National Assessments Part 3: Preparations for National Assessment Implementation
Conducting a national assessment is a massive task involving a number of activities. It requires a dedicated research team that is well- coordinated to successfully implement it.
The national assessment is by nature not cheap hence the exercise should not be undertaken unless all those concerned agree its results are likely to have an impact on policy making. Thus, a strong government commitment to its implementation is required from the outset.
Failure to do that may result in a lot of useless information being collected at a high opportunity cost. The purpose of the national assessment will determine how the results will be reported and used. Therefore, the purpose and intended uses of assessment results are central in making decisions about a number of activities.
The subsequent decision to be made is what information is to be collected at what level of education. When conducting the survey for the first time, the number of subjects to be included needs to be few. Once established, information collected may encompass other aspects of the education system.
All learners at the selected level form what is called the population. But due to costs and logistical issues, it is advisable to just involve a certain percentage of learners from the targeted population. The best and most cost- effective practice is to take a representative sample from the population.
It is important that every learner from the targeted population, irrespective of their ability, background, ethnicity, or gender, stands an equal chance of being included in the sample. That is, there shouldn’t be any deliberate effort to exclude a certain group of learners from participating in the survey.
There are a number of techniques employed to achieve a representative sample. However, we won’t go into those technicalities. In as much as the examination test is a representative sample of the subject content material that has been learned, learners do not write everything that they learned in the past two or three years of the programme.
Otherwise, if all the content domain was to be included in the tests, the examination for just one subject would take quite some time. That is why it is extremely important to include continuous assessment marks in the determination of learners’ final grades.
This enhances validity – that is the representativeness of the subject content matter in the assessment process.
Just like in the examinations, tests administered in the national assessment could be paper- and- pencil tests, particularly selected response items such as multiple choice, matching, or true/ false items. They could also be constructed response items and performance items. Constructed- response items require learners to create their own responses or products rather than choose a response from an enumerated set. Examples include short- answer items and exercises.
On the other hand, performance items include a wide range of assessment tasks that are product- or process- based, designed to emulate real- life contexts or conditions in which specific knowledge or skills are actually applied. Examples include conducting a laboratory experiment or playing a musical composition, and portfolios showing samples of work over time.
Each of these test formats assesses different knowledge and skill set, as such they are all important to be included in the national assessment tests. However, deciding on the type of format and how much of each to include is largely dependent on the purpose and intended uses of the test, the amount of time available for testing, the amount of time available for scoring and report preparation, and finally the cost implications.
Developing test items that will be able to give accurate information about the state of education is not an easy task. The tests must be reliable, fair, free from bias, and valid for their intended uses. To ensure this, the development should include a number of stakeholders, and the tests then piloted and field tested. Piloting is done with a smaller sample to check whether items are working as originally intended and refine procedures. Field testing on the other hand is administering the camera- ready tests to a much bigger sample more or less in a real- world environment to check for practicability. After field testing, the items should not change much from the original, or else it would mean the initial development was of low quality. In addition to administering standardised tests, questionnaires are also administered to learners, parents, teachers, and school administration to collect background information about the learning environment to help explain learners’ achievement and how best they can be helped to attain more.
Yes, it’s possible!