XME 4091: Assessment in Education - Assessment Activity Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of assessment in education, focusing on the design and implementation of an assessment activity aligned with the Literacy and Numeracy Framework for primary year groups (Years 3-6). The assessment focuses on the oracy strand, evaluating speaking, listening, and collaboration skills through various activities, including interviews, role-plays, dictation, and brainstorming. The report categorizes the assessment activities into speaking, listening, and collaboration/discussion skills, differentiating tasks for lower and higher year groups. It emphasizes the use of a summative assessment type and addresses quality assurance through the examination of reliability and validity, highlighting factors influencing consistency and measuring the intended outcomes of the assessment. The implementation section outlines practical considerations for the classroom setting, ensuring equal opportunities for students. Finally, the report discusses how the assessment results can be used to improve teaching and learning. The report also includes an overview of assessment in education, its importance, and its impact at different levels.

Running head: ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION
XME 4091: ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION 2020
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Assessment activity design........................................................................................................3
Categorisation........................................................................................................................3
Stage 1: Speaking skills.........................................................................................................4
Stage 2: Listening Skills.........................................................................................................4
Stage 3: Collaboration and discussion...................................................................................5
Assessment type.....................................................................................................................5
Quality Assurance Design..........................................................................................................5
Reliability...............................................................................................................................5
Validity...................................................................................................................................6
Assessment Implementation.......................................................................................................7
Results and their use...................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction.
Assessment in education or educational evaluation refers to the strategic and
systematic process by virtue of which a student’s level of knowledge, skills, attitudes as well
as beliefs and achievements in institutionalised education can be evaluated (Bennet 2011).
Primarily, it helps in identifying the various levels of strengths and weaknesses in the student.
Assessment provides support for the development of the student based on the identified
strengths and weaknesses (Bennet 2011). Assessment is an important tool in all educational
institutions and across all age levels, ranging from early childhood and foundation years to
even post graduate and doctorate levels (Astin 2012). Assessment in education becomes
important, not only because it helps in the identification of the strengths and weaknesses, but
also provides the educators and relevant educational authorities with the information
regarding the curriculum that they have put in place in order to provide education to the
students (Reynolds et al. 2010). An assessment can focus either on the individual learner or
on learners as groups and can take various forms ranging from assignments and projects to sit
down examinations (Gotch & French 2014).
Assessment in education is a continuous process that is based on measurable and
explicit student learning outcomes. These help in developing and providing significant
learning opportunities for the student. For the teachers and the educational stakeholders,
assessment results provide opportunities for the development of better and more intuitive
resources and study materials that the students can benefit from (Gotch & French 2014). It
allows the teachers as well as material and curriculum designers to understand the limitations
in the existing curriculum and teaching strategies and modify them accordingly so that
maximal student benefit can be reaped (Klenowski & Wyatt-Smith 2013). Assessment design
is also based on various structured theoretical frameworks. There are several types of
assessment, however, the formative and summative types of assessment are the most

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commonly implemented ones in education. Assessment also becomes important when the
overall educational scenario of a particular country is considered. The Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for instance, is an organisation that
implements a global assessment survey in all of its member countries. The Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) is the assessment that evaluates the overall student
level of education and knowledge in areas of science, mathematics and reading (OECD
2018). The results become important to highlight how the particular country’s educational
scenario is like (Bennet 2011). Assessment in education is therefore an invaluable reference
point that merges student achievements and knowledge along with the institution’s
involvement in providing education to the students.
Assessment activity design.
Keeping correlation with the Literacy and Numeracy Framework, the following
assessment activity has been designed for the primary year group (Years 3 - 6). The activity
assesses the literacy level for the selected age group. The literacy strand for this assessment
activity is ‘Oracy across the Curriculum’ and focuses on ‘Developing and presenting
information and ideas’ as the element. This element is related to the aspects of speaking,
listening, collaboration and discussion.
Categorisation.
At the outset, this assessment activity highlights the elements in three categories,
namely speaking skills, listening skills and collaboration/discussion skills. For the lower
years (year 3 and year 4), the assessment activity focuses primarily on the speaking and
listening skills whereas for the years 5 and 6 the activity engages the students in all three
categories equally.

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Stage 1: Speaking skills.
The activities in this section range from a variety of tasks that evaluate the spoken
skills of the students. The students are engaged in guided spoken tasks starting with an
introductory informal interview session where the students directly interact with the teachers
and respond to the questions that the teachers ask them (Grugeon et al. 2014). This activity
works across all the four years in the selected group.
The second activity in this series is a role play where the students are grouped
together and given a particular situation to work on (Shanks 2012). Teachers help the
students in preparing a particular role play scenario or a skit that the students will perform in
the class (Shanks 2012). This activity is best suited for the students in the higher year range
that is years 5 and 6.
The third and final activity in this section is a storytelling and summarisation. The
storytelling activity is chosen for students of years 3 and 4. It involves the students telling a
particular story that they have either constructed themselves, or something pre – constructed
that they have prepared for presenting in the class. The summarisation activity is for the
students of years 5 and 6. In this activity, the students are given a particular reading to read,
summarise and present the summary in the class.
Stage 2: Listening Skills.
In this series of assessment activities, there are two specific activities that are catered
for testing the students’ levels of listening skills. The first activity is a dictation activity. Here,
for the years 3 and 4, the teacher in the class will dictate a series of words and the students
will write the words down in their notebooks (Lynch & Mendelsohn 2013). Evaluation is
done on the basis of how accurately the student has noted the words in their notebooks. For
the years 5 and 6, the same activity principle applies but it instead of individual words, the
teachers provide the class with complete sentences ranging between 5 and 10 words (Lynch

