The use of self-assessment to foster students

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The use of self-assessment to foster students
learning in teacher education An experience in
teaching practice Dr. Rebecca
CHEUNGDepartment of Early Childhood
EducationHong Kong Institute of Education
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Presentation Overview

• Background information
• Research purpose and methodology
• Research results and findings
• Ways forward

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Assessment in Education

• Assessment has been recognized to have a major
  impact on teaching and learning (National
  Curriculum Task Group on Assessment and Testing,
  1988).
• Assessment is the single most powerful influence
  on learning in formal courses (Boud et al.,
  1999, p.413).

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Assessment in Hong Kong

• Assessment in Hong Kong usually focuses on
  measuring student learning.
• There has been a predominant emphasis on
  summative assessment in primary, secondary and
  higher education.
• Teachers have always played a dominated role in
  student assessment.

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Assessment in Hong Kong Higher Education

• There has been a shift in the way of student
  assessment in higher education assessment
  practices away from supervisors assessment of
  students to methods that help students evaluate
  their own performance and take steps to improve
  it (Carless et al., 2006).

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The Learning-Oriented Assessment Project

• The learning-oriented assessment project was a
  3-year project in HKIEd focused on increasing
  awareness and supporting the improvement of
  assessment practices in higher education
• It highlighted the role of assessment as a source
  of student learning to stimulate a reflective
  discourse about assessment issues and to
  develop, promote and disseminate good practices
  in learning-oriented assessment.

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Framework of Learning-Oriented Assessment
Students involvement in assessment processes
Assessment tasks as learning tasks
Forward looking feedback
(Carless et al. 2006)
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Key Element in Learning-Oriented Assessment

• Feedback
• Feedback is formative and it leads to actions
  which improve learning (Black, 1993).
• where students are now
• where they are trying to go
• how they can get there

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HKIEd Students Views on Feedback

• Feedback should be
• timed to suit the students
• be specific to student needs and difficulties
• be prompt, supportive and oral
• involve a dialogue which includes helping the
  lecturer to understand the students thought
  processes
• (Carless, 2002, 2003)

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Research projects of LOAP

• Self-assessment through K-W-L (Know, want, learn)
• Technology-enhanced assessment
• Field experience assessment
• Performance assessment
• Feedback
• Portfolio assessment

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Background of the Study

• Teaching practice is a core activity in Hong Kong
  Institute of Education with the purpose of
  translating theory into practice.
• Assessment in teaching practice
• Criteria used. The criteria give to students
  without discussion
• Student is judged on their performance by the
  institute supervisor with a grade and a short
  series of comments
• Assessment and feedback are still largely
  controlled by and seen as the responsibility of
  teachers Teachers transmit feedback messages
  to students about what is right and wrong in
  their teaching, about its strengths and
  weaknesses, and students use this information to
  make subsequent improvements.

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HKIEd Students Views on TP

• Students view teaching practice more an
  assessment than a learning experience
• Attention only on the result
• Receive external feedback from their tutor
  passively

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Teachers Views on TP

• How much students really understand the criteria
  or standard with which they are judged ?
• How can students be better equipped to reflect
  deeply and critically?

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Integrating self-assessment in TP

• According to Hopkins (1995), if teaching practice
  is regarded as an assessment in which students
  only receive external feedback, this assessment
  does little to promote students learning.
• Using self-assessment as a tool for learning to
  learn and encouraging independent learning has
  been well documented (e.g. Boud, 1995 Reynolds
  Trehan, 2000 Ross Bruce, 2007).
• The idea of engaging students in a
  self-assessment process in teaching practice aims
  to explore forms of assessment that would
  encourage students to take more responsibility
  for their learning.

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Purpose of the study

• This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of
  self-assessment during teaching practice and to
  determine whether the students, after engaging in
  the self-assessment process, exhibited changes in
  their learning and teaching.

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Research Questions

• Two research questions guided the study
• How does self-assessment aid in teaching
  practice?
• How does the self-assessment process bring about
  changes in students teaching and learning
  practices?

