CODE & COURSE

BRI 3053: LANGUAGE TESTING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL

TOPIC

GROUP

UPSI 02 (A131PJJ)

PREPARED BY

NAMEA ID. NO. TELEPHONE

MOHD HALIM SHAH BIN MISWAN D20102046784 013-2895674

E-LEARNING TUTOR: MAZURA @ MASTURA BT MUHAMMAD

SUBMISION DATE: 19TH OCTOBER 2013

ASSIGNMENT 1: SCHOOL-BASED ASSESSMENT

Task:

To prepare a report on how the school-based assessment is implemented in a primary school.

Overview

Assessment, in whatever form it takes, is widely recognized as one of the main

determinants of educational practice. Over the past few years, new approaches to assessment

have emerged in a number of countries including Malaysia. Issues in teaching and learning

have also emerged alongside with the introduction and implementation of the School-Based

Assessment (SBA) as well as the SBA contribution to teaching and learning and how teachers’

beliefs and their professionalism become involved. Teachers’ professional actions, their

struggles, worries, concerns as well as their visions and aspirations are all considered in this

new assessment reform. SBA also brings about the implications for teacher professional

development.

The Concept of School based Assessment.

Public examinations have long been the only measurement of students’ achievement.

But inline with the on-going transformation of the national educational system this could be

changed. This was hinted by Y.A.B. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Education Minister, after

launching the state level 38th Teacher’s Day at Dewan Seri Panglima Lee Shen, SM Ken Hwa,

Keningau on 5  June, 2009. A new evaluation method will be introduced to gauge the

competence of students by taking into account both academic and extra-curricular

achievements. “The (present) evaluation is basically based on curriculum-achievements… we

would like to see a more rounded sort of education achievements among our children.” (Daily

Express, 6 June 2009)

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Educational Assessment is the process of

documenting; usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Assessment

can focus on individual learner, the learning community (class, or other organized unit of

learners), the institution, or the education system as a whole. The term assessment is generally

used to refer to all activities teachers use to help students learn and to gauge student progress.

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Assessment is often divided using the following categories:

formative and summative;

objective and subjective;

referencing (criterion-referenced; norm referenced);

informal and formal.

For the purpose of considering the different objectives for assessment practice, it is divided into:

1. Summative assessment: Summative assessment is generally carried out at the end of

a course or project. In an education setting, summative assessment are typically used to

assign students a course grade.

2. Formative Assessment: Formative assessment is generally carried out throughout a

course or project. Formative assessment, also referred to as “educative assessment” is

used to aid learning. In an education setting, formative assessment might be a teacher,

or the learner, providing feedback on a student’s work, and would not necessarily be

used for grading purposes. An educational researcher, Robert Stake explains the

difference between formative and summative assessment with following anology:

“When the cook taste s the soup, that’s formative. When the guests taste the soup, that’s

summative”.

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The Report

a. Introduction

i. Year that is assigned to the researcher

Based on the task, I have chosen to focus my research on the pupils of Year 2 in

Sekolah Kebangsaan Binjai Jaya, Sabak Bernam, Selangor. The selected school is

located in one of the remote areas in Selangor. This would mean that the majority of

pupils in this school are from low-income background with lack of exposure especially in

English Language. Most of them do not really understand the importance of English in

their daily life. To these pupils, they are satisfied with their daily after-school routines,

including spending their weekends and due to these facts, it is likely that most teachers

in this school feel that their roles are going to be challenging.

ii. Teacher Interviewed

I have the opportunity to have met and interviewed one of the teachers teaching

English in Year 2. She is Puan Rosminah bt Muhammad, an experienced English

teacher who has taught in Level 1 (Year 1 to Year 3) for more than ten years. I believe

that I have selected the right person for this task. I wish to thank the school administrator

for giving me the opportunity to conduct the survey and of course my heartiest thanks to

Puan Rosminah for her full cooperation.

iii. Survey Questions

Some questionnaires are given to get a thorough background of the SBA

implementation. The survey questionnaires are meant to provide a clear process of

implementing SBA in the respective school. The responses given to the questionnaires

are also used as an indicator for the effectiveness of the SBA implementation in terms of

teacher’s understandings of SBA, their readiness, as well as follow-up activities or

programmes. They either play the part on how to enhance teachers’ motivation, or

perhaps in looking for ways to remedy the respective teachers. This is one of the

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supportive measures to assist teachers to boost up their future assessment skills, as

well as their teaching and learning process. (Please refer to attachment in appendices).

b. The Findings

i. The School-Based Assessments (for English subject)

The School-Based Assessment (SBA), better known as its Malay

acronym PBS (Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah) was introduced in 2012 in all

government and government-aided primary schools and in 2013 in all

government and government-aided secondary schools. Accordingly, both the

central examinations, UPSR for the year 6 pupils at primary level and PMR for

form 3 at the secondary level will be revamped to accommodate the

transformation.

