The implementation of the new assessment policy has aroused intense debates among teachers in Malaysia (Raman and Yamat, 2014). Teachers claimed that they were not given enough information about how it would work in practice. Raman and Yamat (2014, p.69), who conducted semi-structured interviews involving 17 English language teachers in three urban secondary schools, found that whilst teachers viewed the aims of SBA positively, they were ‘unhappy’ with its implementation which put them under ‘too much pressure’.
In the early stage of its implementation, teachers were found to be unsure of the SBA six-grading process to evaluate student achievement (Mukhari and Md. Amin, 2010) and were not following the guidelines produced by the Malaysian Examination Syndicate (MES) (Che Md. Ghazali et al., 2012). The danger in this was that if the teachers themselves were not sure about the assessment criteria and do not have a clear understanding of the grading process, their capacity to carry out such assessments will clearly be undermined.
Despite improvements to the new assessment policy in 2014, the definition of what constitutes formative assessment remains unclear and are too general. This then leads to confusion when translating them into practice (Fullan, 2007). In the Standard-Based English Language Curriculum (SBELC), formative assessment is defined as:
Formative assessment is a part of the school-based assessment. Formative assessment or assessment for learning is an important aspect of teaching and learning in the classroom and good pedagogy always include assessment. Formative assessment is carried out for teachers to gain feedback on their pupils’ learning and provide them with the necessary information regarding their pupils’ learning so that they can make changes to their teaching to enhance their pupils’ learning. Thus, formative assessment is carried out during teaching and learning in the classroom. (Curriculum Development Centre, 2014, p. 20)
This definition highlights the importance of giving feedback to students to help them improve and enhance their learning performance. Hence, feedback is a characteristic of the new assessment policy and teachers are expected to provide feedback (Curriculum Development Centre, 2014). However, in the SBA handbook, there is no clear definition of feedback nor instructions regarding how teachers are expected to provide feedback for any form of formative assessment. There is also limited information and unclear guidelines on how the practice of quality assessment should be implemented in the classroom. Thus, the three different assessment-related documents, the SBA circular (2014), SBA Pamphlet, and the SBA guideline book (2014) are equally vague (see Table 3.1).
Table 31: Comparison of three different definitions of formative assessment from
three different documents
Source Definition(s) and Aims of SBA
SBA Circular dated 31st March 2014 (Ministry of Education,
2014, p.1)
An assessment carried out by the teacher in the classroom during the teaching and learning process. It encompasses Assessment as Learning (AaL), Assessment for Learning (AfL), and Assessment of learning (AoL).
SBA Pamphlet (2014)
It is a formative assessment conducted during the teaching and learning process to assess pupils learning performance. It is a summative assessment conducted at the end of a particular unit, term, month or year to assess pupils’ performance.
SBA Guideline (2014)
SBA functions as Assessment for Learning and Assessment of Learning.
Assessment is implemented:
Formative assessment which is conducted during the teaching and learning process
Summative assessment which is conducted at the end of a particular unit, term, month or year.
An analysis of these documents shows that no clear definitions of formative and summative assessment are provided. Furthermore, there are no guidelines for teachers about how to implement formative assessment in the classroom. According to the Ministry of Education’s 2014 SBA policy document, teachers are expected to keep records of students’ performance according to their own time in the school year and to be systematic developing regular routines for imputing information for all learners. They are also required to note and comment on different features of a learner’s performance generally and in particular language elements and expected outcomes, their attitudes, and their learning strategies. To support these records, teachers are also required to make references to a range of learners’ work from different sources (e.g. in the learner’s portfolio, in the workbook, interaction with
peers, etc.) (Ministry of Education, 2014). However, there are no systematic guidelines, frameworks or materials provided by the MOE to support teachers with this kind of record keeping.