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Theoretical Framework of the Study
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What is self- assessment ?

• Bouds definition (1995, p.12)
• Two characteristics were identified
• the involvement of students in identifying
  standards and/or criteria to apply to their work
• making judgments about the extent to which they
  have met these criteria and standards

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What is self- assessment ?

• Baileys (1981) claimed self-assessment was an
  essential component for the professional
  preparation of teachers and suggested that
  self-assessment was a process of self-examination
  in which a series of sequential feedback
  strategies could be used for the purpose of
  self-improvement.
• Black and William (1998) saw self-assessment as
  essential to learning and claimed that teachers
  could assess themselves when they had a clear
  picture of their objectives. They said that if
  teachers engaged in the process of gathering and
  interpreting evidence of their childrens
  learning, they would become more committed and
  effective as learners.

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Conceptual model of the study
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A journey into self-assessment
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Assessment task

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Self-assessment and peer assessment are based on
public criteria (Goal setting)

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• What I want to achieve?

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Evidence Recording

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• What counts as good?

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Self-Evaluation

• Judging -What level have I achieved?
• What do well?
• What does not do well?
• Reflecting - What are my strengths and weaknesses?

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Further Action for Improvement

• If I want to improve, what action will I take?

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Feedback from peer and instructor

• Feedback by instructor and peers enhances self
  assessment for students.
• Considering others perception can point out
  areas missed or lack of understanding by the
  student.

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Method
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Participants

• 47 female in-service student teachers enrolled in
  the Two-Year Certificate of Education (ECE)
  program at the HKIEd.
• Participants were drawn from two groups within
  the program on voluntary basis. The first group
  comprised 27 final year students who had
  completed the 1st year teaching practice. The
  second group had 20 first-year students who had
  no prior experiences of teaching practice.

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Procedures

• A self-assessment record sheet was formulated and
  students were engaged in a self-assessment
  process by four steps
• Goal setting
• Evidence Recording
• Self-Evaluation
• Further Action for Improvement

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Procedures

• At the beginning of the study, participants were
  informed about the objectives of and procedures
  for self-assessment. A demonstration of goal
  setting and evidence recording based on the
  criteria printed on the handbook was then given
  and the participants practiced goal setting using
  the self-assessment record sheet.
• The self-assessment record sheet was used at
  three stages during the block teaching practice
• to set the teaching goals before a lesson
• to record evidence during the lesson and
• to have students evaluate their own performance
  and identify areas for improvement after the
  lessons

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Data Collection

• Source 1 Questionnaires
• Source 2 - Focus group interview
• Source 3 Self-assessment sheet

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Source 1

• Questionnaire
• The researcher developed a nine-item
  questionnaire with a combination of closed- and
  open-ended questions
• The items dealt with the following
• Students general perception of the
  self-assessment experience (Question 1 How
  useful did you find self-assessment in the block
  teaching practice?)
• The extent to which self-assessment helped
  students to plan, teach, and reflect (Three
  items, such as How did self-assessment help you
  in lesson planning?)
• The impact of using self-assessment during
  teaching practice (Three items, such as To what
  extent has your teaching changed after
  participating in self-assessment?)
• Students feelings about using self-assessment
  during teaching practice (Selection from eight
  adjectives such as meaningful, insightful,
  difficult to understand, not practical, difficult
  to handle) and
• Students suggestions for improvement (one item)

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Source 2

• Two semi-structured focus-group interviews were
  conducted a week after the last day of the block
  teaching practice with 12 teachers.

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Source 3

• The self-assessment sheet were collected at the
  end of teaching practice

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Data Analysis
Three aspects of teaching assessed in teaching
practice were investigated lesson planning,
teaching skills and reflection.

• Questionnaire data were examined at the
  single-item level in relation to the perception
  of the usefulness of self-assessment during
  teaching practice.
• The interviews were audio-recorded and
  transcribed. The transcripts were analyzed using
  the constant-comparison method (Bogdan Biklen,
  1992) in which transcriptions were carefully read
  and coded using the target qualities. Instances
  and excerpts were then grouped and compared to
  reveal changes in students learning and teaching
  practices.
• The self-assessment sheets were used to provide
  supplementary information for the study.