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& Mendelsohn 2013). Once again evaluation will be done on the basis of how accurately the
students have produced the sentences in a written form.
Stage 3: Collaboration and discussion.
This is an activity section that deals with collaboration and discussion amongst the
students. This activity is dedicated to the years 5 and 6. This section has one dedicated
activity namely a brainstorming activity. In the brainstorming activity, the students will be
segregated in groups and each individual group will be given a particular topic to discuss
amongst themselves. Each individual group will engage in the discussion within the class and
the teacher will participate as a resource personnel (Shanks 2012). The brainstorming activity
will last 10 minutes for each group.
Assessment type.
The type of assessment that this series of evaluation activities cater to is of the
summative type (Black et al. 2010). This is because the types of activities are not required for
evaluating students’ progress over time. Instead, it focuses on what the student has
holistically learned over the course of the year (Taras 2009). Furthermore, the assessment
also requires an entire day of engagement. Therefore the type of assessment being summative
in nature is an added benefit for the students as well as the assessors.
Quality Assurance Design.
While evaluating a particular assessment activity from a Quality Assurance perspective, the
aspects of reliability and validity become quite crucial to consider.
Reliability.
Reliability refers to how consistent that specific assessment activity has been in terms
of its success as well as implementation in the class (or the selected class range). Reliability
is affected by a string of factors including question or activity ambiguity, overuse of options,

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unclear marking and evaluation criteria as well as poorly implemented marking and testing
patterns (Grant & Gareis 2015). In terms of reliability, the current newly designed assessment
activity is appropriate as it evaluates the students on the skills that the chosen element of the
strand has highlighted. These skills, in the particular age and year group are important
variables that highlight how the student has progressed in these selected areas, namely
speaking and listening skills, throughout the course tenure. This indicates that there have
been practical involvement of the students with tasks and activities that emphasised their
skills in significant ways. The aspects of listening and speaking skills that are tested via the
activities complement what the student has learned over time in the class. At the same time,
they are also based on a unified content that will be tested. This accounts for quality
assurance in terms of form equivalence (Grant & Gareis 2015). Furthermore, the activities
help compare the test results across other tests in the same field that has happened before, as
well as across a diverse range of students. This makes the assessment activity comply with
the element of temporal stability. Finally, in terms of internal consistency, the spoken skills
and listening skills activities are directed towards how they can be used in a real life situation.
As a result the range of situations that are common across real life events, remain constant.
Besides that for the other listening activities like dictation of words and sentences, given that
a selected set of words and sentences are being used to test all students, it also accounts for
quality control in terms of internal consistency. Thus, overall, the activities are consistent and
adheres to quality standards in terms of reliability.
Validity.
Validity is helpful in measuring the intended outcome of an assessment test. More
specifically, it tests the outcomes on the basis of their practicality. This includes adherence to
relevant framework and curriculum standards as well as the structure that is intended for the
students (Skolnik 2010). The current assessment activity is based on a particular literacy

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strand, its element and how the specific skills associated with the element are measured
across the dimensions of students and respective years. Listening, speaking and
collaboration / discussion are skills that are highlighted in the literacy element and they are
also significant determiners of how these skills will be used by the students in certain
situations. The content of the activity is based on the skills themselves. Therefore they are
being evaluated on the basis of their practicality (Tam 2014). Furthermore, these skills, being
rudimentary and necessary for the primary development of literacy skills, they also tend to
test the construct validity in terms of consistency in performance. The assessment activity
therefore also falls in line with the quality assurance element of validity (Tam 2014).
Assessment Implementation.
Given that this assessment activity is tailored towards the development and
understanding of speaking and listening skills, a testing environment that is dedicated to a sit
down examination will not be suitable for evaluation. Besides that, the assessment has to be
more practical in nature. A school classroom setting is appropriate for testing, however it
needs to be modified in order to suit the specific requirements of the testing. That includes
keeping a separate classroom ready for testing students in terms of group based activities,
ensuring that the class is big enough to house the number of students partaking in the
assessment while at the same time making sure that everyone who are speaking in the class
can be audible. Thus, if a microphone and speaker is required for certain cases, it should be
taken care of. The room should also have ample performance space so that the students who
are taking part in the role play activities can perform without restrictions.
Ensuring equal opportunities for students will special requirements like visual or
hearing impairments, should also be given due consideration. If a separate marking criteria is
not possible for them, then the testing setting should be appropriate to cater to their special
needs. The examiner will perform the duties that they are supposed to, that is ensure that the

