Dear Sylvia and other moderators:

It seems to me that we have  a lot of ideas and concepts in common  but I want to formulate this time a very concise answer to your question:What is the real purpose of testing,evaluation and assessment?.I believe that all these procedures/processes are for the purpose of learning,and for continued learning.Maybe some of you have seen the last winner academy awards film Slumdog millionaire.Well,there ,the starring actor is participating in the famous contest who wants to be a Millionaire?He had to answer many questions and  he receives for each question an incredible amount of money.I'm not going to tell you the whole story or the end of the film, it's better, you go to the cinema,but this film makes me think about the ways people are learning or have learned something and the way they show they are acquiring or have acquired some knowledge.The main character didn't attend regularly to school but he could know all the answers because each of them were linked to an important meaningful past event(in many cases traumatic experiences) .He couldn't forget the answers,and here emerges the question that is related to our topic:Testing procedures and evaluation sometimes  didn't  have good results because we haven't  taken into account first of all the way in which our students are learning.After that we can decide how our students  can get a possible achievement.

Have a nice weekend!

Marcela-V

Hello Dear Moderators:

You have made very good points.Let me say  that  according to  learner- centered language approaches, students should have the ability to observe,analyze and make judgements about their own work or about their performance on the basis  of criteria.They  should be active participants in the  assessment process because it produces higher motivation and less frustration.It is used as part of their formative process and develop metacognitive skills for the purpose of their  effective learning.Through daily observation  inside the classroom there are a lot of students that assess or evaluate themselves,they can do it under a good learning environment ,within a well organized class,but it  this depends on the mature and observation, judgements abilities of them,too.(Have in mind a teeenager class).Self evaluation enhances the student language learning.

Thinking of Testing I believe that Olwyn Alexander is probably right  because we have to consider the learners' objectivity and capacity to view their achievements, and the results of the selftesting should be interpreted with caution,especially related to placement or certification.

 Are you agreed with me ?Waiting for your answers

Marcela-V

Hi all!

I was wandering about in the Learner Autonomy Area when I realised that one aspect I hadn't considered yet here was something related to a student's extrinsic motivation. The purpose of Testing, Evaluation and Assessment, for some students, might simply be the possibility to get a job or a better job, a certificate,...).

I'll copy and paste my ideas from there:

I strongly believe intrinsic motivation is the strongest of the two
(extrinsic/intrinsic). This kind of motivation becomes a part of you in
a way, and it makes you learn for the pleasure of learning. If a
student is intrinsically motivated, his possibilities of succeeding in
what he's doing will definitely increase.

As to extrinsic motivation, what I read made me think of a quote by E.M.Forster:

"As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain
jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take this
examination system seriously; if another ladder to employment was
contrieved, much so called education would disappear, and no one would
be a penny the stupider"

Would there be a decrease in motivation if students didn't have to
learn in order to get something concrete (certificate, job, money....)?
What do you think? 

Hi everybody!

You have raised a very important question Silvia. I'd like to share my point of view with you and with the other colleagues.

As everybody knows, there has been too much talk about lifelong learning of late. For this reason, I have chosen this quote which is different from Forster's. " Life-long learning means life-long earning" (Ján Figel, 2005)

I believe that instilling a thirst for learning and knowledge in children since the early years of schooling (by the parents and the teachers) can reinforce the student's intrinsic motivation as they would be equipped with an immune system that would protect them from demotivation. According to researchers in the field, intrinsically motivated leaners learn more than extrinsically motivated ones. This does in no way mean that we, as teachers/educators, should let the extrinsically motivated student down! The challenge for us is to nurture the idea "education for education's sake first" in our students.

 Cheerio;)

Tarik Boussetta- Global Issues Forum moderator

Dear Tarik,

welcome to our forum! 

Hi all!

I agree with you Tarik when you talk about the "immune system" students who get involved in the process of learning since their childhood develop.

This is a benefit for mental agility...the more you use your brain the better you will use it. We should make our students think. This is something that has to be pursued at any age and level.

I also agree with you when you say that we cannot let extrinsically motivated students down.

As to this part of students, do you think their motivation would decrease or even disappear, if they didn't have to learn in order to achieve a target (eg. a certificate, a job....)?

Silvia

Hi dear Silvia/all!

I cannot imagine that nowadays, learning for the sake of learning would be realistic especially vis-à-vis of the requirements of the global job market. In fact, we should not fall in the dialectical pit of otiose presuppositions. I firmly believe that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are fatally inseparable;)

Learning will continue...

Cheerio;)

Tarik BOUSSETTA- Global Issues Forum moderator

Thx for your hospitality Silvia;)

Hello everyone!

Kevin,I agree with your last thought but you used the expression  fair assessment.Can you explain a little more this concept?

I believe that thinking is very important and there is a link between language and thinking,too.There is a famous quote known as: "I think,therefore I am". But I want to  add that there are many learners who are learning something at any moment   without knowing that they are learning ,being aware of this process.i.e.people who are learning a second language while they are listening to music on the radio,they are learning not only the lyrics,they are learning how to pronounce the words,lexical expressions,musical patterns,etc.Another example is,while they are watching a sign without saying a word,they are learning spontaneously without  much thinking .Maybe it is the task of the teacher to optimize the use of it ,to take this opportunity and  lead them to best achievements.Is  motivation in this case playing a role ,too ?

