Álitamál tengd innleiðingu hæfnimiðaðs námsmats í skyldunámi

Abstract

Historically, the development of assessment and evaluation in Icelandic public education has been similar to that of other Nordic countries, featuring an amalgamation of knowledge transmission, testing and relative grading, on the one hand, and, on the other, an open plan promoting formative assessment focused on processes rather than products of learning. At some points in time the pendulum has swung towards achievement assessment with an emphasis on transmission of knowledge to be measured, and, at other times, it has swung towards an emphasis on learning as a metacognitive activity featuring a student-centred curriculum.

In 2013 new national curricula were issued for compulsory schools and secondary schools. The assessment system presented in the curriculum for compulsory education has been severely criticised due to ambiguous information about its key concepts and how it is supposed be implemented. Teachers appear to have been uncertain as to the purpose of assessment, while facing difficulties in collecting data about multiple competences and reporting their results. According to the curriculum stipulations, teachers and school administrators are solely responsible for all assessment, both formative assessment aiming at supporting learning and motivating students and summative assessment aiming at delivering reliable and valid information about learning outcomes and achievement. Furthermore, teachers and scholars argue about standardisation, and to what extent learning outcomes, contents and assessment ought to be synchronised across the school system or not standardised at all.

The Centre for Curriculum, Assessment and Learning (NNN Research Centre) at the School of Education sponsored two open seminars in spring 2019 where the focus was placed on discussing various issues related to the implementation of the curriculum. The first seminar was held in March, where Jan van den Akker, a Dutch curriculum specialist, opened the debate with an introductory lecture called The Interconnected Curriculum. He discussed the complex context and relations between the different levels of the curriculum system; that is, supra, macro, meso, micro, and nano. Although professionals may argue about this system’s linear organisation, van den Akker emphasised the importance of clear information about assessment and its continuous alignment between different levels. He also pointed out that, according to his research findings, curriculum amendments and the implementation of new ideas needed time and professional support to a greater extent than most people presume.

The second seminar was at the end of April 2019. There, five Icelandic education professionals, a university professor, two school administrators, one school teacher and a director from the Directorate of Education, discussed issues and alleged problems relating to the implementation of the new assessment system. An interesting controversy cropped up in their discussion as to how far the assessment system with its learning outcomes and assessment criteria should be centralised or standardised, concerning contents and subject learning objectives. The discussion also focused on the responsibilities of teachers and their increasing assessment-related workload. According to the national curriculum, teachers and schools have shouldered more responsibility for both summative and formative assessment than ever before. Indeed, combining those two has become a major task through assessment strategies embedded in learning and teaching, such as authentic assessment, performance-based assessment, self-assessment, peer-assessment, and feedback.

The discourse on competences, learning objectives, and learning outcomes gave the impression that all this controversy was actually about ‘old wine in new bottles’, reminding us of the old debate as to whether education has actually been controlled by ideas rooted in John Dewey’s theories or Edward Thorndike’s philosophy. As education historian Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (1989) had observed: ‘One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.’ Hence she indicated that the history of education has in fact been about how the education system has favoured psychometrics and standardised testing while giving mainly lip-service, as Arthur Zilversmit put it (1993), to child-centred curricula with an open plan. Assessing various learning outcomes separately clearly reflects reductionism according to Thorndike’s ideas, while assessing competences as a whole favours holism in accordance with the Deweyan perspective. A careful analysis of the current national curriculum in Iceland reveals an emphasis on both systems of thought. Thus it may be debatable which of the two, Thorndike or Dewey, won the battle of Icelandic curriculum development.

The author’s main conclusion is that wide-ranging learning outcomes and assessment criteria, as stipulated in the official curriculum, theoretically present a more valid and reasonable evaluation for the benefit of all students. This approach, however, demands extensive professional responsibility and knowledge of assessment theory from teachers and administrators. Simultaneously it must be realised that, in the absence of a centralised assessment system, all competence criteria have become open to flexible interpretation.

Rannsóknastofa um námskrár, námsmat og námsskipulag stóð fyrir tveimur málþingum um námskrár og námsmat á vordögum 2019. Gestur fyrra málþingsins var hollenski námskrárfræðingurinn Jan van den Akker og á seinna málþinginu fluttu fimm hérlendir sérfræðingar erindi um innleiðingu nýs námsmatskerfis í skyldunámi. Undanfarin misseri hefur átt sér stað umræða um þetta kerfi eins og það var kynnt í núgildandi aðalnámskrá fyrir skyldunám. Skotið hafa upp kollinum áhugaverð álitamál og spurningar þessu tengdar. Þar má í fyrsta lagi nefna spurninguna um miðlæga samræmingu hæfniviðmiða og mats. Í öðru lagi beinast augu manna að faglegri ábyrgð kennara og um leið vaxandi vinnuálagi þeirra við námsmat sem er samofið námi og kennslu. Í þriðja lagi þarf að gefa nýjum hugtökum gaum og beitingu þeirra eða öllu heldur nýjum orðum yfir kunnugleg hugtök. Í fjórða lagi koma við sögu gamalkunnar hugmyndastefnur í námskrárfræðum og áhrif þeirra á setningu markmiða og hæfniviðmiða. Loks hafa vaknað spurningar um samband leiðsagnarmats og lokamats og aðferðir þar að lútandi. Markmið greinarinnar er að rýna nánar í þessi álitamál með vísan í rannsóknir og kenningar annars vegar og hins vegar erindi þeirra sem töluðu á málþingunum. Meginniðurstaða höfundar er að víðtækt mat á hæfni hljóti að stuðla að auknu réttmæti og þar með sanngjarnara mati öllum til meiri hagsbóta en áður tíðkaðist. Að sama skapi krefst framkvæmd slíks mats aukinnar matsfræðiþekkingar og faglegrar ábyrgðar kennara og stjórnenda. Um leið má þó ljóst vera að viðmið um hæfni og mat í hinu nýja kerfi eru á margan hátt óljós og því auknar líkur á ósamræmi í mati frá einum skóla til annars.