influenced by the ways their teachers assess them (Entwistle & Entwistle, 1991; Ramsden, 1997). However, studies on the relationship between assessment and students’ learning including both exploratory and experimental research reveal complex findings which still need further research (Al-Kadri et al., 2012). Some evidence shows that assessment changes students’ learning strategies (Gijbels, Segers
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& Struyf, 2008) whereas others do not (Struyven, Dochy & Janssen, 2005). Several authors (Struyven, Dochy & Janssen, 2005) note that the impact of assessment on students’ learning is actually filtered through their interpretation of assessment, otherwise stated, their perceptions of assessment. Therefore, investigating the impact of assessment on students’ learning has to be conducted along with exploring students’ perceptions of assessment.
Regarding students’ learning approaches, since 1979, many researchers mention two approaches: deep learning and surface learning (Biggs & Kirby, 1983; Biggs & Tang, 2011; Entwistle, 1991; Marton & Säljö, 1997). A deep approach refers to a way that students, with their intrinsic motivation, overcome their learning tasks by trying to understand meanings of lessons, information, requirements of the task and using all high order thinking skills to complete the tasks to obtain new knowledge and skills (Biggs & Tang, 2011; Marton & Säljö, 1997). On the contrary, students with instrumental motivation use surface approach to finish the learning tasks, get sufficient grades to pass their examination with minimum effort by rote memorising without understanding in depth the lessons (Entwistle & Entwistle, 1992; Marton & Säljö, 1997). Later, few other terms of learning approach such as strategic learning or achieving learning were adopted referring to a well-organised learning process in which either or both deep and surface approach are used to get the highest possible grades (Entwistle & Entwistle, 1992). From the definitions of the learning strategies, it is visible that the way students interpret assessment influences directly on students’ learning (Boud, 1995; Messick, 1987).
As mentioned earlier, students’ interpretation of demands of assessment tasks and methods leads them to an adaptive learning strategy. Some researchers (Birenbaum, 1997; Iannone & Simpson, 2012; Iannone & Simpson, 2013) investigate students’ views on specific assessment methods. It can be seen that students tend to interpret demands of assessment methods based on their own experience. Students may think intellectual requirements in multiple-choice tests are lower than in essay because multiple-choice mostly focus on assessing students’ knowledge whereas assignment essay require higher intellectual skills such as analysis, application, and comprehension (Scouller, 1998). However, some students still appreciate the value of
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multiple-choice test because it helps them to expand their understanding while with essay, they only need to dig in a narrow topic (Scouller, 1997). Such diverse perceptions lead them to find adaptive learning strategies to cope with the interpreted assessment demands. For example, students are likely to adopt deep learning to achieve a good result for an essay or report (Marton & Säljö, 1976). Accordingly, exploring how students view assessment methods is useful to understand their learning strategies for each assessment method.
In the case of authentic assessment, the review by McAlister (2000) indicates that this assessment approach motivates students to adopt deep learning and develop their professional skills. Particularly, students can see authentic assessment aims to assess their knowledge, skills, dispositions required for their future professional works, not simply for the university courses (Struyven, Dochy & Janssen, 2005). Normally, a daily life task often requires integration of a variety of knowledge, skills in different disciplines; thus, an authentic task in university also asks the students to emulate complex disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing. In some empirical studies, students appreciate this characteristic of authentic assessment. In Sambell, McDowell and Montgomery’s (2013) description of an authentic assessment task in which the students had to observe the practice of social work and then create a glossary of terms for their course, the students claim that they have to use high order thinking skills and other skills as well as broad understanding to complete the task. For instance, they have to read more materials than for other tasks, observe the practice and analyse the observations, look for the link between theory and practice (Sambell, McDowell & Montgomery, 2013). In other words, authentic assessment encourages students to utilise deep learning approach.
Nevertheless, in some cases, students do not change their approaches to learning or move towards a more surface approach to learning after hands-on experience with authentic assessment (Gijbels & Dochy, 2006; Struyven et al., 2005). These findings are explained by students’ perceptions of contextual elements of the learning environment such as clarity of the assessment goals, appropriateness of the workload and the usefulness of feedback (Gijbels & Dochy, 2006; Struyven et al., 2005). Particularly, if students perceive the task with ill-structured knowledge, heavy
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workload, and lack of constructive feedback, they will tend to adopt surface learning approach (Gijbels & Dochy, 2006; Struyven et al., 2005). Therefore, elements of the learning environment should be taken into consideration of the design and implementation of authentic assessment.
Motivation is often divided into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to actions led by interest or joyfulness without external reinforcement while extrinsic motivation refers to actions led by external rewards or push (Qassim, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2000). In some students’ eyes, assessment is considered as a motivate mechanism with reward and punishment in the form of grades (Stiggins, 1994), for instance, students may try to do well in the assessment tasks to get the high marks which is considered as successes (Earl, 2003). It should be emphasised here that students’ perceptions of marks are also diversified. Marks only motivate them when they really believe that marks reflect exactly their competences (Harlen &Crick, 2003; Qassim, 2008). In other words, fair marks influence students’ learning motivation. Furthermore, in other cases, assessment with high demands, challenges motivates students to achieve because the assessment can bring the sense of achievement to students or widen their knowledge and skills (Harlen &Crick, 2003; Qassim, 2008). With those students, marks are not a motivated factor of their learning but opportunities to develop their competencies. The way that assessment motivate student learning is absolutely subjective, due to students’ perceptions of learning achievement or their perspective of assessment outcomes.
As mentioned earlier, feedback is believed as the most influential factor to students’ learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998). In particular, evaluative feedback affects negatively and positively on students’ learning because they show rewards or punishments to the students in form of grades and short comments (Gipps, McCallum & Hargreaves, 2000). Descriptive feedback seems to be more useful for the students’ next-step learning as it tells them specifically what they have achieved and what they need to improve, suggest them strategies to do it (Crooks, 1988; Earl, 2003). Feedback helps students to change their learning approaches if the old ones they used did not work in the previous assessment (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). However, it has to stress again that feedback is useless for students’ learning if they do not perceive it as
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important and helpful (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Sambell & McDowell, 1998; (Sambell, McDowell & Montgomery, 2013). If in assessment, the students only concern about their marks, only need to know their marks and end their learning at that point, feedback or assessment in general cannot support learning (Sambell, McDowell & Montgomery, 2013).
Although the current study did not focus on examining the actual impact of students’ perceptions of authentic assessment on student learning, the findings reviewed above indicate the importance of exploring students’ perceptions of authentic assessment in order to enhance student learning. Moreover, through the impact of assessment on student learning reported by the students, their perceptions of assessment is also possibly explored.
2.6. Conclusion
With the theoretical background as well as the evidence from a large amount of empirical studies, it appears that conducting studies on students' perceptions of authentic assessment will be essential and effective to make strategic changes in the practice of assessment and student learning. Moreover, to the same aspect of authentic assessment, students in different contexts might have different views based on their experiences and beliefs. Therefore, the importance of research on students’ perceptions of authentic assessment in a specific context should be fully regconised before any change in assessment practice is implemented there. In the case of teacher education, the experiences on authentic assessment in institutions that prospective or novice teachers attend during training periods impact on their perspectives and use of assessment when they become official teachers at schools (Graham, 2005).
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CHAPTTER 3
CONTEXT OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND TEACHER EDUCATION
IN VIETNAM
3.1 Introduction
Assessment change in higher education and teacher education over the world has influenced that of Vietnam. The current education reform has raised the importance of assessment change in all levels of education. This chapter will present a short review of HE and teacher education in Vietnam to provide a contextual framework for the current study.