Gabriel Díaz Maggioli

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch47  

ABSTRACT

The most important job of a teacher is to organize the environment so that students can actually learn. One contested area of teaching is precisely how teachers realize whether students have learned—or not! This brings the issue of assessment to the forefront of many language teaching discussions: from the suitability of different frameworks for teaching, to the dispositions that students should embody, and finally, to the tools and environments used to gather information about students’ learning. This chapter takes a closer look at assessment and positions it as a critical tool for teaching and learning. It also explores ways in which assessment can become instrumental in redirecting teaching efforts and in informing students of what they need to change with regard to their own learning efforts. 

Keywords: authentic assessment, language assessment, language learners, learning English

How to cite this chapter: 

Díaz Maggioli, G. (2023). Authentic Assessment of, for, and as Learning. In V. Canese & S. Spezzini (Eds.), Teaching English in Global Contexts, Language, Learners and Learning (pp. 574-583). Editorial Facultad de Filosofía, UNA. https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch47

INTRODUCTION

Assessment is a complex and multifaceted educational practice. The term “assessment” is frequently equated with testing or evaluation. However, this is not always the case. From an etymological point of view, assessment comes from the Latin word assessus, which means sitting by or with. Hence, in its origin, assessment meant something similar to accompanying someone by sitting beside them but not necessarily evaluating or testing them. This sitting with metaphor for assessment is the image that I use throughout this chapter. It is an image of collaboration oriented towards empowerment and presents teaching and assessment as dialectical processes and not as independent educational practices.

Assessment is an umbrella term that encompasses many educational practices oriented towards finding out whether students are learning or have learned (Díaz Maggioli & Painter-Farrell, 2016). In that sense, its focus is decidedly on the outcomes of a process of knowledge being appropriated by students. Assessment information allows teachers to reflect on the effectiveness of their teaching and to make the necessary changes to their instructional approach so that student learning is enhanced (McThige & Ferrara, 2000). At the same time, assessment provides students with valuable information regarding their learning efforts, which, in turn, allows them to adjust their approach to learning (Dann, 2002; Díaz Maggioli, 2012).

For assessment to be effective, a focus on process needs to be adopted. This is because any one-time evaluation of students’ learning—for example, a test or exam—can only provide a partial view of the learner’s actual progress. Thus, to provide a fair appraisal of students’ progress, and, more importantly, to make judgements about it, we need information about both the process and the product of learning. 

Hence, I define assessment as the art and science of discovering what students know. Assessment provides evidence of students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This evidence supports our inferences about what students know and can do, thus guiding and informing our teaching.  

BACKGROUND

Assessment in education became prominent in the first half of the 20th century and evolved into being its own subfield. The work of Tyler (1949) on curriculum served as the starting point to incorporate assessment as part of the teaching process. During this time, Tyler proposed that teaching was believed to be a multi-stage practice that started with setting the learning objectives from which curriculum contents are selected. Once these had been established, teachers would select the necessary materials to support teaching and organize class time around methods, activities, and frameworks. Finally, teachers would use assessment to prove that the objectives have been achieved. Fortunately, this rather narrow view of teaching and the positioning of assessment have evolved over the years. Since the early 21st century, assessment has been understood as a crucial component of both the teaching and the learning processes.

MAJOR DIMENSIONS

There are three major dimensions to assessment: assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. These three dimensions are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The Three Dimensions of Assessment

Each of the dimensions illustrated in Figure 1 fulfills a different purpose and provides different kinds of valuable information about students’ attainment of learning outcomes. Because of this, it is important to balance these three forms of assessment to determine actual student learning. We will now explore each of these dimensions individually.

Assessment OF Learning

Assessment of learning is implemented to find out if, and how much, students have learned. This dimension of assessment is summative and generally takes the form of tests or exams. These have expected answers and are graded according to the number of correct answers provided by students. These assessments are given at the end of a module, unit of work, semester, or course. The grade earned by students is final. 

In this sense, we can say that assessment of learning is high stakes. Such assessment is used to make decisions that profoundly affect a students’ educational trajectory and future. The final grades can imply pass or fail, or they can be used to place students in a particular group.

Precisely because of its high-stakes nature, this kind of assessment tends to promote teaching practices that are not necessarily aligned with students’ learning but with making sure that students succeed in a test. As a result, many teachers tend to teach to the test and devote many hours to practicing for the test. The influence that assessment has on teaching is referred to as the washback effect. When testing drives teaching, thus disregarding actual students’ learning, we say that the washback effect from assessment is negative, as it impairs the normal learning process. However, if the assessment of learning information is used to improve teaching and align it better to students’ needs, we say that the washback effect is positive. An example of a positive washback effect is when a teacher, upon seeing test results, realizes that the students have not yet mastered a learning objective and therefore decides to devote additional time to helping them learn the targeted information or skill.

To summarize, according to Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth (MECY),

Assessment of learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of assessment of learning be credible and defensible. (2006, p. 55)

If we use a photo album metaphor to understand the interface between assessment and learning, then we say that the assessment of learning provides only a snapshot of the student’s competence as it is given on a certain day and at a certain time during the course. We need to understand that assessment results may change if a different assessment tool were used, or if testing conditions were different. Hence, to be able to see more than just this snapshot of a student, we need to use other forms of assessment to access the full album.

