EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND QUALITY ASSURANCE IMPLICATION FOR PRINCIPAL INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLES
PRESENTED BY
FADOKUN JAMES BANJI RESEARCH AND TRAINIG FELLOW NATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATIN AND PLANING P. M. B. 562, ONDO STATE NIGERIA
AT THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT HELD AT NICON HILTON NOGA HOTEL. SEPTEMBER 4 – 9, 2005
Abstract. There have been several efforts by educators on how to make school respond to improvement in the quality of learning and teaching. Efforts to reform and restructure school have focused attention on the role of assessment. After year of increase in the quantity of formalized testing and consequences of poor test scores, many educators have begun to strangle antiure the measures used to monitor student performance and evaluate
programmes. They claim that traditional measures fall to assess significant learning out come and thereby undermines curriculum instruction and policy decisions. The paper stresses the importance of assessment in ensuring academic accountability and therefore focused attention on quality assurance as it relates to educational key to Improved academic standard in the school lies with the teachers ability to provide accountability oriented and quality assessment. This however has implication for the principal role. The consensus in literature is that the principals spend most of their time dealing with managerial issue when the core business of the school is teaching and learning. The paper therefore discusses the paradigm shift in the role of principal from a manager/administrator to instructional leader and its impact on quality educational assessment.
Introduction One of the most important issues that face education in Nigerian schools today is the restoration of as sound culture of learning and teaching. The central role that a principle plays in all the programmes of a school, and the impact that he has on the development of a tone and ethos that are conducive to teaching and learning, are crucial to the process of building a sound culture of learning and teaching in a school. There has been a lot of concerns on how to make school respond to improvement in the quality of learning and teaching, similar stakeholders have been concerned about the maintenance of standard in school as the standard is falling. This therefore calls for reform on school effectiveness and improvement as well as the professionalism in the education sector. The issues of quality education, accountability and performance based assessment are vital to the improvement of education in Nigeria. Policy makers and other important stakeholders should fashion out strategies for improvement to forestall my “break out” in the education system.
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Definitions of concepts: Assessment Assessment is a powerful element to assure academic accountability. According to Dietel et al (1991) assessment is “any method used to better understand the current knowledge that a student possesses” This implies that assessment can be as simple as a teacher‟s subjective judgment based on a single observation of student performance or as complex as a five hour standard fest. The idea of current knowledge implies that what a student knows is always changing and that we can make judgments about student achievement through comparisons over a period of time. Assess may affect decision about graces, advancement placement, instructional needs, and curriculum.
1.2.
Quality and Quality Assurance The concept of quality in education is not easy to define. It believe that quality is characterized by three interrelated and interdependent strands; (i) efficiency in the meeting of its goals; (ii) relevance to human and environmental conditions and needs;
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(iii) “ Something more” that is the exploration of new ideas, the pursuit of excellence and encouragement of creativity. Quality assurance on the other hand is defined as a programmed, an institution or a whole education system. In such case, quality assurance is all those attitudes, objects, actions and procedures that through their existence and use, and together with quality control activities, ensure that appropriate academic standard are being maintained and enhanced in and by each programme. 1.3. Instructional Leadership Instructional leadership can be defined as “ Those actions that a principle takes” relegates to others to promote growth in student learning. In practice, this means that the principal encourages educational achievement by making instructional quality the top priority of the school and bring that vision into realization (Flath,1989). DUfour, (2002) also defined an instruction leader as “ Someone who provides the best instructional practices for their students. [An Instructional Leader is] someone who is engaged in the curriculum, who knows the curriculum, who knows instructional strategies and moves beyond very much engaged in the academic life of the school. The role of principal as instructional leader involves setting clear goals, allocating resources to instruction, managing the curriculum, monitoring lesson plans, and evaluating teachers. In short, instructional leadership is those actions that a principal takes or delegates to other, to promote student learning (Flath, 1989).
1.4.
Assessment in Education Recent decades have witnessed significant development in the field of educational assessment. New approaches to the assessment of student achievement have been complemented by the increasing prominence as a policy issue. In particular, there has been a growth of interest in modes of assessment that promotes as well as measure, standards and quality. These have profound implications for individual learners, institutions and the educational system itself. The National Policy on Education (1998) for instance dearly stipulates that education assessment and evaluation will be liberalized by basing them in whole or in part on continuous assessment of the progress of the individual.
