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TEACH WHAT WE MEASURE
N. N. Naydyonova
Introduction. When new standards are introduced into educational practice without a thoroughly developed toolkit of measurement of the educational quotient of particular items of the curriculum, a teacher faces a variety of problems: (a) How can a learner be assessed in terms of the new items of the standard if there is no toolkit?(b) How can a generally-oriented curriculum be replaced with one to be measured by the standards?(c) Should the curriculum be left as it is, but lose its measurability? (d) Should the syllabus be adjusted for subjects which can be measured in defiance of the curriculum? (e) Should the curriculum and the syllabus be left as they are, or should much more attention be paid to what is measured?, etc.
There are three ways to resolve this problem: (1) if professional competences are not subject to external assessment (as for example, training in mathematics and Russian for the Uniform State Examination), additional hours will be taken from this reserve. In this case, the teacher can record that lessons are not reduced, even though actually they are. That means that records show a standard curriculum, but actually it is reduced. Then the records of the organisation fully comply with requirements of the supervising bodies; but in this case, both professional competences are rated high and the general level in Mathematics and Russian is also high; (2) you can leave everything as it is; however, secondary education organisations are rated by the Uniform State Examination and professional competences have the same rating; so, if readiness for the Uniform State Examination is low, then the organisation’s rating will be low; (3) change everything and co-ordinate it with the supervising organisations, i.e. adjust both the curriculum and the syllabus - but this way is difficult to implement in teaching practice.
A very bright example is a course in mathematics which consists of geometry and algebra. But, if the Uniform State Examination in geometry gives just a few tasks in geometry, while the bulk is in algebra, the teacher of mathematics, having an equal number of hours for algebra and geometry, allocates more time to algebra instead of geometry, despite the record-keeping. Aristotle's words from the title can be modified to meet the subject of this paper as follows: “If you know how to assess, then give marks. If you understand how to assess, teach assessment, not putting marks.”
Connection between curricula and assessment. Strategies and assessment targets should be relevant to the goals and the training process. In particular, this correlation should be demonstrated to learners in full, so that they understand the relevance of such measurements. Relevance is understood here as follows: it is necessary for assessments made during the measurement to be proved by further success of the learners. They can successfully pass the Uniform State Examination and enter any university, and not necessarily in the major they acquired at college. Having good marks in professional competences, they can go to the labour market immediately after graduation from college. Every subject is taught as adjusted for what is measured. The assessment toolkit is based on
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correspondence between the curriculum and the share of tasks in the respective subject. The toolkit is designed to meet the curriculum. If one issue is to be studied for 5 academic hours and another one for 10 hours, then the measurement toolkit should give twice as many tasks in the second issue than in the first. That is why subject planning of the measurement toolkit is of great importance for integrated measurement of education quality.
Assessment plays an important part in training, both summative and formative, final and recommendatory. The curriculum and the syllabus are correlated with the methods of progress assessment and marks adopted in the educational organisation. In addition, the marks measured play an important part in accreditation of an educational institution, as an integrated measurement of education quality enables assessment and, above all, measurement of the educational results of all subjects and objects of the teaching and educational process. Therefore, the world educational community considers the following to matter as far as importance of assessment is concerned [1; 2; 3]: (a) the standards provide assessment criteria and the limits of their application; (b) curricula and syllabi are always developed to include assessment criteria and conditions; (с) key determinants and training strategies are implemented in the measurement toolkit as much as possible, especially if the teacher applies new training forms;
(d) efficient up-to-date teaching aids demand a measurement toolkit to be developed in a way correlating with new educational environments and transparent for different users in the course of training; (e) assessment is closely connected to the training process in theoretical and practical knowledge, with formation of respective competences and based on a constructivist paradigm of education quality measurement; (f) in this paradigm a student is the measurement centre, which enables the student to demonstrate his or her knowledge, abilities and competences within and beyond the curriculum while working with particular real-world problems outside educational situations in the course of training;
(g) development of online examination and assessment will increase students’ opportunities in the market of educational services because the majority of macroeconomic industries form internal competences for their workers and develop an internal curricula etc. of their own.
World practice of education quality development. As a whole, education development in the 21st century, including education quality assessment, can be represented in four paradigms: (1) a humanistic paradigm is, first of all, the refusal of standard curricula. In this case, assessment of results is often done through selfassessment or peer assessment. In any case, this assessment comes with feedback. The teacher is not just a translator of knowledge in the educational process, but an assistant to the student in the course of training. Not only is education quality assessment based on constructivism, but student socialisation is also included into the assessment, which means that there is also social constructivism [4]; (2) behavioural paradigm stipulates standard curricula, as well as objective education quality measurement, including a test performance strategy in case of a long integrated toolkit, use of tests6 and expert assessments in rating. Psychologically, training is mostly aimed at development of associative thinking.
[5]; (3) critistical paradigm of education is based on development of project training, critical analysis and account of social changes in society [6]; (4) while the previous
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three paradigms demonstrate the European way of development of education, the autochthonous paradigm takes place in those educational systems where European approaches mismatch local customs, for example, in Arab countries. This paradigm develops local pedagogics and the local education quality assessment system. The training process is based on previous knowledge and a syllabus individual for each teacher and student. Education takes place not only within the educational institution or a particular group of students of one speciality, but also outside the institutional framework: outside groups, specialities, faculties or even establishments [7].
Education quality depends on numerous factors and is based on different knowledge, abilities and competences. First of all, professional education quality consists of (a) fusion of external and educational knowledge; (b) practical application of competences; (c) development of critical thinking; (d) development of one’s education throughout one’s whole life. In addition, we should remember about the social context of education.
Conclusion. Certainly, the training process is connected with measurement, and teachers oftener train better and more in subjects than can be controlled and measured. As far as the current paradigms of education are concerned, we have come to the following conclusions: (1) formal vocational training is no longer limited to the established frameworks of the educational organisation and goes on in parallel or series at particular workplaces, at home, in communities etc. It can now be given by public, private and corporate organisations; (2) there is essential growth not only of formal education, but also self-education both among adults and youth to meet market expectations; (3) teaching professional competences and general literacy should become more flexible in its accessibility and transparency of education quality assessment; (4) development of curricula should also include development of an assessment toolkit known to the student and the teacher beforehand; (5) globalisation affects the contents of education, the training strategy applied, etc.
References
1. McMahon M & Luca, J 2001, ‘Assessing Students’ Self-Regulatory Skills’, in Meeting at the Crossroads, Proceedings of Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE), 9-12 December, Melbourne.
2. Booth R, Clayton B, House R, and Roy, S 2002, Maximising Confidence in Assessment Decisionmaking: A Resource to Assist Assessors to Maintain the Quality of their Assessment Systems. NCVER, Adelaide.
3. DeVries R. (2002). What does research on constructivist education tell us about effective schooling? Paper submitted to the Iowa Academy of Education.
4. Brockett R. G. (1987). A perspective on humanistic research in adult education. Lifelong Learning Forum, 4 (2), 1,3-4.
5. Huitt W., & Hummel J. (2006). An overview of the behavioral perspective. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University.
6. T.S. Popkewitz & L. Fendler (Eds.) (1999). Critical Theories in Education: Changing terrains of knowledge and politics. London: Routledge.
7. Donovan S., Bransford J. & Pellegrino J. (Eds.) (1999). How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice. Washington DC: National Academy Press.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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