In this chapter I reviewed literature on the concept of assessment in general and formative assessment in particular linking it to self-regulation and self-regulated learning. Formative and summative assessments were reviewed side by side respectively. The former is usually
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associated with assessment that is done during the course of a learning period while the latter often has to do with assessment done at the end of a learning period.
Summative assessment has been referred to as assessment of learning because it is used to grade students at the end of a learning period. Formative assessment on the other hand has been referred to as assessment for learning because it is meant to enhance learning during a given period. The practice of continuous assessment is basically the practice of formative assessment and the two terms may be used synonymously. Assessment as learning is the complex interplay of assessment, teaching and learning in which pupils are active in both learning and assessment.
The distinctive feature of formative assessment is that it assumes a student-cantered approach to teaching and learning. In this approach formative feedback to improve learning is provided to each student. Effective feedback should offer guidance on the knowledge and skills that students possess and crucially act as a motivational instrument for future work.
Metacognition is important and consequential for learners of all ages. It was discovered that educational psychologists have long promoted the importance of metacognition for regulating and supporting student learning. The skills and processes associated with self-regulated learning will customarily exhibit metacognitive skills and therefore are often couched in terms of metacognition. Any assessment system needs metacognitive initiatives to engage students on a more productive level. It may thus be deduced that students can be described as self-regulated to the degree that they are metacognitively, motivationally and behaviourally active participants in their own learning process.
Constructivist theories of learning are worth considering in the context of formative assessment because of their relationship to self-regulated learning. In the context of assessment, Vygotsky’s theory presupposes that assessment methods must take into account the zone of proximal development. Constructivist theories of learning focus on how people make meaning out of given concepts and ideas. In addition to that, an examination of theories of multiple intelligences shows that the brain has many capacities for learning. The multiple intelligence theories can be used to incorporate the respective intelligences into daily lesson planning for practical use in the classroom.
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Assessment is certainly a quality assurance matter because good assessment practices result in quality improvement of teaching and learning. The concepts of quality assurance and quality enhancement in the context of assessment require that assessment practices be based on some defined quality standards. Quality is preceded by a practical knowledge of well- tested principles and guidelines for assessment. The qualitative methods and approaches that ensue should be able to meaningfully involve students in the teaching and learning process. Literature revealed that students become better educated if they are motivated to be actively involved in the educational process.
In a nutshell therefore this literature review brought out some important aspects that added value to my study. It was shown that assessment is about making judgements on the quality of students’ performance and therefore it helps to determine progress in teaching and learning. It acts as a mirror for both lecturers and students. There is a possibility for self- regulated learning to take place in the collaborative use and management of formative assessment for summative purposes. This is especially possible in the context of continuous assessment where both in course and end of course assessment is used for grading purposes. Such use of assessment renders continuous assessment to become a variety of formative assessment.
Self-regulation which leads to self-regulated learning is the main goal of assessment. Self- regulated learning skills are expressed in metacognitive terms. This justifies the need for a metacognitive self-regulated learning approach to assessment. The formative nature of continuous assessment simulates a student-centred approach to teaching and learning in which formative feedback is used to improve learning. Effective feedback should offer guidance on the knowledge and skills that students possess and crucially act as a motivational instrument for future work.
The various concepts that have been covered in this chapter such as self-regulated learning, metacognition and formative feedback equally give emphasis to intrapersonal and interpersonal awareness by students. This is mainly addressed in constructivist learning theories. Since constructivist theories of learning focus on how people make meaning out of given concepts and ideas they should provide the setting for the theories that underpin this study.
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CHAPTER THREE
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter reviews literature on the theories that inform this study. In this case literature was reviewed to identify relationships between ideas and practices and to relate ideas and theory to applications (Hart, 1998, Cooper, 1988) cited by Joubish et al., (2011). Likewise, Randolph (2009: 3) postulates that literature reviews can be focused on practices or applications. He notes for example, that a review might concentrate on how a certain intervention has been applied or how a group of people tend to carry out a certain practice. In this case I reviewed literature vis-à-vis the current assessment practices at Solusi University. I wanted to use the theoretical frameworks as a lenses through which formative assessment would be seen to lead to self-regulated learning.
This review addresses the two critical research questions of this study. These partly sought to find out what the true worth or value of formative assessment was at Solusi University in the context of self-regulated learning. They also sought to find out how the self-regulated learning approach could add value to formative assessment practices in this university Self- regulated learning is constructivist in nature because of its emphasis on the active involvement of learners in the classroom (Kwan and Wong, 2014; Zeidan, 2014). In that regard the theories that underpin this study were being reviewed in relation to how they resonated with constructivist learning theory. The informed position of this review was based on the assumption that constructivism is a theory of learning and not a particular approach to instruction, (Barret and Long, 2012: 75). Hence I categorised the theories that underpin this study as approaches to teaching and learning using constructivism as the paradigm. They were thus classified because both the lecturers and students may use any one of them as an approach to teaching and learning respectively.
The three main theories are Self-Regulated Learning, The BEAR Assessment System and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives. The unifying idea in each of these approaches to teaching and learning is constructivism because their characteristics do manifest themselves through constructivist principles. Some approaches such as the deep and surface approaches to learning are examined in the context of constructivism. These are being compared to one
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another within a teaching and learning environment so as to ascertain how they could be appropriately applied. The theories were being studied particularly to see how they could be used to view the current assessment practices at Solusi University.