Assessment FOR Learning

Assessment for learning allows teachers to gather and use evidence about students’ progress during learning activities to inform their teaching as well as to allow them to make timely changes to their approach (O’Malley & Valdez Pierce, 1996). This form of assessment is embedded within learning activities and is not graded or corrected. Instead, it is used to guide teachers in their planning and instruction so that both are more aligned with students’ actual learning.

Because of this, assessment for learning is ongoing and based on very clear goals for each learning activity (Boyle & Charles, 2014). Information gathered through assessment for learning is used to provide students with mindful formative feedback (Díaz Maggioli, 2012) that conveys to students the message that all of them can improve.

Assessment for learning is seen as authentic because it is embedded in and responsive to learning activities and capitalizes on obtaining real responses from students. In other words, it seeks to find out whether students can successfully apply new knowledge gained in the classroom to real life contexts.

In short, and to quote MEYC (2006) once again, the assessment for learning is, within itself, part of learning. Assessment for learning is interactive with teachers for

• aligning instruction 

• identifying particular learning needs of students or groups 

• selecting and adapting materials and resources 

• creating differentiated teaching strategies and learning opportunities for helping individual students move forward in their learning 

• providing immediate feedback and direction to students (p. 29)

Finally, it should be highlighted that the systematic implementation of assessment for learning has been reported to increase scores in standardized tests (assessment of learning), particularly for those students who generally experience difficulties and perform below the class average (Díaz Maggioli, 2020). According to some researchers (Boyle & Charles, 2014), the systematic use of assessment for learning in class has a more positive impact on students’ learning than other interventions, such as reduced class sizes.

Assessment AS Learning

Another dimension of assessment is what has been termed assessment as learning. This label itself implies that we cannot draw a clear line between assessment and learning. We can define this dimension as the systematic practice of allowing students to audit their work and their own learning process. In this sense, we are engaging students’ metacognition, which is their self-knowledge about themselves as learners. Metacognition involves the higher order thinking skills and critical thinking skills that students use to reflect on what they have learned and how much (Chick, 2013). 

This form of assessment also includes opportunities for students to assess the work of their peers. Coupled with students’ awareness about their own learning process, peer assessment and feedback become important instances of learning through a process of self-discovery and collaborative exploration. 

Finally, it should be noted that regularly involving learners in assessment as learning helps them become more responsible for their own learning. It also guides them with becoming more autonomous and self-directed, which are key characteristics of successful learners. 

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS

In this section, I suggest pedagogical applications targeted for each of these three perspectives: assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning.

Assessment OF Learning

To facilitate assessment of learning, do the following:

• Make sure that students are prepared for the various testing techniques to be used. This does not mean teaching to the test or incorporating a negative washback effect to your teaching. Rather, this is for exposing students to the kind of testing item during regular teaching so that they are not caught by surprise on the day of the test.

• Combine data from assessment of learning together with data stemming from the other two assessment dimensions in order to assess and grade students’ performance. 

• Incorporate alternative forms of summative assessment such as Integrated Performance Assessment (Adair-Hauck et al., 2013; Díaz Maggioli, 2020). This form of assessment implies creating a sequence of tasks on the same topic (selected from topics already studied in class or recently introduced), such as in the following example:

• 1st class—Students do an interpretive task (listening or reading) using authentic materials as part of a lesson on that topic. The teacher grades this task and brings it ready for comment to the following class. 

• 2nd class—The teacher proposes an interpersonal task (oral interaction in pairs) that is recorded (e.g., on students’ mobile phones) and uses information and material from the interpretive task. Again, the teacher grades this task. 

• 3rd class—The teacher provides students with grades and explicit formative feedback on their performance. During this final lesson, the teacher engages students in doing a presentational task (individual presentation or writing), which is also derived from the previous interpretive and interpersonal topic and tasks. 

• Use rubrics to assess and grade students’ work. This form of assessment is more authentic than a paper-and-pencil test. It promotes motivation and reduces anxiety because students do not have to do a formal test.

Assessment FOR Learning

To facilitate assessment for learning, do the following:

• Start each lesson by informing students what they are going to learn and why. Connect these learning outcomes to assessment by explaining what students are expected to be able to do at the end of the lesson and by providing the criteria to assess successful learning.

• Engage students in setting personal learning targets for the lesson.

• Always start the lesson by activating students’ background knowledge about both the topic and the language and explain how this connects with what will be assessed.

• Devote the last few minutes of the lesson to recap what has been learned, ask students to assess whether they have achieved their learning goal for that day, and explore together the takeaways of the lesson.

• Give students time after tasks to prepare how they want to share their work with the rest of the class, which, in turn, will increase learning and support assessment for learning.

• Provide ongoing formative feedback whenever possible that is specific to the task assigned and that informs learners of what they can do to improve. 

Assessment AS Learning

To facilitate assessment as learning, do the following:

• Encourage students to regularly self-assess their performance.