1.5.
Purposes of Assessment Assessment provides vital information on student learning needs for public accountability; internal programmatic decision making (Stiggin, 2001 cited in Erinosho, 2004) Stiggins further identified quality assessment as those that Arise from, and accurately reflect, clear and appropriate achievement expectations for students. Are specifically designed to serve particular purpose, both users and uses.
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Rely on assessment methods, both exercises and scoring procedures, that accurately reflect the intended target Provide a representative sample of student performance that is sufficient in its scope to permit confident conclusions about achievement. Are designed, developed and used in such a manner as to eliminate sources of bias or distortion that interfere with the accuracy of the information they provide. The reasons why we assess very considerably across many group of people within the educational community are: Who Need To Assess Policy Makers Purpose of Assessment Policy makers use assessment to: Set standards Focus on goals Monitor the quality of education Reward is action various practices Formulate policies Direct resources including personnel and money Determine effects of tests Monitor programme effectiveness planners use assessment to: Identify program strengths and weaknesses Designate program priorities Assess alternatives Plan and improve programs Make grouping decisions use
Administrators and School
Teachers and Administrators use assessment to:
Perform individual diagnosis and prescription Monitor student progress Carry our curriculum evaluation and refinement Provide mastery/ promotion/ grading and other feedback Motivate students Determine grades. Parents and Student use Guage student progress assessment to: Assess student strengths and weakness Determine school accountability Make informed educational and career decisions Source Dietel etal (1991). 1.6 Characteristic of Good Assessment
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Good assessment information provides accurate estimates of student performance and enables teachers or other decision makers to make appropriate decisions. The concept of test validity captures these essential characteristics and the extent that an assessment actually measures what it is intended to measure, and permits appropriate generalizations about students‟ skills and abilities. Measurement experts agree that test validity is tied to the purpose for which an assessment is used. Thus a test might be valid for one purpose but inappropriate for other purposes. Fro example, our mathematics test might be appropriate for assessing students‟ mastery of addition and subtraction facts but inappropriate for identifying students who are gifted in mathematics. Evidence of validity needs to be gathered for each purpose an assessment is used. A second important characteristics of good assessment information is it consistency or reliability. Will the assessment result for this person or class be similar if they are gathered at some other time or under different circumstances or if they are score by different raters? In the context of performance based and open-ended assessment, interrater reliability also is essential. It requires that independent rater give the same score to a given student responses. Other characteristics of good assessment for classroom purpose are as follows: The content of the tests (the knowledge and skills assess should match the teacher‟s educational objectives and instructional emphasis. The test items should represent the full range of knowledge and skills that are the primary target of instruction. The assessment should be free of extraneous factor, which unnecessarily confuse or inadvertently are student responses.
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Effective learning Methods of assessment are determined by our beliefs about learning. According to earlier theories of learning, complex higher- order skills had to be acquired bit by bit by breaking learning down into a series of prerequisite skill, a building-block –of – knowledge approach. It was assumed incorrectly that after basic skills had been learned by rote, they could be assembled into complex understandings and insight. However evidence from a cognitive psychology indicates that all learning requires the teacher, think and actively construct evolving mental models. From today‟s cognitive perspective, meaningful learning is reflective, constructive, and self regulated. (Kulieke etal (1990). Students are seen not as mere recorders of factual information but as creators of other own unique knowledge structure. To know something is not just to receive information but also to have interpreted it and related it to other knowledge one already has. In addition, we now recognize the importance of knowing not just how to perform, but also when to perform and how to adapt that performance to new situations.
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Current evidence about the nature of learning make it apparent that instruction which strongly emphasizes structured drill and practice on discrete, factual knowledge does student a major disservice. Learning isolated facts and skills is more difficult without meaningful ways to organize the information and make it easy to remember. Also, applying those skills later to solve real word problem becomes a separate and more difficult task. Because some students have had such trouble mastering decontextualized “basic”, they are rarely given the opportunity to use and develop higher- order thinking skills. Recent studies of the integration of learning and motivation also have highlighted the importance of affective and meta-cognitive skills in learning. For example recent research suggests that poor thinker and problem solvers differs from good ones not so much in the particular skills they possess as in the failure to used them in certain task. Acquisition of knowledge skills is not sufficient to make one into a competent thinker or problem solver. People also need to acquire the disposition to use the skills and strategies, and well as the knowledge of when and how to apply them! These are appropriate targets of assessment.