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assessment activities are performed in a control manner and no external unwanted aid is
provided to the students, unless it is something mandated by the activity (e.g. the
brainstorming activity where the teacher involvement is a must).
The results would be assessed by the teachers who are also undertaking the role of the
examiners. The assessment being summative in nature, should take place after the entire
course tenure is over. It should preferably take place at the end of the academic year.
Results and their use.
The results from the assessment activity will display how the students have performed
in the selected categories over time and how they have performed at the end in the final
assessment. This will provide vital insights into how the students have developed themselves
over time as well as point out what their strengths and weaknesses are in the relevant areas
that are being tested (Taras 2005). This will provide information regarding exactly which
aspects in the educational system requires amendment.
The results from the assessment activity will provide insights into three significant
areas. Firstly, in terms of students’ progress, the results will be used to identify students with
potential as well as students with deficiencies. It will show the teachers that there are certain
areas that need to be taken care of in order to enhance the output of the curriculum (Knight
2002). Secondly in terms of curriculum development, the results will highlight which areas of
the curriculum are in need of amendment, or if the entire curriculum needs to be re -
addressed and reconstructed (DuFour & Marzano 2011). Finally in terms of school
improvement, the results will provide significant statistical information regarding how the
students are performing across different years in the school. As such the school educational
design and planning section will be able to use that information to find out weak curriculum
and student performance links and take appropriate steps to amend them so that a more
effective education can be provided to the students (Gipps 2011).

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Conclusion.
This assessment activity takes the strand ‘Oracy across the curriculum’, its element
‘Developing and presenting information and ideas’ and highlights the skills of speaking,
listening, collaboration and discussion. In doing so, the activities for assessment that have
been developed cater to the student requirements as well as the requirements for literacy and
numeracy in the selected year range of 3 to 6. The activities challenge the students on a
cognitive level and pushes them towards practising their speaking and listening skills in the
class based on a wide range of activities. The assessment falls under the summative
assessment category, meaning that it will test the students on the basis of how effectively they
have performed in the tasks based on their yearlong engagement with these skills (Ball, Paris
& Govinda 2014).
One advantage of the assessment activity and the tasks within the activity is that they
rely on the students Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) instead of their
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) (Cummins 2013). BICS and CALP are
standards that help identify if a student is more directed towards regular communicative
language use or standardised academic language use (Cummins 2013). Speaking and
listening being the basic skills, these are eventually beneficial for the student.
One disadvantage of the assessment activity is that not all the activities account for an
equally distributed testing for all the students in the class. Some of these activities will also
be heavily dependent upon the classroom demographic, particularly the size.

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References.
Astin, A.W., 2012. Assessment for excellence: The philosophy and practice of assessment
and evaluation in higher education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Ball, J., Paris, S.G. and Govinda, R., 2014. Literacy and numeracy skills among children in
developing countries. In Learning and education in developing countries: Research and
policy for the post-2015 UN development goals (pp. 26-41). Palgrave Pivot, New York.
Bennett, R.E., 2011. Formative assessment: A critical review. Assessment in Education:
principles, policy & practice, 18(1), pp.5-25.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Hodgen, J., Marshall, B. and Serret, N., 2010. Validity in teachers’
summative assessments. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 17(2),
pp.215-232.
Cummins, J., 2013. BICS and CALP: Empirical support, theoretical status, and policy
implications of a controversial distinction. Framing languages and literacies: Socially
situated views and perspectives, pp.10-23.
DuFour, R. and Marzano, R.J., 2011. Leaders of learning: How district, school, and
classroom leaders improve student achievement. Solution Tree Press.
Gipps, C., 2011. Beyond Testing (Classic Edition): Towards a theory of educational
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measures. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 33(2), pp.14-18.
Grant, L. and Gareis, C., 2015. Teacher-made assessments: How to connect curriculum,
instruction, and student learning. Routledge.
Grugeon, E., Hubbard, L., Smith, C. and Dawes, L., 2014. Teaching speaking and listening
in the primary school. David Fulton Publishers.

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Klenowski, V. and Wyatt-Smith, C., 2013. Assessment for education: Standards, judgement
and moderation. Sage.
Knight, P.T., 2002. Summative assessment in higher education: practices in disarray. Studies
in higher Education, 27(3), pp.275-286.
Lynch, T. and Mendelsohn, D., 2013. Listening. In An introduction to applied linguistics (pp.
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Shanks, B., 2012. Speaking and listening through narrative. In Using Storytelling to Support
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Skolnik, M.L., 2010. Quality assurance in higher education as a political process. Higher
Education Management and Policy, 22(1), pp.1-20.
Tam, M., 2014. Outcomes-based approach to quality assessment and curriculum
improvement in higher education. Quality Assurance in Education.
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