds in high esteem examinations. Any assessment which does not feature prominently in examinations is perceived as not dependable. This is attributed to lack of understanding of what assessment really is, as one authoritative scholar in the field once wrote: “A lot of people, including those involved in education do not understand how assessment should be done and why it is done.”

The Author holds PhD in ‘ Assessment & Quality Assurance’ and writes in his personal capacity as a Psychometric Researcher. Contact/ WhatsApp: 71713446 or masoletm@ gmail. com or facebook page: Trust Mbako Masole.