This study is an investigation of the relationship between assessment and learning in
education, and specifically, in the context of Australian secondary students studying
English. The purpose of this research is to contribute to change in the way assessment
of learning is conducted in view of the shift of educational values from content based
towards a more goal-orientated process. Therefore, we begin this study with the
premise that educational values should not only inform assessment in terms of
outcomes and accountability as specified in national guidelines. They should also
support a pedagogic process which helps to develop in students a heightened sense of
the value of their own contributions to the community, academic and otherwise.
The intellectual context of this study begins with an overview of most prominent
educational theories. We illustrate John Deweys view that education should not only
prepare one for life, but should also be an integral part of life itself. Dewey insisted
that education was based in experience and that educational institutions should
therefore honour and build on students� experiences. Piaget believed that children are
quite sophisticated, active thinkers and theorists. Vygotsky saw all learning,
knowledge, and experience had a social basis. Together these three theorists
emphasize the active role of students as individuals (Dewey and Piaget) or a group
(Vygotsky). Further, as societys values shift from the Industrial Age to an
Information Age, there is a growing expectation for individuals to be active and
informed citizens, with the ability to exercise judgment and the capacity to make
sense of their world. In response to these issues, we conclude that the teaching and
assessment processes must support these kinds of requirements.
We examine literature related to learning theories and assessment with the objective
of ascertaining and illustrating aspects which they share and which, in our view,
hamper the development of learning environments enabling exploratory and critical
learning. We argue that when assessment criteria predetermine the learning
outcomes, this results in teaching models where students learning needs are also
predetermined. This process alienates students from their sociocultural context which
shapes them and from which they derive their identify and the sense of their own
value. Consequently, students become an object of pedagogic tools, rather than
rightful participants in the lives of their various communities.
Against the background of these reflections, we set out in this study to investigate
how learning and assessment can be linked together. To this end, we develop the
concept of an Exploratory Learning Environment. In order to articulate the
framework of such an environment, we draw on a number of principals generally
associated with humanist/constructivist/postmodern approaches to learning and
assessment. In the course of this work we argue that students ways of knowing, and
how they learn, cannot be divorced from their individual, and yet socially
(interactively) constructed (negotiated), cultural experiences (terms of reference). The
philosophy of the Exploratory Learning Environment can be described as promoting
engagement and construction, thus supporting learning through experience, inquiry,experimentation and critical reflection.
Consequently, in the Exploratory Learning Environment we seek to integrate
pedagogic task construction and students expectations. To this end, we concentrate
our research on strategies, or tools, enhancing students critical forms of engagement
in their community. We aim for the academic knowledge, which they construct as a
result, not to serve arbitrarily constructed performance indicators, but the students
themselves and the community which they engage. Regarding assessment, our
objective is to ascertain the diversity of conflict-generating concerns which students
take into account in order to motivate the kinds of socially responsible solutions that
they create and, as a result, the kinds of relationships which they want to establish.
This approach to assessment allows us to focus students learning on developing
critical thinking skills whose validation comes from students own evaluation, rather
than from an abstract source of authority.
This arrangement of creating learning environments rich in tools enhancing students
critical forms of engagement we carry out using two classes of Year 10 and one class
of Year 8 students in two secondary schools. Results from the study demonstrate
significant advantages that can be gained when assessment is not limited to the
measure of a product, but is based in pedagogy enabling critical negotiation. For
example, students developed a sense of ownership of their learning task, felt
motivated to explore conflicting issues, and, interestingly, valued the assessment
process and looked forward to learning about the quality of their performance.
In summary, the theoretical reflections conducted in this study and the experiment
conducted within the Exploratory Learning Environment model, together, provide
valuable and reliable evidence supporting the need for a critical evaluation of the
currently existing relationship between teaching and assessment. Further, this thesis
offers examples of solutions in which this link can be fostered. It demonstrates that,
when students are empowered to learn by critically linking academic and other forms
of knowledge residing in their community, the assessment process become a
meaningful tool to them and they become involved in their assessment.
At the same time, teachers learn to reduce the grip they hold on the learning and
assessment processes. They do so by adopting the role of a facilitator of the students
negotiation process. This is very different from the traditional teaching practices
where the learning process is restricted, rather than enhanced, by assessment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219068 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Vey, Lynette Daphne, n/e |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education & Community Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Lynette Daphne Vey |
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