Updated: Mar 2000 | Assessment - Classroom Approaches | Standardised Tests

Assessment - Standardised Tests

Standardised tests were never intended to be the key component of student evaluation. They were intended to be a valuable ingredient that would combine with many other assessments to create a more accurate picture of a student's educational profile. Burke. K, The Mindful School: How to Assess Authentic Learning, Revised edition (1997), p. 18

Standardised tests can be used to support teacher judgements. By their nature, they take little account of context and cannot cover all aspects of the outcomes. The data derived from standardised tests are no substitute for teacher judgements based on a range of assessment tasks.

Teachers have a responsibility to question a standardised test's validity and reliability before deciding to use it.

The following questions provide a basis to analyse the claims made by designers of standardised tests, and to judge the suitability of a test to provide information on student achievement of outcomes:

	Plotted against the Student Outcome Statements, what levels of knowledge, skills and understandings does it give students the opportunity to demonstrate?
	Are there opportunities for students to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills?
	Is there excessive emphasis on recall and prior knowledge?
	Does it allow students to demonstrate integration of knowledge?
	Are any of the test items culturally biased?
	Are any of the test items ambiguous?
	What opportunity is there to assess sample performances and how they were scored?
	What type of feedback is provided for students?
	What learning styles does it advantage?
	If claiming to assess the outcome level, do the test items assess the breadth and depth of the Student Outcome Statements?
	Is it suitable for children with special needs?

Monitoring Standards in Education

Monitoring Standards in Education (MSE) is based on the Curriculum Framework and Student Outcome Statements.

MSE testing assesses performance of students in a particular context at a specific point in time. It can assess most outcomes from each learning area, but the nature of the testing process gives an estimate of overall achievement.

As part of their ongoing work, teachers observe student performance in a broad range of contexts over an extended period of time. Provided they structure learning activities and use appropriate assessments, both in terms of scope (coverage) and range of levels, their students will have the opportunity to demonstrate all outcomes. Under these circumstances, if there is an inconsistency between an individual's MSE test result and the teacher judgement, then it is likely that the teacher judgement will be the more accurate.

A particular strength of MSE instruments is that they provide reliable estimates of the level of performance of groups of students. As a consequence, MSE results for a school or group can confirm judgements made by teachers. They can function as a moderation tool and provide schools with the capacity to compare their students' performance with state-wide performance.

Student Journals

Student journals are essentially private dialogues between individual students and the teacher.

Journal writing can begin with students writing about their feelings toward learning. With quality teacher feedback, these journals can provide information about not only students' conceptual understandings, but also their written communication skills and reflective skills.

However, journal writing that overemphasises writing skills will become a chore for some students. Students should be encouraged to develop their visual literacy skills by using a variety of journal entries such as drawings, clippings, cartoons, photographs or graphs.