What attitude towards assessment did you have as a high school student?

 Determines Grades: Used to summarize student achievement, simply a necessary process for accruing marks  Irrelevant: Scoring of student work perceived to be subjective and unprofessional= causes the impression that assessment is arbitrary, irrelevant, inaccurate  Improves the Quality of Work: Students want to improve on their work and believe that assessment feedback will help them achieve this  Enjoyable: Students consider assessment to be satisfying regardless of the purpose it served

 In order to address our problem and create effective solutions, we need a better idea of what real students think about assessment 1. Do you know what the difference between assessment and evaluation is? 2. Does your teacher indicate which assignments are assessments? 4. What is your opinion of assessments? 5. What percentage of assessments do you complete? 6. Roughly what would you estimate your average grade to be?

1. “I couldn’t tell you, I would have to say there isn’t one.” 2. “Nope” 3. “Assessments make students accountable” 4. “All of ‘em” 5. “60%”

1. “I thought they were the same.” 2. “Definitely not” 3. “Assessments are irrelevant/unfair” 4. “70% of the assessments” 5. “65%”

1. “Evaluation is long term and assessment is short term.” 2. “Not really told” 3. “Assessments improves the quality of learning. It is useful to show you where you are.” 4. “100%” 5. “80%”

1. “Not quite sure.” 2. “Sometimes” 3. “Assessments are enjoyable, because I do well on them” 4. “Everything” 5. “87%”

 Brown and Hirschfeld conducted a large scale study to investigate the effect of a student’s perception of assessment on their performance  Four perspectives they analyzed were; assessment makes schools accountable, assessment makes students accountable, assessment is ignored, and assessment is fun Method: A self-report questionnaire was used to determine students' conceptions of assessment. Learning outcomes were determined from student responses to the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning curriculum-based knowledge and skill in reading tests Results: -the perception of student accountability positively affected achievement -“assessment is fun” and “assessment is ignored” conceptions negatively affected achievement Findings interpreted according to self-regulation theory  self-regulation of learning concerns a 'self-directive process through which learners transform their mental abilities into task-related academic skills‘ -Self-regulating students generally achieve more on most educational measures -Students those who place responsibility elsewhere (e.g., assessment makes schools accountable) tend to achieve less on educational outcomes -Students who lack confidence to achieve (e.g., assessment is ignored) tend to achieve less

Recap: Key Tips for Positive Student Perception Keep students informed of the assessment process Provide honest, comprehensible, and constructive feedback on how to improve Create assessments that are useful, so that students can see the value in improving quality of work “Good teachers” regularly tested and provided feedback to students about learning Preferences for alternative assessments (such as portfolios, projects, self-assessment, peer- assessment, and other non-examination assessments) shows that students positively evaluated assessments that were more authentic and thus made learning more realistic or powerful  Students thought that they would remember what they learned for longer because the work to produce a portfolio helped them internalise the material If assessments are presented as measures of individual student learning, and students believe this, then scores are more likely to go up Believing in self-responsibility and using assessment formatively leads to greater educational achievements Students must not conceive of assessment as something that interferes with their learning Students who see assessment as a constructive force for personal responsibility gained higher grades