Harmful Effects Of Assessing

The turning point in assessment in education was through Black & Wiliam’s (1998) report Inside The Black Box which highlighted many of the negative aspects of assessment at that time backed by evidence that:

“there is a wealth of research evidence that the everyday practice of assessment in classrooms is beset with problems and short-comings.”
(Black & Williams 1998: 5)

One of the problems was with effective teaching where emphasise was on quantity and presentation rather than quality. The second problem was the negative impact of marks. It was apparent that the final mark, rather than the process, was more important with cases of children being taught to the test in order that the results were high. The effect on underachievers was detrimental as they constantly could not achieve high results or, at the other end of the spectrum, the process becomes a competition with peers rather than personal improvement. The third concern was the managerial role where the collection of marks was more important than the analysis of the results. This style of assessing was summed up

‘Classroom assessment has become disconnected from learning. For many teachers, it is mainly about measurement through paper and pencil tests, administered by the teacher after leaning has taken place with the aim of assigning a pupil to an appropriate level or grade.’
(Smith I 2004: 8)

This style of assessment is very much a tick sheet that looks at results and presentation but is not concerned with the process and how to improve teaching and learning for the children. How many times has assessment taking place at the end of term or the end of a unit and no change to teaching has taken place or mis-understandings addressed because it is time to move on to the next concepts or topic? How can plans be changed when the assessment is only giving a snapshot of what the children know at that time resulting in children being labelled as low achievers? These styles of assessment that encourage rote and superficial learning focus on comparative results that can communicate failure rather than supporting progress where:

“Low achievers become overwhelmed by assessments and de-motivated by constant evidence of their low achievement.”
(ARG 2002: 4)