In a study involving 40 secondary English teachers from various Malaysian public secondary schools, Majid (2011) found that teachers were worried that SBA would take up teaching time and at the same time put more pressure on them to rush through the syllabus. Teacher stress arising from a proliferation of change initiatives in Malaysia was also reported by other researchers (Tajulashikin, Fazura and Mohd Burhan, 2013). Their concerns included the burden of clerical work, marks input process and the filing system, all found to limit teachers’ creativity in implementing SBA (Tan, 2010). Othman et al. (2013) found that teachers had a negative perception of sufficient time for the implementation of SBA. Similarly, teachers in a study by Talib et al. (2014) perceived SBA as imposing an additional workload as it requires more frequent assessment of students and keeping individual records of achievement. Additionally, assessment of each student in each classroom needs more time than the usual lesson hour as they need to prepare extra materials and documents of assessment (Raman and Yamat, 2014). Furthermore, the large number of students, more than 40 in a class, makes it difficult for teachers to assess individual students’ progress.
As discussed in the previous chapter, teachers’ lack of knowledge and skills can jeopardise the validity and reliability of SBA (Chan, Gurnam and Md. Yunus, 2006). This is confirmed in a study conducted by Chan et al. (2006) that a substantial number of secondary ESL teachers did not have sufficient exposure to SBA and as a result, did not know how to interpret test scores, conduct item analysis or form an item bank. The findings from a study by Hamzah and Paramasivam (2009) also revealed that SBA was simply not implemented according to the guidelines provided, partly due to teachers lacking the knowledge and skills in the area. Similarly, Talib et al. (2014) found that teachers did not have the knowledge they needed to implement SBA effectively.
Another study which provides evidence of formative assessment use and teachers’ lack of knowledge and skills to implement AfLin primary ESL classroom in Malaysia was reported by Sardareh (2014). The focus of her study was on how primary ESL teachers implemented classroom discussion and questioning during AfL and how
primary school ESL classes in Malaysia. The most prevalent findings from her study were the prevalence of teacher dominance, unmeaningful feedback, and misunderstanding of AfL. Sardareh (2014) reported that the teachers mostly asked lower cognitive questions which did not elicit thoughtful reflection. Furthermore, she claimed that a supportive and collaborative learning environment was not provided for the students and hierarchical unequal patterns of participation were observed during the discussions. The data also showed that the discussions were dominated by certain students and highly controlled by the teachers. Students rarely asked questions and most of the time the teachers themselves were the only ones who talked and posed questions. In terms of feedback, praise and one-to-one instruction were mostly observed. Sardareh (2014) also reported that although AfL was advocated by the Malaysian governments, teachers needed more training on how to conduct assessment, particularly AfL. This is in agreement with Havnes et al. (2012) who believe that proper training and guidance whether in-service or pre-service programs can at least facilitate and contribute to the success of the implementations of AfL.
In terms of the implementation of SBA in Malaysia, Norzila (2013) points out that the cascading model adopted by the Ministry was not successful in disseminating knowledge about the new assessment policy to teachers. The policymakers may have felt that they were adopting an empirical-rational strategy by trying to explain the advantages of this assessment policy for the teachers. However, in practice, the dissemination and implementation of SBA was mandated in a top-down manner, with insufficient resources and training (Norzila, 2013). Describing the introduction of the policy, Norzila (2013) explains that teachers were sent for in-service courses to equip them with the necessary skills to implement the assessment policy. However, there was much doubt over the effectiveness of such measures. There were also strong reservations about the effectiveness of the short-term in-service courses in enhancing the assessment skills of teachers. The teachers were only given brief sessions and the focus of these sessions was on how to use the standard document and teacher guidebook, with little attention to enabling teachers to understand the rationale behind the new assessment reform. It is likely that even after these short training sessions many teachers still did not have a clear understanding of what was expected of them in their new role (Che Md Ghazali, 2015; Majid, 2011; Norzila, 2013). Hence, these teachers are unlikely to have gained the necessary skills to carry out their new roles. Norzila’s study (2013) concludes that even though teachers
had undergone courses organised by the MOE, they still lacked the confidence in assessing students.
Even though the Malaysian government envisaged SBA as a dramatic shift from the pre-existing, mainly summative, test-based assessment to formative assessment, in effect SBA has not replaced the former regime. Instead formative assessment was introduced with little explanation of what this would entail for teachers and little training that would enable teachers to understand this new form of assessment and its rationale.
