英语教育中话题与教学大纲、课堂教学、语言评测之间的关系

《全日制义务教育普通高级中学英语课程标准(实验稿)》以培养学生运用语言能力为基础,提出了一系列与生活、学习、社会等相关的24个话题。话题逐渐成为教学大纲、中小学教材编写、课堂教学与语言评价的主线。本文主要讨论话题与教学大纲、课堂教学、语言评测之间的关系。大纲的设计可以以话题为核心,从而设计各种任务及其所需要用到的功能、语法成分;在课堂教学中,话题可以帮助教师把所要教的内容与学生已有的知识结构、生活经历联系起来,让学生明确他们学习这些内容的目的,以及他们可以用这些语言做什么事情;能力表现评价是交际型语言测试的体现,话题可以将与实际生活紧密相关的真实语料引入并应用于英语评测中。     

Empowering or disabling? Emotional reactions to assessment amongst part-time adult students

This article focuses on emotional reactions to learning and assessment. It draws on a qualitative research project involving first-generation adult students on a foundation degree programme. Endorsing the notion of emotional reactions as situated in participants' lived power relations, we map out emotional patterns to Semester 1 and then explore in more detail, participants' particular emotional reactions to assessment. We found three key themes: higher education assessment as an unknown risk; assessment success ‘out of the blue’ and assessment as trauma and euphoria. A major aspect of the project was to offer socially constructed pedagogic developments in response to these themes and nurture emotion as positive energy for transformation.     

Peer-assessment in higher education – twenty-first century practices,challenges and the way forward

Peer assessment in higher education has been studied for decades. Despite the substantial amount of research carried out, peer assessment has yet to make significant advances. This review identifies themes of recent research and highlights the challenges that have hampered its advance. Most of these challenges arise from the manual nature of peer assessment practices, which prove intractable as the number of students involved increases. Practitioners of the discipline are urged to forge affiliations with closely related fields and other disciplines, such as computer science, in order to overcome these challenges.     

Academics’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of self and peer assessment in higher education

Despite compelling evidence of its potential effectiveness, uptake of self and peer assessment in higher education has been slower than expected. As with other assessment practices, self and peer assessment is ultimately enabled, or inhibited, by the actions of individual academics. This paper explores what academics see as the benefits and challenges of implementing self and peer assessment, through the analysis of interviews with 13 Australian academics. Thematic analysis of our qualitative data identified seven themes of benefits and five challenges. Our academics showed strong belief in the power of self and peer assessment as formative assessment, contrary to past literature which has focussed on the accuracy of students’ marking. This paper therefore brings insights as to not only what academics value about self and peer assessment but also identifies potential inhibitors in practice. Recommendations are made about improving the design and implementation of self and peer assessment in higher education.     

教师测评素养国外研究述评

教师测评素养是教师教育和教师发展的重要组成部分。通过对国外有关教师测评素养研究文献的梳理和分析,其研究内容主要包括教师测评素养的构成、现状及培训需求、测量工具的开发和验证、测评素养发展途径和影响因素等。这些研究对我国开展教师测评素养相关研究有一定的参考价值,同时也启示我们可以在研究对象、研究方法和研究内容上进一步拓展,要基于我国国情,开展教师测评素养及其测量测量工具的本土化研究。     

The One-minute Paper as a Catalyst for Change in Online Pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Online/virtual educators face challenges related not only to technology and pedagogy, but also to student assessment, which remains a critical function to reinforce. Brief assessment tools can be used by the instructor to tailor the learning experience, and where appropriate, to reinforce student-centered learning. In this qualitative study, we explored the use of a one-minute paper as a brief and consistent assessment tool in master’s level social work courses in research and advanced clinical practice with individuals courses. The coded segments of qualitative responses (# of coded segments n = 728) from 52 students were examined to explore common themes from the student’s experience. Discussion is offered on the use of this tool for brief and consistent assessment of knowledge gains in class, as well as the impact these themes may have for the intentional pedagogy for the facilitation of learning.     

Formative assessment of teachers in the context of an online learning environment

This case study looked at how an assessment strategy designed for an online learning environment can support teachers’ professional development. More specifically, we intended to evaluate how a particular online assessment design can help the participating in-service teachers to recognize the added value of formative assessment, and promote their own use of formative assessment in their professional classroom practices. The presented assessment design consists of a combination of different, non-standard assessment methods in an online environment. We analysed data from 494 questionnaires, the participants’ critical reflections about their learning and the participants’ produced artefacts. The findings illustrate the participants’ recognition of the formative character of the proposed assessment design, reflected not only by the high scores reported in seven of the eight themes explored, but also from the qualitative analysis of the participants’ reflections and artefacts. Suggestions are offered for the improvement of the proposed assessment design, so as to better promote the formative character of assessment. In particular, implications for the development of formative assessment in online professional development are discussed taking into account its potential to promote the participants’ self-regulatory learning processes.     

Competency discourses: an analysis of secondary and tertiary assessments

Analysis of a sample of assessment tasks used in New Zealand first-year clinical and final-year secondary school Biology and Chemistry National Certificate of Educational Achievement summative assessments was conducted to assess whether similarities and differences existed in secondary and tertiary competency discourses. Findings suggested significant differences in language-in-use, especially in the psychomotor and affective domains of learning, reflecting different themes and ideologies. The suggested implication was a lack of preparedness for tertiary clinical learning that focuses on performance-based assessment of the affective and psychomotor domains.     

Test Design with Cognition in Mind

One of the primary themes of the National Research Council's 2001 book Knowing What Students Know was the importance of cognition as a component of assessment design and measurement theory ( NRC, 2001 ). One reaction to the book has been an increased use of sophisticated statistical methods to model cognitive information available in test data. However, the application of these cognitive-psychometric methods is fruitless if the tests to which they are applied lack a formal cognitive structure. If assessments are to provide meaningful information about student ability, then cognition must be incorporated into the test development process much earlier than in data analysis. This paper reviews recent advancements in cognitively-based test development and validation, and suggests various ways practitioners can incorporate similar methods into their own work.     

Building upon synergies among self-regulated learning and formative assessment research and practice

ABSTRACT

The synergies that result from synthesising conceptual models and findings from self-regulated learning and formative assessment research are launching a new era of scholarship. They drive new questions about how to help students to internalise complimentary self-regulatory and assessment knowledge, skills, and dispositions as well as how to prepare teachers and education systems to prioritise and support this work. The articles in this special issue illustrate the power and importance of studying how self-regulation and classroom assessment emerge from social, contextual, historical, and cultural factors. Four themes emerged from the articles in this special issue, including new conceptualisations of self-regulated learning and formative assessment, insights regarding teachers’ dual role in enacting and promoting self-regulation, recognition of the critical role of students’ ability to productively use assessment information, and the need to instantiate self-regulated learning and assessment literacy as formal and valued curricular outcomes.     

‘Some kind of weird,evil experiment’: student perceptions of peer assessment

This paper explores the attitudes and perceptions of three cohorts of Australian humanities and social science undergraduate students towards peer assessment. It seeks to gain a deeper understanding of local dissatisfaction with peer assessment through an in‐depth analysis of students’ contributions to focus group discussions. Responding to education theorists’ claims that peer and other forms of innovative assessment empower students, the paper concentrates on themes of power evident within students’ narratives. The interpretive framework coheres around four interrelated conceptions of power: sovereign, epistemological, disciplinary and structural. Students were found to support the notion of peer assessment as a formative exercise, yet were highly critical of it as a summative practice. Significantly, some of the students’ dissatisfaction stemmed from broader changes across the higher education sector more generally. The paper draws attention to the need for this to be taken into account when considering assessment as a technology of power and empowerment.     

Assessment revisited: a review of research in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education

A review of articles published in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, over the last eight years (2006–2013) on assessment in higher education, since the introduction of the Bologna process, is the subject of the paper. The first part discusses the key issue of assessment in higher education and the method used for selecting articles. The second part presents results according to the main emerging themes arising from data analysis: assessment methods, modes of assessment and assessment related to a given teaching and learning method. The paper concludes that the foci of the studies are aligned with assessment practices other than the written test, in accordance with a learner-oriented perspective. Although the implementation of the Bologna process has had different kinds of impact in different European countries, the review shows that the use and effects of a diversity of assessment methods in higher education have been investigated, particularly those pointing to the so-called alternative methods. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

The impact of alternative authentic assessment outcomes in Palestinian fourth grade math classrooms

Focusing on evaluating students’ performance in basic math classrooms, the researchers in this study examined the impact of alternative assessments on learning outcomes in fourth grade Palestinian classrooms. Representing a large sector of education in the Palestinian territories, fourth grade students were randomly selected to participate in the study in which they participated in various math instructional and assessment activities throughout multiple lessons and cycles. Alternative assessment approaches were used including student self- assessment, peer assessment, and teacher assessment in terms of three main achievement levels to measure the extent to which students learned the math concepts by recall and remembrance, ability to apply, and making inferences. Mixed Design ANOVA measures were used to analyze and interpret the results which showed significant trends and correlations across the four cycles of math instruction and indicated that alternative authentic assessment methods have had a positive impact on students’ learning and application of math. Implications for integrating authentic assessment measures as well as peer and self- assessments were drawn in light of the promising outcomes of augmenting student motivation and developing critical life-long skills.     

