Rethinking our Traditional View of Assessment

What is assessment?

Assessment is the process of collecting information in order to evaluate and gain a better perspective on people's skills and abilities to assess what they still need to do to achieve their aims. 

How do you feel when you hear the word 'assessment'?

Despite assessment being a necessary part of learning in order to evaluate progress, it isn't a word that many people feel happy to hear. In fact, in my experience the opposite usually happens and negative feelings are evoked in the majority of people. 

So, as a tool for improvement, does assessment still have meaning?

Not only is assessment important in order to understand what level a student has and how they can improve, many students are also motivated by it, use it to see their progress, and identify areas to work on. This can help them to close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. As such, in many cases, it is a catalyst for learning more. How can students strive to improve if they don't know what they are lacking?

Issues with traditional assessment

As mentioned above, and in my experience as a classroom teacher, assessment almost always brought my students feelings of panic and stress, perhaps due to pressure, the test taking environment or having many people around them, which sometimes also led to competitiveness. In turn, these things often negatively impacted performance. In addition, many assessment methods commonly used merely test students' ability to memorize and repeat information without necessarily understanding or having the ability to put it into practice in a real-life situation. For example, multiple-choice quizzes, end of unit tests, or teacher created assessment tasks which often do not relate to real-life situations and therefore students don't see the benefit of them and in turn don't perform at their best. 

Benefits of online assessment

In contrast, now I work online I have noticed a big difference not only in the process but also in students' performance. Regarding the process, it is much more common nowadays to find real-life situations in assessments where students are provided with situations and asked to respond to them. Providing a purpose / a real-life situation is not only motivating for students, but it is also hugely useful and provides students with an opportunity to shine! For example, in one exercise, in the aforementioned test, candidates are asked to respond to some good news a friend / colleague has just received. This is most certainly something that could and does happen to all of us. In addition to that, our phones, tablets, laptops or whatever mobile device we regularly use are like an extension of us, we are used to using them and so, taking an assessment on one of those can help to reduce the habitual stress related to assessments. Many people nowadays play games and learn a lot of things online where they can win, lose or achieve different levels, 

As well as online assessment being a more comfortable way evaluation, another benefit of it is that it can often be done wherever and whenever it is suitable for the candidate is another way to relieve stress and also the competitive feelings which can be caused by assessment. On top of that, how often do you pick up a pen or pencil these days? … If you are anything like me, then it will be hardly ever… So, you'd probably be a bit like a fish out of water if someone asked you not only to pick up a pen but also to use it to complete an assessment in a foreign language! Again, this strain is taken away in online assessment. 

The same could be said for oral assessment. Being asked to describe a picture or respond to a pre-recorded message in a foreign language from the comfort of your own home would normally cause much less anxiety than being asked to do the same in front of a stranger in a new environment, and therefore enable you to better achieve the task and receive a more just result. 

In conclusion, assessment continues to be a relevant and necessary part of learning but we have the technology available now to make it more realistic and a much less stressful process for everyone involved. Additionally, if we can improve the process in order for the test taker to enjoy it more and achieve more accurate results, everyone's a winner! 

Louise has worked at Pipplet since September 2019. She handles our English language evaluations. Apart from Pipplet, she is an online English tutor, a voice-over artist, an online course instructor and also develops materials for online education.