Assessment Professional Learning Module 5: Making Consistent Judgements

1. Assessment Professional LearningModule 5: Making Consistent Judgements

2. Assessment FOR learning: occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching. Assessment AS learning: occurs when students reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals. Assessment OF learning:occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards.

3. The Victorian Essential Learning Standards place an imperative on us to make high quality judgements about student learning.What does that mean we should do?

4. Quality and trustworthiness in evidence of learning requires both• valid (fair, accurate, appropriate) and • consistent (reliable) assessment judgements.

5. Valid Everyday synonyms: - truthful - appropriate - justified - convincing - accurate - legally acceptable - fair For valid assessment fairness, accuracy and appropriateness matter.

6. Validity is a matter offairness, appropriateness and accuracy • Are the tasks constructed, presented and conducted so that all students have an equal chance of demonstrating their learning against the standards? • Do the tasks represent all the valued learning you want the students to have undertaken? Do they assess a sample of all the important concepts or all the important standards? • Are the assessment tasks probing the students thinking to the depth you want - or are they able to “get away with” a superficial understanding?

7. Validity is a matter offairness, appropriateness and accuracy • Are the assessment tasks monitoring what you think they are (and not some intervening prerequisite skill, or conceptual understanding)? In particular, do the assessment tasks require specific knowledge or skills which some students may not have, and which have not been explicitly taught? (e.g. how to: read, draw a graph or ‘google’?)

8. Assessment is valid if it … • assesses appropriate content and standards • assesses the important standards • provides information which is useful for some valuable purpose (for/as/of) • is assessed with sufficient accuracy • is fair to all students.

9. Consistency is a matter of reliability How confident can you be that judgements that you have made are not significantly affected by chance factors such as: • how the student was feeling on the day? • how the assessor was feeling on the day? • who the assessor was? • luck in being assessed on some things and not others? • luck in that the mode of assessment suited the student particularly well (or didn’t)?

10. Examples of everyday use of the term “reliability” • A set of kitchen scales is reliable if ... • A clock is reliable if … • A train is reliable if … • A friend is reliable if … • A ‘full-back’ is reliable if … • An assessment task is reliable if … (what?)

11. Definition of consistency The consistency of an assessment is the reliability with which it assesses whatever it assesses. It is the reproducibility that is the focus.

12. The assessor matters in making consistent judgements.We are human and our judgements may be influenced by many factors besides the actual standard of work. •INTER-rater reliability: if another assessor judged the work, would the student be awarded the same result?• INTRA-rater reliability: if the same assessor judged the work on another day would the result be the same?

13. Consistent assessment An assessment is consistent if the scores that students get are reliable: • from one occasion to the next • from one form of assessment to another • from one assessor to another.

14. The difference between consistency and validity Consistency (or reliability) is a technical question. Will work be judged in the same way every time, regardless of who assesses it, or how, or when? Validity has both a technical element (does the assessment accurately judge what it says it judges?) and a philosophical one (is the assessment appropriate and fair?). Validity is an indication of thevalue and correctnessof what we do.

15. Consistency, alone, is not sufficient.Assessment must also be valid (fair, appropriate and accurate).

16. Each step in the assessment process involves • the possibility of error • value-driven decisions • assessment processes that may disadvantage some types of students. Use collaborative planning processes, transparency of assessment tasks, criteria, rubrics and variety to maximise valid and consistent judgements.

17. Strategies and protocols For valid and consistent judgements of student learning progression, we need to put in place strategies such as: • common assessment tasks planned collaboratively • shared design processes for assessment tasks and for rubrics • comparing work with exemplars (e.g. assessment maps) • cross-marking of sample assessment tasks • moderation and consistency protocols.

18. Critical stages of the Moderation Process • Developing a common understanding of the standards to be assessed and the purpose of assessment • Drafting the assessment task requirements • Drafting the criteria - or marking scheme • Sample assessing • Final assessing. Activity 5-4A further defines this process.

19. The final assessing stage of moderation may involve: • assessors meeting together • sharing of assessed work samples • discussion of queries • cross-marking each other’s work samples • discussion of borderline or special circumstance cases.

20. When deciding HOW to make more valid and consistent judgements “efficiency” issues must also be considered: • time efficient (yours and your students!) • learning efficient (maximises learning) • teaching efficient (reduces wastage) • costefficient ??? other factors

21. Assessment FOR learning Assessment AS Learning Assessment OF learning Making consistent judgements is important. But consistency is not enough - we have to make valid judgements as well.