SBA is holistic and assesses cognitive, affective and psychomotor

domains, encompassing the intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical

aspects. SBA also embraces both academic and non-academic fields.

This policy acknowledges teachers’ roles in which they are given

recognition and have the autonomy to conduct formative assessment during the

learning process, and also the summative assessment at the conclusion of a

learning unit, or any other suitable time during the school year. This is done at

the teachers’ discretion, taking into account the pupils’ readiness.

There are four (4) main reasons why SBA and its implementation have

been introduced:

Firstly, SBA is expected to enhance the meaningfulness of assessment

where the focus is more on pupils’ development and growth rather than merely

on their scores on grades. Secondly, SBA is designed to reduce the over-

reliance on data (grades and scores) obtained through central examinations in

getting information about pupils in the school system. Thirdly, it is anticipated that

SBA will empower the schools and teachers to conduct quality assessment of

pupils. Therefore, school assessment will be given due recognition and

significant place the overall assessment system; and, fourthly, SBA ensures that

the performance of pupils is comparable to world standards in various areas of

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knowledge, skills and competence, with the introduction of a standard-referenced

assessment. One of the most crucial statements is that, “The system does not

constrict…Teachers to create test papers or hand-outs every time they wish to

assess a pupil’s achievement. Teachers may also carry out creative activities

that are fun to gather information about the pupils’ progress. A few examples of

activities are homework, quizzes, question-answer sessions and observations.

Teachers could also use tests to assess pupils’ development and growth”.

In our Malaysian System of Education’s context school-based

assessment could be understood as :  assessment that is going to take teachers’

grade as part of students’ official grade after completing specific school level.

There are four schooling levels in Malaysia; and at the end of each level,

students are require to sit for : UPSR, PMR, SPM and STPM. The purpose of

school-based assessment is to avoid students totally dependent on those high

stake examinations alone (for their grade) which created a lot of tensions and

anxiety among them.

The implementation of school-based assessment will imply that school

teachers will have to take some of the responsibilities of Malaysian Examination

Syndicate / Majlis Peperiksaan Malaysia in conducting external tests/

assessment; that is some of the external test jobs carried out by MES / MPM are

to be transfered to become teachers’ jobs while conducting their internal test. It

requires a teacher deliberately gather information (grading) how well each

student has achieved stated learning objectives. This means focusing an activity

on specific  learning objectives and evaluating student achievement of these

learning objectives against established criteria.

Presently, the major reasons for MES/MPM to solely carry out the high –

stake test like UPSR, PMR, SPM. and STPM is to ensure the validity and

objectivity of the examination of the examination. Once part of the responsibility

of conducting external assessment is transferred to teachers, the major issues

are:

1. how to maintain scoring objectivity or reliability , and

2. how to ensure the validity of the school based test.

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Thus, the need of a well-designed school based assessment system

conducted by classroom teachers to complement the role of MES who

conducts the conventional standardized test.  Currently majority of tests

administered by MES / MPM are paper-and-pencil type whereby candidates

are given written questions for them to respond in a specified time span.  This

type of test is good for large number of candidates and the scoring objectivity

can be easily and systematically maintained.

One of the test forms that fit the requirement of a school-based

assessment system is performance test. By performance test, we mean a

test that needs students to provide genuine response in an assessment

domain closest to the intended criteria for the examiner to make inferences.

(Popham, 2000). The medium could be through actions or report writing; such

as report writing on  study of Local Geography at PMR. The examiner will

observe the performance and is required to repeort the judgement about that

performance. Thus administering performance test in a big scale is not easy

in terms of maintaining scoring objectivity.

Nitko (2004) in his keynote address entitled “Alternative

Assessment for Teaching and Learning” at the Second Intyernational

Conference on Measurement and Evaluation in Education; in Penang stated

that alternative assessment to our existing examination system should:

1. presents a hands-on-task requiring students to do something with their

knowledge, such  as making (a bookshelf), produce a report(on a group

project that surveyed parents attitudes),  or give demonstration (show

how to measure mass on a laboratory scale);

2. a clear rubric for scoring – clearly defined criteria to evaluate how well the

students achieved this application.

A common misconception is that any alternative learning activity used

in teaching is also an assessment. Usually, classroom alternative activities

lack this scoring rubric component, and thus cannot qualify as assessment.

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ii. The Document Standards

iii. The Process of developing the instruments

iv. The evidence for each Band

v. Standardization

c. Discussion

i. Reflection of the whole experience

ii. Conclusion

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