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Paradigm shift in Assessment Assessment of student achievement is changing largely because today‟s student faces a world that will demand new knowledge and abilities. In the global economy of the 21st century, students will need to understand the basic, but also to think critically, to analyze and to make inferences. Helping students develop these skills will require changes in assessment at the school and classroom as well as approaches to large-scale high stakes assessment. Assessment is changing for many reasons: changes in the skills and knowledge needed for success in ones understanding of how student learn and in the relationship between assessment and instruction are changing our learning goals for students and schools. In response to these changes content, Nigerian Educational Research and Development council, (NERDC), are developing standards, the knowledge, skill and behaviours needed for students to achieve at high levels at the national level. In this atmosphere of reform, student assessment is the center place of many educational improvements efforts. Policy makers and school need to do things differently. Assessment reform is viewed as a means of setting more appropriate target for students, focusing staff development efforts on teachers, encouraging curriculum reform, and improving instruction and instructional materials (Darling – Hammond & Wise, 1985). Many educators and policymakers believe that what get assess is what get taught and that the format of assessment influences the format of instruction. Contrary to our understanding of how student learn, many assessment-particularly traditional multiplechoice and true-false assessment-test facts and skills in isolation, seldom requiring students to apply what they know and can do in real-life situations. Standardized tests do not match the emerging content standards, and over reliance on this type of assessment often leads to instruction that stresses basic knowledge and skills. Rather than
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encouraging changes in instruction toward the engaged learning that will prepare students for the list century, these tests encourage instruction of less important skills and passive learning. Although basic skill may be important goals of education, they are often overemphasized in an effort to raise standardized test scores. Basic skills and minimum competencies become the over arching goals of schools and teachers as accountability and minimum competency examinations concentrate on these areas. However, educators and parents are beginning to recognize that minimums and basic are no longer sufficient and are calling for a closer match between the skills students learn school. Schools are now expected to help students develop skills and competencies in real-life, “authentic” situations and schools are expected to graduate student who can demonstrate these utilities-often by their performance on alternative assessments refer than standardized tests. Since the influence of testing on curriculum and instruction is now widely acknowledgement educators, policy makers and others are turning to alternative assessments methods as a tool for educational reform. The movement away from traditional multiple-choice tests to alternative assessment – variously called authentic assessment or performance assessment has included a wide verify of strategies such as open-ended questions exhibits, demonstration, hands on execution of experiences, Computer simulation, writing in many disciplines and portfolios of student work over time. These terms and assessment strategies have led the quest for more meaningful assessment which better capture the significant out comes we want student to achieve and better match the kinds of tasks which they will need to accomplish in order to assure their future success.
Trend stemming from the Behavioural to cognitive shift Emphasis of assessment View of learner Scope of assessment Beliefs about knowing Behavoural views Passive responding to Cognitive views Active constructing Knowledge environment Discrete, isolated Integrated and cross skills disciplinary Accumulation of Application and use of and isolated Skilled facts and skills knowledge Delivering maximally Attention to meta cognition And assessment affective Materials motivation, self determination Paper-pencil objective Authentic assessment on multiple-choice, contextualised problems that are short answer relevant and meaningful, emphasize higher-level
Emphasis on instruction
Characteristics of Assessment
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thinking, do not have single correct answer, have public standards known in advance and, are not speeded Frequency of assessment Single occasion Samples overtime (post folios) which provide basis for assessment by teacher, students, and parents. Assessment of group process skills on collaborative tasks which focus on distribution over averages
Who is assessed
Individual assessment
Use of technology
What is assessed
Machine-score bubble High-tech applications such as administration and scoring sheets computer-adaptive testing, expert systems, and simulated environment. Single attribute Multidimensional assessment that learner recognizes the variety of human abilities and talents. Malleability of student ability, and that IQ is not fixed.