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Results

• The findings have been organized into two
  sections 1. the usefulness of self-assessment
  in teaching practice2. changes in students
  teaching and learning practices.

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The usefulness of self-assessment in teaching
practice
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• Overall students perception of the usefulness of
  self-assessment was positive.
• 79 of the participants perceived self-assessment
  was very useful or useful, and the mean score of
  2.98 on the four-point scale revealed a generally
  favorable response.
• While 100 of the final-year participants
  reported self-assessment very useful or useful,
  only 64.2 of first-year participants responded
  positively.
• An independent-sample t-test was employed to
  determine the difference between the two groups.
  Analysis indicated a statistically significant
  difference (t3.927 plt0.01) between first-year
  students (M2.71, SD0.60) and final-year
  students (M3.37, SD0.50), with the final year
  participants having more favorable responses.

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• In relation to the three qualities identified as
  important in teaching practice, the mean scores
  for all areas are shown to be above 2.5 - a
  positive response towards each of the qualities.
• Reflection received the highest mean followed by
  teaching skills and then lesson planning. The
  final-year participants again consistently rated
  higher than the first-year participants across
  all qualities. Significant differences (plt0.05)
  were revealed between the two groups, with mean
  scores decreasing significantly for first-year
  participants.

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Changes in students teaching and learning
practice
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• Lesson planning
• Participants in both focus groups expressed the
  opinion that the self-assessment process enabled
  them to be more systematic in planning their
  lessons. Goal setting helped them to identify
  specific areas to work on and suggested what they
  might plan for the children. After using
  self-assessment in teaching practice, the
  participants were clearer about underlying
  teaching principles, and understood better the
  childrens needs and interests.

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• It helped me to focus. When I wrote down the
  goal, I dealt with one first if I had found more
  than one problem in the previous lesson plan.
  After Id achieved that, I would set another one.
  (Fung First-year participant)

• Before using self-assessment, I focused on what I
  wanted to teach and I didnt know where the
  childrens interests and needs were in the
  previous lesson. After Id set my goals, I could
  refer to them when I evaluated, I could check if
  I had achieved my goal. If I hadnt, I would
  consider childrens needs and interests and
  revise the plan the next day accordingly. (Chan
  final-year participant)

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• Teaching skill
• Both first and final year participants commented
  that the self-assessment process helped them to
  shift their focus from what the teacher does to
  how the children respond. They pointed out that
  they were often more conscious of their own
  performance in terms of a smooth implementation
  of activities than childrens learning.
  Collecting evidence during the lesson helped them
  to think about the childrens performance and
  identify what counted as evidence in relation to
  the goals.

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• Before using self-assessment, if I saw the
  children following my instruction to do the
  activity, I thought I had achieved the
  objectives. I am now clearer about good teaching.
  By referring to the goals I set, I knew
  specifically which aspect I should scaffold for
  children. (Cheung final-year participant)

• Before using self-assessment, I usually focused
  on my teaching only. After using self-assessment,
  I felt that I had improved in responding to
  children in class. Ive got more ways to talk to
  them. (Lam first-year participant)

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• Reflection
• Students said that they were made to think more
  when they were required to set goals, search for
  evidence and judge their own performance. This
  thinking also enabled them to have a clearer
  understanding of the standards and criteria
  against which their teaching performance was
  judged.
• By engaging in self-assessment, students could
  see the problems in their teaching, and make
  decisions to improve it.
• Some students reported that before adopting self-
  assessment, their day-to-day evaluation was
  mostly description of teaching episodes rather
  than attempts to think critically about them. The
  self-assessment process enabled them to see the
  link between different aspects, and thus develop
  their skills in critical thinking. Participants
  appreciated that self-assessment had motivated
  them to rethink their daily evaluation.

