From Test Takers
When students become partners in
the assessment process, tests become
vehicles for learning.
Kari Smith
Meet Mary and Nathan, two typical students from my 25-year teaching career. If you’re like most
teachers, you’ll probably recognize
them.
Mary received top grades, but she did
not participate much in class discussions, nor did she reveal deep insights
when challenged with why questions:
Why do you think the author comes to
this conclusion? Why do you think the
king decided to attack? Why do you
think the substances changed colors
when they were mixed? She did,
however, do well on most tests because
they were not made up of why questions, but of fact questions: What was
the author’s conclusion? When did the
attack take place? What color did the
substances become when mixed? Mary
studied hard just before the test and
developed good techniques for
answering the questions. I knew Mary
would get good grades, but I was
worried about her understanding of the
material.
Nathan, on the other hand, did not
do well on tests. He was especially
unhappy with fact questions. He wanted
to see the relationships among the facts
and understand how the facts had
become facts. He complained that there
was not enough time for this during the
test and that there was never enough
space to write explanations. Nathan
made our class discussions interesting;
he had in-depth knowledge and sought
understanding when he felt it was
absent. He excelled at the why
questions. I knew Nathan understood the
material, but this was not evident in his
test scores.
Questioning Assessment
I started studying assessment as an
academic because I was unhappy as a
schoolteacher with how assessment
took place. I realized that tests did not
reflect the current level of competence
and knowledge of students like Mary
and Nathan. My first responsibility was
to students, and traditional tests did not
serve their needs—or my needs as a
teacher. So I started looking for other
ways to understand students’ learning.
My thinking was influenced by a
variety of assessment experts (for
example, Black & Wiliam, 1998;
Crooks, 1988; Gipps, 1994; Popham,
1995; Sadler, 1987, 1998; and Stiggins,
2002). I came to see assessment as a
combination of processes—not merely
a test taken at a specific point in time.
The assessor (in our case, the teacher)
can only make inferences about student
learning on the basis of the data
collected. The quality of conclusions
drawn depends on the quality of the
data. So how do we improve the data?
I realized that it would not be wise
to do away with tests. The education
system is based on testing, and testing
is widely accepted among parents and
students. Plus, tests illuminate an
important aspect of students’ learning