3.5 Conclusion
This chapter has described significant contextual features of the Malaysian education system, which served as the backdrop for this research. The successful introduction and implementation of a major innovation such as SBA would require resources, such as training, formative assessment materials and additional time, as well as a coherent focus on developing an understanding of formative assessment and its potential to improve learning. As discussed in this chapter, both the resources and the coherent focus on teachers making sense of the ‘paradigm shift’ expected of them, turned out to be insufficient. The next chapter explores these issues in more detail by presenting the conceptual framework that has guided this study and the analysis of the data gathered.
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLICY AND PRACTICE
4.1 Introduction
The literature on factors impacting the implementation of formative assessment reviewed in Chapter 2, together with the contextual factors that provide the backdrop to the implementation of SBA discussed in Chapter 3, suggest that it may be helpful to explore the adoption of formative assessment in Malaysian the primary ESL classroom at ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ levels. Three key macro-level influences seem to be particularly salient: firstly, contextual and cultural elements in the Malaysian ESL primary classroom. Secondly, the examination-oriented system with its attendant focus on summative assessment to the detriment of formative assessment. Thirdly, given that formative assessment could be seen as an ‘innovation’, the theory and practice of educational change with all of its related challenges in relation to teacher development and shift in classroom practices. The micro-level factors centre around the teachers, their understandings of learning and learners and other individual characteristics. The space between the macro and micro-levels can be considered in terms of resource-related factors such as professional development and teacher preparation programs, time and the ‘crowded’ curriculum, working conditions of teachers, materials, and funding (see Figure 4.1 below).
As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, despite the contribution of formative assessment to student learning and teacher effectiveness being well documented, research suggests that formative assessment is not always adopted in classrooms (Black and Wiliam, 1998b; Black et al., 2003; Marshal and Drummond, 2006; Marsh, 2007). Research also shows that even when teachers may know about the notion of formative assessment and its strategies, they do not necessarily incorporate it into their own classroom practices (Leahy et al., 2005). There is thus a gap between the theory and practice of formative assessment, and teachers are the stakeholders who can make the largest contribution to closing this gap (Adamson, 2011). Formative assessment strategies (addressed in detail in Section 4.3) developed by Black and Wiliam (2009) are relevant in this study as they may help frame and analyse teachers’ understanding of formative assessment and its use in their primary ESL classroom.
As has been argued, the adoption of formative assessment cannot be achieved meaningfully by coercing teachers to use formative assessment strategies. It requires stakeholders such as administrators and policymakers to motivate or incentivise teachers to improve their formative assessment practices (Marshal and Drummond, 2006). Adopting formative assessment means that teachers need to move away from an authoritarian role in the classroom and from conceptions of assessment as predominantly summative in intent, used for grading and accountability purposes, to an understanding of assessment for students’ learning. These elements combine together to form the conceptual framework for this study as presented in Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1: Macro and micro-level factors impacting on the implementation of formative assessment policy and practice in the Malaysian primary
The thick red arrows indicate a strong relationship between components while the thinner black arrows express a weaker interaction. The enactment of teachers’ practices at the micro-level of the classroom is embedded in broader social, cultural and contextual influences. This is represented by the notion of contextually grounded practices represented by the downward arrows and the box at the bottom of the figure. The element pertaining to young language learners (discussed in detail in Chapter 2, Section 2.2) is of crucial importance, even though much assessment for
learning research focuses on learning as a generic process rather than the learners
themselves. This is reflected in Figure 4.1 through the absence of arrows to indicate interaction with the other elements. Although it is the young language learner who uses information from formative assessment in order to learn, this study focuses mainly on teacher understandings and implementation: how teachers understood and tried to construct a version of formative assessment that made sense to them in the primary ESL classrooms in Malaysia. This focus, however, does not mean that the role of the student in formative assessment has been downplayed. The contextual, cultural and education system level influences, as well as resource-related factors have been discussed in Chapter 2 (see Section 2.3.5) and Chapter 3. The remainder of this chapter will focus in particular on the elements of the conceptual framework pertaining to formative assessment strategies and the issue of ‘borrowed innovation’.