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• Before using self-assessment, I did evaluation
  everyday and just described what children could
  do and couldnt do. After using self-assessment,
  I would think about what I did well or didnt do
  well according to my goals. (Leung final-year
  participant)

Through self-assessment process, I developed my
analytic skills. I felt more confident if I could
gather evidence for my improvement. This means I
can do better and Ive got a clearer idea of what
to do next and how to do it. (Ng first- year
participant)
Before using self-assessment, the daily
evaluation was just a record of what I did that
day. I didnt see the need to follow up. I didnt
change my planning for the next lesson according
to the evaluation. This is what we mean by
feeling very vague about what to plan. The
self-assessment stimulated me to think and
evaluate systematically. Now, I will refer to the
goals and evidence when I reflect. I will think
more when I plan because I need to meet my goals.
I will try my ideas for improvement in next
lesson to see if it really works. (Cheung
final-year participant)
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Example from self-assessment worksheet
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Discussion of results

• The students in this study reported that the
  self-assessment process supported them to learn
  during teaching practice. So, self-assessment is
  not only a method of self-grading but also a
  process of learning (Paris Paris, 2001).
• The self-assessment is perceived as a useful
  reflective tool which has many positive features
  as a tool for learning. It provides a targeted
  and systematic form for students to document
  their teaching. It helps them extract meaning
  from their work and it helps them understand the
  effectiveness of their teaching. Loughran (2002)
  indicated that learning emerges through helping
  students to better understand what they know and
  do, because they develop their knowledge through
  reconsidering what they learn in practice.

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• The final-year students constantly placed a
  higher value on having self-assessment than the
  first-year students. This finding may be related
  to the prior experience and ability of students.
  As the final year students had prior experience
  of teaching practice as well as more academic,
  they might be more competence to self-assessed
  their performance. This suggested that
  self-assessment might be more effective for more
  competent students.
• Students need to develop their skills as they
  progress through their educational program that
  because self assessment does not happen on its
  own, they need systematic practice in it (Boud,
  1991, 1995).
• This suggested self-assessment is developmental.

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• The findings of this study reveal that with the
  aid of self-assessment, students feel more
  motivated to take increased personal
  responsibility for working with criteria,
  identifying good practices and making changes to
  teaching.
• Students appreciated being guided to develop
  reflective skills. Researchers, such as Boud et
  al. (1985) and Reiman (1999), claim that
  reflective skills do not come naturally and often
  need guidance and support.
• Students focus had shifted from a narrow
  concern with grades to a more holistic view
  involving how to plan, teach and evaluate. Their
  confidence had been built up as they gained
  control of their own learning.

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Ways forward
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Follow up research

• The follow up study aims to analyse the quality
  of reflection of student teachers and the
  developmental process of their reflective
  thinking as they go through the self-assessment
  process.
• Based on Hatton and Smiths (1995) criteria, the
  study adapted a framework for four types of
  reflection
• Descriptive writing (not reflective) reports
  events. Its main purpose is to provide a support
  or a starting point for the framework.
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• Descriptive reflection attempts to provide
  reasons based upon personal judgment, e.g., "I
  choose this problem solving activity because I
  believe the learners should be active rather than
  passive." ??2?????????????????,?????????????????
  ????????,????????????????????????
• Dialogic reflection forms a discourse with one's
  self through the exploration of possible reasons.
  e.g., "I became aware that a number of students
  did not respond to written text materials.
  Thinking about this, there may have been several
  reasons. A number of students may still have
  lacked some confidence in handling the level of
  language in the text. "??3??????????,???????????
  ????????
• Critical reflection involves giving reasons for
  decisions or events, which takes into account the
  broader historical, social and/or political
  contexts. ??4??????????????,????????????????????
  ???

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Challenges for self-assessment

• Tensions between formative and summative
  functions of assessment - very few teachers can
  operate parallel systems of formative and
  summative functions of assessment (William, 2000)
• Time-consuming task
• The accuracy in noting the evidence .

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Thank You