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From Cognitive to multiple Abilities Over the past two decades, Howard gardener a cognitive psychologist from Harvard University has been developing a theory of multiple abilities, talent and skills. Gardner argues that traditional schooling emphasizes only two abilities – verbal –linguist‟s (especially in written form) and logical mathematical. Yet there are many other kinds of knowledge or talent that enrich our lives and help us respond effectively to our environment. The rest the following while, emphasizing that there are other as well. Visual –spatial: capacity to perceive the visual spatial word accurately and to modify or manipulate one‟s initial perceptions. Bodily –kinesthetic: Abilities to control one‟s body movements and to handle objectives skillfully. Musical- rhythmical Abilities to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbrel, and appreciation of the forms of musical expressiveness Interpersonal capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people. Logical – mathematical. The abilities to discern logical or numerical patterns and to handle long chains of reasoning. Verbal – linguistic sensitivity to the sounds, rhythms, and meanings of words, sensitivity to the different functions.
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(Gardener 1989)
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Multidimensional Assessment As different abilities and skills become increasingly valued in schools, new visions of assessment increasingly include assessment of the various activities and skills. Moving to a concept of “multidimensional assessment means that evaluation of students will be based on a broader concept of intelligent, ability, and learning. Not only will logical and verbal abilities continue to be assessed, but assessment also will include visual, auditory, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal abilities. This means assessing student repertoire of learning strategies, skills in communicating with others, and knowledge as it is applied to day-to-day and laterally diverse cones. The new vision of learning and education of students learning reflected in the term multidimensional assessment is broad-based, relevant of real life, process orientated, and based on multiples measures which provide a rich portrayal of student learning. These alternative assessments ask students to perform, create, produce, or do something that requires time to use higher – level, problems – solving skill, the assessment tasks trembled represents meaningful instructional activities; the tasks themselves are also relevant to real life task or represent those that are common to a particular disciplines
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Assessment and Quality Assessment Mechanism The essential key to improved academic standards in schools lives is the teacher‟s ability to provide accountability-oriented assessment which indicates that teacher are require to become high quality assessment – literate persons who are able to tap the true benefit of assessment to maximize students achievement and confidently provide authentic evidence of students achievements profiles for public accountability. (Erinosho, 2004) For quality assurance to be full sentenced in the assessment of learning, the following mechanism have been recommended by Stinging, 2001 and Newman at al (1997). Setting of explicit and measurable standard and goals for student performance Assembling and monitoring progress toward these goals Collecting and using data to identify strengths to be improved upon and weakness to be corrected, and Formulating accountability and norm procedure. The summary is as follows: (a) Setting of measurable standards and goals
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Schools should define vision of standards and goals for student performance, which must be in directions with national and state goals for education. In setting these goals, the principals and other teachers must work as a team to map out plans for implementation of set goals in the classroom. The following steps facilitate the process outline the school‟s mission and expectations review the state or national standard; develop the expected exit outcomes at different points in the programme delineate the bench mark outcomes, i.e. the expected progress from student towards the exit outcomes at different points in the programmes
(b)
Assessment and Monitoring To ensure quality assessment and effective monitoring, school can set up an interdisciplinary committee that will be responsible for planning, developing and implementing the school assessment programme.
(c)
Collecting and Using data Efficient data gathering mechanism is designed to include: setting a baseline performance, using records from public examinations or school record over time; evaluating student achievement at the end of the year, using either schoolbased assessment instrument. Developing evaluative comparisons, either within the school or using external criteria. Disaggregating scores, on gender and other useful variables. Also analyse the scores to reveal students strengths and weakness
(d)
Accountability and Norm Standards Effective accountability requires schools to establish a bench mark for comparison, that is developing the norm standard by comparing and or rank ordering their students achievement with a larger group or norm group that is representative and diverse. This is followed by appropriate reporting internally (within the school) and externally (to parents and wider public) about their students‟ achievement profile. Accurate and useful reporting of assessment results enables teachers, students, parents and the public to understand why various assessment are being applied and how the results will be used as part of the school improvement process. In order to meet this goal, educators involved in reporting assessment results should:
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Determine the specific goals of the reporting activities at the outset of the process Select reporting strategies that are consistent with these goals and that effectively relay the desired information. Communicate student assessment results in a clear and accurate manner to students, parents and the public. Report results at a level of understanding appropriate for the group or individual receiving the report.
Implication for Instructional leadership Role of Principal When the concept of instructional leadership emerged in the 1980s, the rules changed for school administrators. Long judged by their ability to manage school operations with business like efficiency, principals were now charged with a specifically academic mission. Study after study seemed to show that high-achieving schools had principal who boldly led the academic programme, set goals, examined curriculum, evaluated teachers, and assessed results (Du Four, 2002). Inherent in the concept of an instructional leader is the notion that learning should be given top priority while everything else revolves around the enhancement of learning, which undeniably is characteristic of any educational endeavour. Hence to have credibility as an instructional leader, the principal should also be a practicing teacher. For example, in the United Kingdom, most principals spend an average of 20 percent of their time in a week teaching (Weindling, 1990) standards-based accountability challenges traditional assumptions about instructional leadership, instead of encouraging teacher efforts, to produce tangible results on ambitious academic standards. Also, a teaching principal strengthens the belief that “the sole purpose of the school is to serve the educational needs of students” Whitaker (1997) identified four skills essential instructional leadership. First, they need to be a resource provider. It is not enough for principal to know the strengths and weaknesses of their faculty but also recognize that teachers desire to be acknowledged and appreciated for a job well done. Secondly, they need to be an instructional resource. Teacher count on their principal as resources of information on current trends and effective instructional practices. Instructional leaders are tuned-in to issues relating to curriculum, effective pedagogical strategies and assessment. Thirdly, they need to be good communicators. Effective instructional leaders need to communicate essential beliefs regarding learning such as conviction that all children can learn and no child should be left behind. Finally, they need to create a visible presence leading the instructional programme of a school and that means a commitment to living and breathing a vision of success in teaching and learning. This includes focusing on learning objectives, modeling behaviours of learning, and designing programmes and activities on instruction.
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Flat (1989) perceives that “effective principals are expected to be effective instructional leader… the principal must be knowledgeable about curriculum development, teacher and instructional effectiveness, clinical supervision, staff development and teacher evaluation” (p. 209). Fullan (1991) agree with this holistic view of the principal‟s role. However, Fullan expands this holistic definition of leadership and management to be: an active, collaborative form of leadership where the principal works “with teachers to shape the school as a work place in relation to shared goals, teachers‟ collaboration, teachers‟ learning opportunities, teachers‟ certainty, teachers‟ commitment, and students‟ learning” (P. 161). It is interesting to note that the trend is toward insisting that the principal assume the prominent role of an instructional leader. It will be a formidable task convincing principals to relinquish their image as manager-administrator and to take on the role of instructional leader. Generally, principals do not see themselves as instructional leader and many are of the belief that anything that has to do with teaching and learning is best assigned to teachers. In some cases the principals feel inadequate to initiate and develop instructional programmes given the assortment of subject areas taught with each having its own pedagogical uniqueness. However despite these apprehensions, components of the idea that the principal should be an instructional leader is gaining serious attention. If that be the case then the principal needs to have up-to-date knowledge on three areas of education, namely; curriculum, instruction and assessment.
With regard to curriculum, principals need to know about the changing conceptions of curriculum educational philosophies and beliefs, knowledge specials action and fragmentation, curricular sources and conflict, curriculum evaluation and improvement. With regards to instruction, principals need to know how different models of teaching, the theoretical reasons for adopting a particular teaching model. With regards to assessment, principals need to know about the principles of student assessment, assessment procedures with emphasis on alternative assessment methods and assessment that aim to improve rather than prove student learning.
This therefore indicates that the school should be a learning institution. Learning organizations are created and sustained by learning communities. A learning community is comprised of individuals each of whom, in addition to performing his or her duties will formally recognize and value the learning that takes place within and beyond itself.
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In a learning organization opportunities are provided to learn how to learn. This enables staff to assimilate and respond to new areas of knowledge and to develop the skills required to address issues as they emerge. The pursuit of standards and qualitative assessment require that the capacity of teachers be built so that they would be knowledgeable in high quality classroom assessments to aid learning and decision-making.
Conclusion There is ample evidence to suggest that reorienting Nigeria‟s educational policies and practices towards the improvement of student learning outcomes, would overtime, significantly improve the quality of education Nigerian students and graduates. Such a reorientation would necessarily be an on-going process; overtime it would likely constitute a quantum shift in our approach to education. Assessment is changing for many reasons: changes in the skills and knowledge needed for success, in our understanding of how students learn, and in the relationship between assessment and instructions are changing our learning goals for students and schools. Consequently we must change our assessment strategies to tie assessment design and content to the new outcomes and purposes for assessment. This challenge requires that principals should play key role as instructional leaders and that they should ensure set target for student, focus on staff development efforts for teachers, improve instruction and instructional materials.
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