Do you have a different opinion on this subject?

Marcela-V

Dear Kevin,

welcome to the forum!

Hi all!

I agree that one of the main goals of testing is providing a reliable metre of can dos to both potential employers and to the students theselves.

I would like to share with you my experience, because I had a somewhat different perception of the balance between intrinsic/extrinsic motivation in my students. 

I have to say that more than a half of the teenage students I met in schools were more extrinsically motivated.

But I've been working with young adults as well (lifelong learning) and they were deeply involved in the subject...I don't want to sound too optimistic but I had the impression that the majority of them really enjoyed learning English...I'll quote Tarik here, when he talks about "learning for learning's sake".I had the feeling that they were intrinsically motivated.

I had the same impression when teaching children. Probably because they were in a "privileged" age, most of them could really feel the language and get completely hooked on it!  

Marcela - I think you're absolutely right when you say that the process of learning can be unconscious too!

Talk to you soon!

Hello Dear Moderators!

Hello Dear Silvia!

Thank you  for sharing with us your wonderful experience.I firmly believe we need your optimism and successful experiences.Well motivated students motivate teachers,too.We  should demonstrate that learning is fun.Little children can do extraordinary things when they enjoy learning.

Are we agreed?

Marcela-V

Hello Everyone!

Hi Kevin!

Our discussion has become very interesting and I think your arguments are in favour of testing procedures and evaluative instruments which can give the students an objective overview of their performance and language levels.They should be well balanced and this is not an easy task but there has been some assessment that relies on observations that are recorded using rubrics.They provide a measure of the quality of performance on the basis of established criteria. I think this is a good attempt to find solutions for this topic.

Do you have other suggestions for planning assessment and  testing ?

Marcela-V

Hi

I think this sort of fits in with this topic, but apologise in advance if it is off at a tangent...

My students are reluctant writers, reluctant readers - and reluctant learners. It's all rather carrot and stick, but when it comes to extra practice in reading/writing the only stick I can wave is potential exam success by making an extra effort. 

However, I've been encouraging my students to write more, do extra tasks, write longer pieces, blog and to do more opinion-based paragraphs - now, I'm looking at the exam they are going to take 8 weeks into the course and it's something they could have got a reasonable mark on at the beginning of the course. When I queried this the response was that they'd get a good mark and be happy... 

My question is - should exams be written to ensure/anticipate student success or to challenge students? 

Thanks,

Heather

Dear Moderators:

Hi Heather,Hi Kevin!

I think we get some fresh air during  this forum and in my opinion exams should be written to ensure student success but I believe that a good mark is not only a mark,it's a measure of something,based on content or based on performance.To assure student success it's required a lot of practice and practice.Without it you can only anticipate his failure. 

I'm looking forward to the conference!

 Marcela-V

Hi everyone,

Matters a little the difference between testing,assessing and evaluatiing.True enough they occur at various phases within the teachinlearning process.To my mind,what matters first and foremost is that all of them converge upon the same target,theyhelp both teachers and learners to draw the appropriate conclusions with a view to gleaning a number of benefits,say,remedying the lacunae,consolidating the stengths and finally hone the whole process.It's sometimes too risky to stick to a certain and gloomy terminology (assessment vs evalution);when falling in the meadrings of the said terminology,it will be very hard to get out.

Thanks to all of you.You are doing a good job.

I'm sure that there are as many possible differences between testing, evaluation and assessment as there are writers to discuss them. While I'm all for the learner-centred tone of this discussion so far, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, for most big organisations, the function of testing is precisely to get rid of unmanageable grey areas we Autonomous-Learner-Loving people want, and instead lump people together into large groups to make them easier to deal with.

The State needs standardisation so it can compare and rate individuals who are entering the larger society. Examinations serve specifically to allow the State to cluster people into thereby more predictable channelled demographics and put names into groups. And the education sector will largely be required to do the State's bidding if it wants funds.

Winter, writing about the then DES (Department of Education and Science), pointed out in a report (in 1988, but I've lost the title) that "the DES is part of a bureaucracy. The ancient function of a bureaucracy is to render effective over a wide territory the demands of a central political power. Its effective structure is hierarchical, and its fundamental instrument is information travelling 'up' the system so that 'informed' decisions can then travel 'down'. . . . [Its] overriding effort must be to convert the activities over which it has jurisdiction into information which can be filed and thus used (later, and by any official) to justify administrative decisions . . . because [bureaucracies] spend public money for which they are accountable."

A crass example is that people say too many people are getting "A" grades in UK exams. Universities now say they "can't distinguish" between candidates because they've all got high grades. In other words, we/they still need to 'ration the carrots' to keep the system working.

Hi Andyb, Grade Inflation has its own thread on this forum, have you anything to add to it?

Diana

http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/forum/grade-inflation-problem