Alternative Assessment In Tertiary Level

Wan Fakhrurrazi Wan Omar

Master Level. Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia

Abstract

Assessment as integral part of the teaching and learning process, determines whether the goals
of education are being met or not. The present article provides an introduction to the ‘movement
of alternative assessment’ (Alderson & Banerjee, 2001) as nowadays kinds of assessments. The
objective of assessment is to assess students’ knowledge and wisdom. Through alternative
assessment like using web 2.0 will ensure our students are more integrated towards the
knowledge and wisdom. If these assessments are constantly being integrated to the knowledge
and wisdom, authentic assessments could be able to increase the students’ achievements.

Keywords: assessment, alternative assessment, knowledge, wisdom

INTRODUCTION

Students need to know in details of what they are supposed to learn and what they have
learned in the classroom settings. As we go through the class lectures, we may find
ourselves mastered the lectures or sometimes do not really understand of what we have
been through in the classes. We can catch of what lecturers have lectured in the classes,
sometimes we do not understand of what lecturers want us to do. It may because of the
materials inside the lectures or we have the listening problems or we may have the lacks
of communication skills. In order to master our communication skills in the class, we
need to talk to our friend and also lecturers. In nowadays universities, many students
are lacking of the communication skill. For instance, students are lacking the speaking
skill. This lack maybe because of less vocabularies, less self-confidence to speak up with
peers and lack of exposes to outside classroom settings. Students may think there is no
importance to speak up in English outside the classroom settings. Therefore, for
students, the writer thinks that there are the importance of assessments in students
daily life. The purpose of assignment is to assess the knowledge of students so the
lecturers may know or estimate the knowledge of students have got through their
lectures and classes. To assess the capabilities of students’ speaking skills, we need the
speaking assessments such as public speaking, pidatos, choral speaking and etc. The
forms of assessments in our days need to be parallel with the 21st century, therefore, we
are not left behind. Assessment also could be defined as collecting or gathering the
information of students’ state of art knowledge through various contexts or different
settings. In public speaking, generally we assess the students’ capabilities of speaking,
their strong points and their well-mannered of the speech. While in pidatos, the students
are assessed according to their strong points to defeat the opponents, their fluency of
the speech and others. As the writer has discussed above, thefore, it seems to be
important to our nowadays learnings to have the assessments so that we may know the
levels of our students’ achievements and their values.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Assessment

Assessment and testing should be set apart. Assessment is an informal gathering of

information about the students’ state-of-the-art knowledge through various ways of
collecting information at various times and in different contexts. Testing, however, is
formal and standardized and offers students scoring on the tasks they have performed.
Testing is a single occasion and timed exercise which is considered as the sole criterion
through which student learning can be measured. Many scholars nowadays abstain from
accepting that there is a single method of gathering data concerning student learning.
Testing therefore is seen as just one of the component of the broader concept of
assessment (Kulieke et al., 1990).

Assessment is differ from testing according to desription above. However, assessment

can be authentic as testing if the assessment follows the systematic judgment of
assessment.

According to Huba and Freed (2000), this includes learning centered assessment as
suggested by Boud and Falchikov (1989) who define self-assessment as the involvement
of learners in making judgments about their own learning particularly about their
achievements and the outcomes of learning. Self-assessment or sometimes labeled as
self-evaluation involves learners discovering what they know and what they feel in
terms of what they are able to do (Boud, 1995). Self assessment is currently considered
as part of the learning process.

Assessment for learning regards learners as unique individuals who learn in

idiosyncratic ways. This assessment provides feedback to students and offers a helping
hand to teachers to benefit from the information available to streamline instruction.
Assessment for learning offers a number of opportunities for students to develop their
own skills by making evaluations about their own performances (Race et al, 2005).

By having this kind of assessment, students may evaluate their performances all by
themselves. Through this assessment also, the teachers can help the students and can
take advantage from the information available as it supposed to come out in the
streamline.

Despite the advantages as well as the variety of ways in which self-assessment could be
applied, self-assessment received less attention by educators and it is also the least
preferred type of learning-centered assessment. Self-assessment is also not widely used
because of several reasons namely due to issues such as impartiality, validity and
reliability (Froyd & Simpson, 2010).

Meanwhile, assessment as learning is a way of intensifying students’ metacognition. It

has an eye on the role of each student as an active connector between assessment and
learning. The students are critical assessors as they make sense of information provided
and consume it for learning new concepts. It is not possible unless the students make
adjustments from what they have just monitored. This processed is accompanied by a
critical and reflective analysis of their own learning (Fatemeh, n.d).

Eventhough each student is regarded as an active connector between assessment and

learning, there are still the roles of lecturers and educators to put value on the
assessments involved. The students are as critical assessors towards self –assessments
but the lecturers and educators do their parts.

It is true as there were four phases involved in the assessment procedure. Throughout
the process, the lecturers served more as a facilitator in guiding and assisting the
students. The students were methodically monitored by the lecturers even though they
were given ‘carte blanche’ to assess their own speaking. Nevertheless, the lecturers still
assessed and graded the spoken assignments as the second assessor. The researchers
then compared both scores of the first and second assessor for all the three spoken
assignments. Next is to group the spoken assignments into three categories, namely:
overrated, accurately rated and underrated. These terms were used extensively across
various studies on self-assessment (Boud & Falchiko 1989; Gentle 1994; Suzuki 2009;
Nakai & Usui 2012; Hoskins et al. 2012).

Although assessment can be divided into four types of skills, therefore the reciprocal
between teaching and learning in forming the assessment is highly recommended in
producing the better skills for four types of skills.

A reciprocal process, teaching and learning are affected by one another. Therefore,
assessment is to deal with what is taught as well as what is learned (Kellough &
Kellough, 1999). Assessment is an indispensible part of instruction. People concerned
with the educational community ranging from policy makers and administrators to
students and their parents hold different viewpoints in relation to the implementation of
assessments strategies (Dietel et al, 1991). No agreement has yet been reached for the
superiority or the effectiveness of one type of assessment over another (Simonson et al,
2000).

The effect of teaching and learning has to come to an end to an assessment. The
intention of an assessment is to produce or to evaluate the lessons and knowledge that
the students have got during class interval. The more knowledgeable students are in
need to being assessed of their levels of wisdom and adaptation to the knowledge.
Therefore, it comes to the importance of the assessment itself.
Importance of Assessment

One of the most important task facing by teachers is assessment. Students’ notions about
what is worth learning is reflected from teachers’ purpose of assessment and how it
should be delivered. From one view, a good quality and up-to-standard assessment is
one that teaches to the test. Simply speaking, it is concerned with what matters most. If
teaching to the goal is the aim, then tests measuring information other than what
teachers value would be considered useless (Angelo, 1999).

It is important to state here that the assessment being valued is of resulting of the
teachers’ lectures. If students have been assessed for what they do not learn in the class,
it should not be the test or assessment. The objective of particular assessment being
done is to measure of what it is supposed to measure. Then, the assessment will resulted
of its validity and accuracy and can be generalized to the other researches. The good
assessment is the test and result that can be demonstrated to the other population as
well.

It is found out that all of them were very familiar with self–assessment as they have read
and learned about either from their colleagues or the training that they have had. They
were also able to define self-assessment as a process whereby an individual assesses his
own work. When asked about their opinion on the value of self-assessment, Lecturer 1
claimed that “self-assessment creates and brings sense of awareness to the students”.
Lecturer 2 said that she believed “by assessing themselves, they can try to improve…”
Lecturer 3 mentioned that “direct involvement in the assessment process and exposure
given on how their work are assessed and rated by others bring good insights” (Farehah &
Sallehhudin, 2017).

From this empirical study conducted by Farehah & Sallehhudin (2017) it is clearly stated
that assessment can be the self evaluation of the self and also can be from other
assessors. If it comes from other people’s evaluation, it can be peers’ assessment or
other type of assessment. The researchers said that when the person has known of the
effect of the test or assessment for the first time, it will be more easier to them to score
for the second time. This includes of the learning effect in which for evaluation and
assessment are the tendencies need to be eliminated. As a result, the importance of the
assessment is to ensure the test will measure what it is supposed to measure need to be
taken care of.

Alternative Assessment

Alternative assessment came into vogue as the effect of testing on curriculum and
instruction was visualized (Dietel et al, 1991). Alternative assessment presents new
ways of motivating and inspiring learners to explore and exploit dimensions of
themselves as well as the world around them. According to learning scientists, while
subject matter content recollection is easy to test, critical thinking and creativity is
difficult to assess. As they claim, long-term retention of knowledge and information and
its transfer is what should be focused on. Alternative assessment offers the teachers a
chance to realize their students’ weaknesses and strengths in variant situations (Law &
Eckes, 1995).

Alternative assessment also encompasses two major techniques labeled as portfolios

and projects. Portfolios involve student work with a display mastery of skill in relation
to the task at hand (Kulieke et al, 1990). It is a goal oriented collection of student work
which displays students’ efforts and progress in a given subject area (Bailey, 1998). In
order words, portfolio assignments as part and parcel of a formative assessment
emphasize the construction of knowledge for the final product through suitable
mechanisms. Portfolios are advantageous in that apart from their being an authentic
experience, they replicate processes which require problem solving approaches. A
project is similarly a goal oriented task which is realized in any form of plan
development, research proposal and art work which requires learners to use their own
skills and strategies to solve a problem (Simonson et al, 2000). However, due to its
cumulative nature, this kind of assessment calls for more responsibility on the part of
the students and more commitment on the part of the teachers (Bailey, 1998).

Eventhough the example given here like portfolios are subjected to the authentic
knowledge, there are many web 2.0 tools that can be used for authentic learnings. Only
to mention several web 2.0 tools such as flip grid, you tube, biteable, whatsapp, padlet
and etc which can be used for authentic knowledge and assessment. All these tools can
be used for four skills that we are using in English Language. However, the stress is upon
the flip grid and screencast o matic which are used for speaking skill.

The lecturers were asked whether they would agree if self-assessment was implemented
officially as a major assessment tool. All of them came to an agreement that it is a wise
idea to implement self-assessment as another option for classroom assessment
particularly at the tertiary level. However, they emphasised that all lecturers must be
trained and well-informed and be fully prepared for the assessment. Moreover, one of
the objectives of using self-assessment is assessing students’ work and they must be
clear of the procedure so that students’ future is not at stake (Farehah & Sallehhudin,
2017).

All the lecturers strongly believed that high self-confidence among some of the students
were the main factor for overestimating their work. However, one of the lecturers stated
the downside of the students who were overestimating and overrating their work by
saying “this is also dangerous because it might imply that they think they are doing it the
right way but actually there are many more different things they need to learn”. On the
other hand, they all agreed that students who underestimated and underrated their
work were those with low self-confidence (Farehah & Sallehhudin, 2017).
CONCLUSION

To conclude all the assessments and its derivations of the assessments, it is important to
consider many facets or ideas from different scholars and empirical studies. It is some
scholars defined the test and assessment as the same materials and categories. As some
of those defined the assessments as different type of categorizations of the testing. Some
scholars said the testing is different from the definition of the assessment. For whatever
it is may be defined, here the writer wants to conclude about the alternative
assessments. There are many web tools of 2.0 can be used for authentic learnings that
comprised of four types of skills. Some of those tools are suitable for speaking skill like
flip grid, screencast o matic and you tube. Some of other tools are suitable for writing
skill like padlet, weebly and biteable. For listening skill, the web tools can be used are
like you tube, screencast o matic and flip grid. For reading skill, the web tools of 2.0 can
be used are like whatsapp, google docs and etc. Then, the writer discusses about the
empirical study conducted by previous researchers which are saying that the lecturers
of the universities should prepare themselves to use these kinds of alternative
assessments in universities’ level. It is important to embark these alternative
assessments to the students to measure students’ levels of confidence. When the
students are more confident in speaking to the other people, and with the other three
types of skills, therefore they will be able to master the English Language As Second
Language. By the time they graduate from universities, they will be able to enter to the
job markets and fulfill the needs of industries.

REFERENCES:

Fatemeh, G. N. (n.d). Alternative versus Traditional Assessment. (pp. 1-6). Isfahan : Iran

Farehah, N. and Sallehhudin, M. (2017). Alternative Assessment: Exploring the

Effectiveness of Self-Assessment Practice among Engineering Students. Uni KL :
Malaysia.