Qualifications,examinations and assessment: views and perspectives of students in the 14–19 phase on policy and practice

This paper brings to the forefront students’ views on one of the most significant aspects of educational reform in the 14–19 phase in England, specifically qualifications, examinations and assessment reform. In this respect, the paper foregrounds students as ‘policy actors’, they are significant players in the mediation of national qualification systems rather than just subjects in their implementation. Data from a national dataset of focus groups with 243 students are presented. Key themes are highlighted relating to young people’s experiences of qualifications, examinations and assessment at this stage of education in a context of continuous initiatives and change as well as the impact on students of qualifications reform in situ which can be confusing, unsettling and ultimately detrimental to future success.     

Alternative perspectives on learning outcomes: challenges for assessment

In discussing the relationship between curriculum and assessment it is commonly argued that assessment should be aligned to curriculum or, alternatively, that they should be congruent with each other. This article explores that relationship in five educational contexts in the UK and in Europe, ranging across school education, workplace learning, vocational education and higher education. Four main themes are highlighted: construct definition, progression, assessment procedures, and system-level accountability. What emerges from the five case studies under review is a multi-layered process of knowledge being constructed in diverse ways at different levels in each context. The article concludes that, rather than thinking in terms of either alignment or congruence, these relationships are better understood in terms of non-linear systems embracing curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.     

Opportunities and obstacles to consider when using peer- and self-assessment to improve student learning: Case studies into teachers' implementation

Peer- and self-assessment (PASA) are student-led assessment practices with the potential to positively affect achievement. Case studies of three New Zealand classrooms were examined to explore teacher and student perspectives of and purposes for PASA. Four themes (i.e., improvement, accountability, social interaction, and accuracy) were identified. Teachers cited mainly improvement purposes for PASA, with students primarily focused on accuracy and social interaction concerns. Data indicated that these teachers and students needed deeper understanding of how to use PASA for improvement and self-regulation purposes. This suggests teachers must provide concrete instruction in PASA and carefully manage interpersonal issues for successful implementation.     

What Is Measured Is Treasured: The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on Nonassessed Subjects

In this article, the author reports the results of a national survey taken by state assessment directors on the impact of No Child Left Behind on nonassessed subjects between the years 2001-5. Results indicate that during this time, statewide assessment of science and writing increased whereas it decreased in the social studies, arts and humanities, listening, and technology and computers. Four themes emerged when survey takers queried participants about the impact of No Child Left Behind on nonassessed subject areas. First, reduction of resources and time for nontested subject areas was evident. Second, curriculum integration of nontested subject areas into the tested subjects increased. Third, alignment of curriculum and assessment with state standards increased. Fourth, several state assessment directors relayed they observed no impact.     

Unpacking MOOC scholarly discourse: a review of nascent MOOC scholarship

The rapid rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) signals a shift in the ways in which digital teaching and learning are engaged in and understood. Drawing upon a comprehensive search of nine leading academic databases, this paper examines the initial phase of MOOC scholarship (2009–2013), and offers an analysis of these empirical studies that conceptualizes themes in MOOC scholarship and locates them within a chronological framework. Two key phases of scholarship about MOOCs are identified, each with associated research imperatives and themes. Phase One: Connectivist MOOCs, Engagement and Creativity 2009–2011/2012. Themes of Phase One include: development of Connectivism as a learning theory, and technological experimentation and innovation in early cMOOCs. Phase Two: xMOOCs, Learning Analytics, Assessment, and Critical Discourses about MOOCs 2012–2013. Themes of Phase Two include: the rise of xMOOCs, further development of MOOC pedagogy and platforms, growth of learning analytics and assessment, and the emergence of a critical discourse about MOOCs.     

Students’ views of assessment in project-led engineering education: findings from a case study in Portugal

According to the demands of the Bologna process, new educational methods and strategies are needed in order to enhance student-centred learning. Project work is one of those approaches. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of project-led education (PLE) on students’ learning processes and outcomes, within the context of a first-year engineering programme. It explores students’ perceptions about assessment procedures and processes. Data collection was based on individual surveys at the end and the beginning of each PLE edition and through focus groups, after a period of six months. Findings are presented according to emerging themes from the data analysis, focusing mainly on students’ perspectives of learning and assessment, the role of formative and summative assessments in PLE and their impact on learning. Implications for improving assessment practices are discussed.