How assessment tail wags the dog

By Graeme Salt

Having read about such stories in the past, I actually saw it with my own eyes this Suneung examination day. A car sped down the road near our school, dramatically blocked a police car, a frantic mother rapped on the car door window, rear doors opened and the exchange of a high school student took place, with the police car driving off to deliver another grateful candidate to their all-important national university entrance examination. I am not sure this really was the best preparation for such a critical examination but at least this student would have found her seat in time.

I know the nature of this high school examination generates huge discussion in political, educational and family circles each year. Having spoken with Korean colleagues in our school, I am well versed on the required intensity of preparation and pressure for performance on this single life-defining day. While it is obvious such a high stakes, one-day examination does little for young people's wellbeing, perhaps this is part of the purpose of the examination: as a means for filtering out those who can cope with a high pressure, one-off occasion from those who cannot. Of course, employers will tell you that this quality is rarely sought after, with the ability to work with others and deliver consistently over time through projects being much more recognized measures of professional effectiveness.

In educational research, the term “construct validity” refers to whether an assessment accurately measures what it claims. For example, how well does a specific science assessment (examination) provide a measure of whether a person is a good scientist? More usefully, perhaps, how good a measure is it that a person is likely to be a good scientist in the future?

Construct validity also encompasses just how much the form of a final assessment can define the whole learning experience. There is a major concern in educational circles that when the final assessment stakes are high, teachers will simply “teach to a test” and students “learn to a test.” It is certainly clear to me, and tragic in my opinion, that for so many young people around the world forms of assessment that are easy and cheap to administer shape the whole of their formative education.

For example, multiple-choice questions can be marked cheaply by machine, but are limited in scope when it comes to measuring deeper learning: they can only really measure factual recall and are very limited when it comes to measuring reasoning. The higher the stakes and the more limited the assessment, the more likely an education system will under-represent learning of qualities that are harder to measure in favor of simple memory tests.

Qualities such as emotional intelligence, authentic drive, collaborative problem-solving, cultural understanding, ability to influence others, creativity or delivery on project work, when under-valued by final assessment will be under-valued by teachers, parents and students. As a further side-thought, some forms of assessment favor the genders differently. This is another aspect of construct validity worthy of consideration, with multiple choice generally favoring boys.

All life is of course precious, but the time of a young person's life arguably most precious of all. I believe the precious time young people spend in education deserves a broader purpose than that defined by so many national systems around the world. More imaginative forms of assessment can drive more imaginative, productive and appropriate forms of learning for the modern age. With the government's stated ambition to prepare Korea's young people for the fourth industrial revolution, it is surely valid to query whether the assessment that defines so completely what and how high school students learn is still fit for purpose.

Graeme Salt (

Headmaster@dulwich-seoul.kr

) is the headmaster of Dulwich College Seoul, a part of the Dulwich College International (DCI) network of schools.