Alternative assessments ease students’ fear of exams

THE education world has been evolving rapidly, as are assessment methods in the classrooms.

Around the globe, teachers are using multiple methods of assessment rather than just testing students’ cognitive abilities through examinations.

With the pandemic still lingering, a holistic approach towards assessment is needed to gauge students’ progress in learning.

Since remote learning is still taking place in many parts of the world, teachers are being innovative in making assessment applicable for remote learning with cautious planning so that the results garnered from the assessment are valid and reliable.

To cater to such situations, alternative assessments might be a good approach.

Alternative assessments are a form of assessment that measures students’ level of proficiency as opposed to merely their levels of cognitive abilities.

They are a more holistic approach that makes students put what they learn into practice rather than just memorising it.

For instance, students can keep a log of their science experiments that they do at home as opposed to answering quizzes or tests. With this approach, more skills can be assessed and more student involvement in various ways is needed.

This form of assessment is what we need during the pandemic where students can report individually their learning progress and teachers can facilitate learning by posing questions according to the different learning levels of the students.

With alternative assessments, evidence that we gain from students’ works can be kept in a portfolio and be shared with parents and guardians during the school open day.

There is another form of alternative assessment, which is called the portfolio assessment, where students decide which of their best work goes

into the portfolio to be assessed by their teachers.

By allowing students’ voices in their assessment, it takes learning to another level. It may sound impractical or wrong for those who believe in traditional assessments, but this is the way with alternative assessments.

We give voice to the students’ progress. We give them the chance to decide. We empower students because it is their learning that matters most.

One of the biggest benefits of alternative assessments is that it eradicates fear of examination and invites total involvement of the students in the assessment. What do we get if students fear examinations?

They might cheat or fall sick due to the escalating pressure of the examination.

We are dealing with students of the new millennium. As such, new methods of teaching and learning, as well as assessment, are pivotal to chart their progress in learning.

With this, we will have meaningful data which will benefit the teachers in designing activities that cater to the needs of the students.

Change is inevitable. The question is, are we ready?

DR MUHAMMAD NOOR ABDUL AZIZ Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Universiti Utara Malaysia