To Explore The Preferences That Students Had Towards How They Might Be Assessed

By Author: Cherry
Total Articles: 95
Comment this article

Data were retrieved from questionnaires, interviews, personal diaries, and documents that included minutes from meetings and assessment forms. A questionnaire was designed to explore the preferences that students had towards how they might be assessed. We drew upon our involvement with the assessment process to draft a 'simple survey' with two closed questions and one open-ended question. To aid completion, the choices that were provided reflected the issues that trainees Replica Omega had mentioned to us regularly. The three questions were:
1. How would you like your pedagogical counsellor to assess your observation lesson? By giving you a fail/pass or a numerical grade?
2. If you chose a numerical grade, how would you like to be assessed: analytically or holistically?
3. Which items on the observation form would you omit and which would you like to add?

We explained to each group that the term 'holistically' implied assessing impressionistically by looking at the lesson as a whole, and that 'analytically' implied using set ...
... criteria to assess numerically each aspect of the lesson. The questionnaire was distributed to trainees of two TEFL courses at a teacher training college. The timing of this corresponded with the end of the academic year when trainees had already finished their practice teaching duties.

The interviews with twenty trainees were conducted after the questionnaires were read and analysed. We concluded from this analysis that it was important to gain a wider set of trainee perspectives and achieve a richer picture of the trainees' reasoning. Thus, we discussed the general responses that had been provided to the questionnaire with twenty randomly chosen trainees. The study was undertaken with 58 trainees studying on two different programmes:

1. A four-year Bachelor of Education programme in an English department of an Academic teacher training college in Israel. The subjects were trainees from the second and third years. Trainees of this group pursue a study programme, which certifies them to teach both general subjects in the trainees' mother tongue (Hebrew or Arabic) and English as a second/foreign language.
2. Second year trainees on a two-year retraining programme. Trainees in this group hold a B A degree and study for a teaching certificate in English. These trainees are usually older than those on the BEd programme.

In these findings, none of the groups wanted a verbal grade of'pass' or 'fail'. All three groups preferred a numerical grade. Two groups (i and 3) favoured holistic assessment for different reasons. Group 3 preferred this form Omega Replica Watches of assessment as they felt they did not need the criteria to analyse the lesson. They claimed to be competent enough to analyse their lesson and reflect upon it independently without specific criteria. By that time in their training they were much more confident in their teaching and assessment.

Group 1 chose the holistic approach for the opposite reasons. They justified their choice by lack of confidence and fear. They felt intimidated by the use of clear-cut criteria to analyse their lesson. They actually preferred the unspecified nature of the holistic approach to a lesson being dissected by specific teacher behaviours.

Group 2 chose the analytical approach. They explained that they saw the function of the criteria as guidelines to help them focus and construct better lessons. They claimed that the criteria helped them identify weaknesses and strengths and thus contributed to their pedagogical knowledge and their professional development. In terms of assessment, they felt that this approach was more reliable since assessing according to set criteria is more objective.