• Use Google forms or similar electronic tools to create peer-assessment questionnaires that can be filled from students’ mobile phones. Frequently engage students in peer assessment.

• When debriefing students’ work in groups, ask students to self-assess the outcome of the task and the language they have used as well as their contribution to the work of the entire group. 

• At the end of each lesson, encourage students to self-assess whether or not they have attained their personal learning goals for the session.

In this chapter, you learned that assessment is a critical tool for teaching and learning. You learned about three major dimensions: assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. You also learned how assessment can be instrumental for directing your teaching efforts and for informing students of their learning efforts and achievements.

Here are some key concepts about assessment of, for, and as learning:

• Assessment is more than tests and grades.

• Assessment is valuable information about student learning.

• Assessment is a process and not a single instance or moment in time.

• Assessment has three dimensions: one that seeks to give students a grade so that decisions about their educational future can be made; one that seeks to inform teachers and students about the learning process so that they can redirect their efforts towards success; and one that encourages self-reflection and discovery and is, within itself, a form of learning. 

• A true assessment system makes systematic use of all three dimensions to secure valid, reliable, and productive judgments about student learning. 

Based on what you know about assessment, answer these questions:

1. 1. When you were a language learner, what was your experience with assessment? Describe your experience using concepts from the chapter.

   2. If you are already teaching, or if you are now doing your teaching practice, which dimensions of assessments are most frequently used? 

   3. How effective are these forms of assessment to improve student learning?

   4. What are your beliefs about assessment in English language teaching? What do you imagine your assessment practices will look like after you become a teacher? Why?

To practice what you have learned about assessment, do the following:

1. 1. The next time you plan a sequence of lessons, incorporate one aspect of assessment as learning towards the end of the lesson and then discuss results with your students.

   2. As you participate as a learner in your various college courses, compile a list of assessment dimensions and tools that your instructors use in their classes to assess your performance.

   3. Search the web for exemplars of assessment for learning tools that you can use and/or adapt to your teaching (and remember to reference them and acknowledge their source).

To expand your knowledge about applying assessment of, for, and as learning, visit the websites of these international groups that are dedicated to language assessment:

• European Association for Language Testing and Assessment. https://www.ealta.eu.org/  

• IATEFL Testing, Evaluation, and Assessment Special Interest Group. https://tea.iatefl.org/ 

• New South Wales Government: Assessment. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/understanding-the-curriculum/assessment/approaches 

Aspects related to language assessment are also addressed by other chapters in this book: 

Chapter 17 Providing Feedback on Learners’ Language Output by C. Cristóful

Chapter 46 Introduction to Language Assessment by N. Kuhlman

Chapter 48 International Frameworks to Assess Language Development by E. Núñez

Chapter 49 E-Portfolios to Assess Language Learning by B. Jiménez

Adair-Hauck, B., Glisan, E. W., & Troyan, F. J. (2013). Implementing integrated performance assessment. American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Boyle, B., & Charles, M. (2014). Formative assessment for teaching & learning. Sage.

Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching  https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/

Council of Europe (COE). (2022). Common European Framework of Reference. www.coe.int/lang-CEFR

Dann, R. (2002). Promoting assessment as learning: Improving the learning process. Routledge Falmer Taylor & Francis Group.

Díaz Maggioli, G. (2012). The role of formative feedback in learning. In J. Leymonie & E. Fiore (Eds.), Didáctica práctica 2: Enseñar para la comprensión [Practical Didactics 2: Teaching for Understanding] (pp. 121-133). Grupo Magró.

Díaz Maggioli, G. (2020). Integrated performance assessment as an interface between learning and assessment. In S. Hibri (Ed.), Changing language assessment: New dimensions, new challenges (pp. 53-73). Springer. Palgrave; Macmillan. DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-42269-1

Díaz Maggioli, G., & Painter-Farrell, L. (2016). Lessons learned: First steps towards reflective teaching in ELT. Richmond.

EALTA (2014). Guidelines for good practice in language testing and assessment. European Association for Learning. Testing and Assessment. http://www.ealta.eu.org/documents/archive/guidelines/English.pdf 

Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth. (2006). Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind: Assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education https://www.education.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/rethinking-classroom-assessment-with-purpose-in-mind.pdf?v=1545282892 

McThige, J., & Ferrara, S. (2000). Assessing learning in the classroom. National Education Association.

O'Malley, J. M., & Valdez Pierce, L. (1996). Authentic assessment for English language learners: Practical approaches for teachers. Addison-Wesley.

Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. University of Chicago Press 

Gabriel Díaz Maggioli is a teacher who applies the lessons learned in the classroom to his roles as teacher educator, researcher, and writer. He is a certified researcher in Uruguay’s National Research and Innovation Agency and an academic advisor to the Institute of Education at the Universidad ORT Uruguay. Gabriel has authored numerous books as well as articles in professional and peer-refereed journals. He has also shared his work with colleagues in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Gabriel is the first Latinx President of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6686-2549 

Email for correspondence regarding this chapter: diaz_g@ort.edu.uy

Cover Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash