Module 10

Appropriate Assessment for Coastal and Marine Studies

Activities	OHTs
Readings	Resources

Resource 1	Tea Party Questions	Resource 2	Some Teacher's Views On Assessment	Resource 3	Changing Views on Assessment
Resource 4	What is Assessment for?	Resource 5	Two Assessment Situations	Resource 6	How to Assess
Resource 7	Possible Methods of Assessment in Coastal and Marine Studies	Resource 8	Assessment Methods for Coastal and Marine Studies - Merits and Pitfalls	Resource 9	Meeting the Objectives of Coastal and Marine Studies

Resources

Resource 1

Tea Party Questions

My definition of assessment is
I think teachers assess because
I am concerned about assessment because
The most important objective of assessment to me is
Some of the best examples of assessment I have seen in practice are
Some types of assessment that would be particularly useful in a coastal and marine studies context would be

Resource 2

Some Teacher's Views On Assessment

Questions

Do any of these statements match your views?
Which have relevance to coastal and marine studies? Why?

Teachers' Views

It's to do with the tests and exams we set involving learning.
It's finding out how good children are at developing understanding.
It's something we use to keep a check on children in classes.
Assessment is all about finding out if we are effective in our lessons.
It's finding out children's strengths and weaknesses in learning.
It's something that the educational psychologist does.
It's something we use to sort out children.
It's something done by the examinations authority and the education department.
Assessment is all about keeping records of children's marks and things like that.
It's to do with the government raising standards of environmental understanding and awareness.
Assessment is all about finding out where children need help.

Resource 3

Changing Views on Assessment

Source: Stimpson, P. (1995) The Assessment of Learning within Environmental Education, Learning for a Sustainable Environment: Innovations in Teacher Education Through Environmental Education, UNESCO Asia-Pacific Centre of Educational Innovation for Development, Bangkok, draft module.

Let me not mince words. Almost all educators feel that testing is a necessary part of education. I wholly disagree - I do not think that testing is necessary, or useful, or even excusable. At best, testing does more harm than good; at worst it hinders, distorts, and corrupts the learning process. Testers say that testing techniques are being continually improved and can eventually be perfected. Maybe so - but no imaginable improvement in testing would overcome my objections to it. Our chief concern should not be to improve testing, but to find ways to eliminate it.

[W]e teachers say that we test children to find out what they have learned, so that we can better know how to help them learn more. This is about ninety-five percent untrue. There are two main reasons why we test children: the first is to threaten them into doing what we want done, and the second is to give us a basis for handing out rewards and penalties on which the educational system - like all coercive systems - must operate.

Holt (1969) pp. 51-52.

It is a central argument of this book that assessment should play a critical part in any educational process. Wherever learning takes place, or is intended that it should take place, then it is reasonable for the learner, the teacher and other interested parties to be curious about what has happened both in terms of the learning process and in terms of any anticipated or un-anticipated outcomes. We would argue that good education, by definition, encompasses good assessment. However, we would wish to disassociate ourselves immediately from much of what has gone under the guise of 'good' educational assessment... Assessment has been viewed for far too long as a formal process, which normally involves the administration of formal tests and examinations through procedures that are totally divorced from the educational process and setting to which they are supposed to relate.

Murphy and Torrance (1988) p.7.

Resource 4

What is Assessment for?

To find out what students know about the coastal and marine studies, what they understand, and what they can do.
To find out what students do not know, do not understand and cannot do.
To provide a basis for feedback to learners to help them in their coastal and marine studies.
To motivate learners to learn about the environment and for the environment.
To motivate environmental educators.
To support teaching and learning in coastal and marine studies.
To monitor and control standards on coastal and marine studies through certification.
To act as a measure for the accountability of coastal and marine studies educators.
To raise educational standards in environmental awareness, understanding and action.
To improve environmental curricula.
To see whether learning objectives in coastal and marine studies are being met.
To rank order students by level of environmental learning.
To diagnose environmental learning problems and needs.
To diagnose teaching problems as a basis for evaluating the needs of schools.
To screen students who may not be environmentally aware or active.
To select people for future careers or learning paths in coastal and marine studies (eg. to stream children).
To provide parents and others outside the school with information about the environmental learning of children.
To predict likely future environmental attitudes and actions of students (and teachers and schools!).

Resource 5

Two Assessment Situations

Sketch A

Yim-lin comes into her class of eleven year olds. She asks whether they have all brought their lunch and with what they have wrapped their sandwiches. Most of the children have used cling-film. "Why did they use it?" Yim-lin asks. She continues, "What will they do with the cling-film when they have finished eating?" The morning develops with a lesson on plastics, how they are made, their impact on material and energy resources and the problems they pose as waste. The children become interested in investigating the way in which plastic waste enters the sea and the effects this has on marine mammals. The children conclude the day by completing a set of worksheet questions based on a library search.

Sketch B

At the end of Year 6, Yim-lin's 11 year-olds would be moving to secondary school. There was a question of which school students would go to and what particular problems students might carry with them. Yim-lin gave the class a set of graded questions to test the children's level of knowledge. She also asked the children to complete a self-reporting questionnaire to assess pupil's attitudes and environmental/community awareness; she used this information to generate a descriptive profile for each child.

Questions

List differences in the foci of assessment in the two sketches.
Use the descriptive terms given in Resource 6 to analyse the form of assessment which is taking place in each. What are the main differences of purpose?

Resource 6

How to Assess

There is often a tension in environmental education between summative and formative, formal and informal, and terminal and continuous assessment as they may emphasise different aspects of learning and seek to perform different educational functions.

Formative assessment emphasises the on-going collection of information about children's learning in coastal and marine studies which is used to make decisions about how to enhance the learning capability of students. Its main purpose is to assist learning. It is largely a matter between the learner and the teacher and is described as 'low stakes' assessment. It is often informal and usually non-judgemental. It is concerned with what students can do and helping them with what they cannot do in relation to expected criteria. Consequently, it is often either implicitly or explicitly criterion-referenced in terms of environmental knowledge, enquiry skills or values.

Summative assessment occurs at the end of a study and often reflects the final product of learning. It is generally judgemental and is often described as 'high stakes' assessment as it may be a critical determinant of access to future learning paths or jobs. It is often concerned with ranking people and is consequently norm-referenced in terms of relative environmental understanding of students.

Informal assessment occurs as an inevitable, integral part of day-to-day classroom activities, eg. teacher questioning, classroom observation, home and class-work. It is often uncontrolled and seeks to be unobtrusive. It is responsive to the needs of students. Spin-offs for learning are generally at the forefront of the teacher's mind.

Formal assessment has no direct teaching function. Its sole function is to provide knowledge about environmental education achievements for someone else. It usually takes the form of tests and occurs at defined times within conventional examination settings. It is contrived and there are generally predetermined answers. The significance of data collected is usually for summative purposes.

Terminal assessment occurs only once at the end of the coastal and marine studies programme or at the end of a stage in the programme. It is consequently periodic and final. It is often associated with formal examinations in environmental education.

Continuous assessment is intermittent, regular and cumulative. It is often, though not inevitably, associated with course-work assessment in environmental education.

Resource 7

Possible Methods of Assessment in Coastal and Marine Studies

Learning Objective Assessment Method Suitability
for Formative Suitability
for Summative

Knowledge Completion items ? Y

Multiple choice (MC) ? Y

Short answer questions Y Y

Data analysis and interpretation Structured questions Y Y

Laboratory practicals Y?

Field work Y Y

Reporting Oral presentation Y ?

Essay Y Y

Report/Assignment Y ?

Individual/Group research project Y ?

Decision making Structured questions Y Y

Decision-making exercises Y Y

Projects Y ?

Role play Y ?

Attitudes and values Oral presentation Y ?

Classroom observation Y ?

Self-evaluation profile Y ?

Teacher produced profile Y Y

Action Observation of student's actions Y ?

Self-evaluation profile Y ?

Y=Yes ?=uncertain/difficult

Resource 8

Assessment Methods for Coastal and Marine Studies
- Merits and Pitfalls

Method Examples Comment

Knowledge Multiple choice (MC), completion, matching, true/false assertion reasoning, short answer questions. Wide curriculum coverage possible; risk of over-emphasis on facts; easy to mark but can be difficult to construct forms which assess higher order learning; can trivialise learning.

Essays Timed essays, resource based essay, extended writing, reports, open-book examinations Easy to construct; difficult to mark reliably; good for higher order thinking skills (e.g. evaluation) and argument; may overemphasise writing; require criteria for useful feedback.

Projects/Enquiries Based on field work or on secondary data. Assess ability to identify, describe, analyse and draw conclusions; emphasises study and information processing skills; risk of copious copying; time consuming to mark; need criteria for effective marking and feedback.

Structured questions Stimulus response, data based. Many of the advantages of projects but more restricted, manageable and easier to mark; can trivialise learning and generate routine responses. Many of the advantages of projects but more restricted, manageable and easier to mark; can trivialise learning and generate routine responses.

Oral assessment Presentations, debates, drama, discussion groups. Can encourage outgoing students to think creatively about the environment but the shy may be overwhelmed; time consuming; perhaps the least permanent and structured form of evidence; difficult to grade without set criteria; useful in formative assessment.

Classroom observation Teacher notes, checklists, comment banks, profiles, interviews. Rich source of evidence of enviro-sensitive behaviour; very time consuming and therefore a problem with large classes; risk of data overload; difficult to grade without set procedures and criteria.

Self- assessment Student checklists, diaries, peer group assessment, negotiated self-reports, can-do statements Can be (but not always) rewarding for students; difficult to set up as an effective tool; needs practice and time to acclimatise to method.

Resource 9

Meeting the Objectives of Coastal and Marine Studies

	Knowledge	Awareness	Skills/Problem Solving	Attitudes	Actions
Objective tests
Short answer
Essay
Decision making
Checklists
Structured Questions (Data responses)
Oral
Observation
Self