Conference on New Ideas for Experienced Teachers

June 9–13, 2001
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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Gregory Scott Munro

EDUCATIONAL ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING ASSESSMENT

Assessment for legal education is based on four underlying assumptions:

1) Law students should not just know; they should be able to do what they know.

2) Law faculty must articulate and make known their student learning outcomes.

3) Law students’ abilities must relate to what their professional life in service to society will require.

4) Assessment is integral to law student learning.

Adapted from educational assumptions of the Alverno College Faculty, STUDENT ASSESSMENT-AS-LEARNING, AT ALVERNO COLLEGE 3-4 (1994).

PRINCIPLES

The Consortium for the Improvement of Teaching, Learning and Assessment, a consortium of professional schools, colleges and high schools, has identified the following principles as its shared educational assumptions:

1. Student learning is a primary purpose of an educational institution.

2. Education goes beyond knowing to being able to do what one knows.

3. Learning must be active and collaborative.

4. Assessment is integral to learning.

5. Abilities must be developed and assessed in multiple modes and contexts.

6. Performance assessment-with explicit criteria, feedback and self assessment-is an effective strategy for ability-based, student-centered education.

7. A coherent curriculum calls for faculty investment in a community of learning and judgment.

8. The process of implementation and institutionalization of a curriculum is as important as the curriculum: the process is dynamic, iterative, and continuous.

9. Educators are responsible for making learning more available by articulating outcomes and making them public.

10. Responsibility for education involves assessing student outcomes, documenting inputs, and relating student performance over time to the curriculum.

2. Consortium for the Improvement of Teaching, Learning and Assessment, Shared Educational Assumptions (Alverno C. 1992)

The Requirements for Effective Methods of Assessment

(From MUNRO, OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT FOR LAW SCHOOLS [2000], citing JOSEPHSON, LEARNING AND EVALUATION IN LAW SCHOOL [1984])

For any assessment mode to be effective it must exhibit certain qualities of validity, reliability, fairness, and usefulness.

1. Validity

   Validity means that the mode of assessment must be "able to effect or accomplish what is designed or intended." Just as you do not measure light intensity with a barometer, you would not measure legal writing skills with a multiple choice exam.

   In law school courses, validity means that the test or other assessment of student performance is effective in measuring whether the course goals and objectives have been met. This is content validity. A major factor affecting validity is whether the instructions involved in administration of the assessment instrument are clear and precise. On a larger scale, the validity question is whether the mode of assessment effectively measures how well the student outcomes are being met. There must be a reasonable connection between that which was taught in the course and that which is being assessed. This means, of course, that teachers must be clear about course goals and what they are teaching.

2. Reliability

   The second requisite is reliability which Webster's defines as "the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same result on repeated trials." An assessment instrument which does not consistently yield the same results when administered, lacks reliability and is of no value in the assessment program. Reliability depends on representative content sampling. If the exam samples too little of the course content, then student performance may not reflect the extent to which the student has met the goals and objectives for the course, but may only demonstrate that the student excelled or failed in learning the aspect which is the subject of the exam.

   Reliability also depends on scoring consistency. If one inserted three copies of the same student-drafted contract into the pile of contracts being graded by the instructor, and the instructor gave the three copies three different grades, the assessment would lack reliability.

3. Fairness

   Fairness, as a requisite, applies primarily to assessment of student outcomes. Fairness requires that the assessment be equitable, both in process and results. Student learning is inhibited if the student perceives that the assessment process is unfair.

   Josephson lists primary areas of unfairness as unequal access to all relevant information by reason of multi-section classes, private discussion with the professor before student performance, the use of prior exam questions, inconsistent policies regarding makeup performances and postponements, inadequate information about the logistics, format and scope of exams, lack of information about what learning the teacher thinks is important, and testing for skills and abilities not taught in the course. Note, also, that an assessment tool that is not valid (test instructions that are ambiguous) or that is unreliable (the assessors score the same performance differently) is inherently unfair.

4. Usefulness

   Finally, information gained from an assessment mode should be useful. Will the information gained from the assessment improve student learning or make the law school more effective in its mission?

CHARACTERISTICS OF CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

"Learner-Centered"-- "focuses on . . . observing and improving learning, rather than on observing and improving teaching."

"Teacher-Directed"--depends on the professional judgment, wisdom and experience of the teacher.

"Mutually Beneficial"--mutual cooperation of teacher and student helps student improve learning and teacher improve teaching.

"Formative"--the classroom assessment process is not designed to be evidence for grading but functions to improve learning and is almost never graded. It is part of the learning process.

"Context-Specific"--good classroom assessment needs to fit the teacher, students, discipline, and other conditions of learning.

"Ongoing"--classroom assessment involves a daily feedback loop between students and teacher, teaching and learning.

"Rooted in Good Teaching Practice"--"Classroom Assessment is an attempt to build on existing good practice by making it more systematic, more flexible, and more effective."

From Thomas A. Angelo & K. Patricia Cross, CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES: A HANDBOOK FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS (2d. ed. 1993)

SEVEN BASIC ASSUMPTIONS FOR CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

Assumption 1: The quality of student learning is directly, although not exclusively, related to the quality of teaching. Therefore, one of the most promising ways to improve learning is to improve teaching.

Assumption 2: To improve their effectiveness, teachers need first to make their goals and objectives explicit and then to get specific, comprehensible feedback on the extent to which they are achieving those goals and objectives.

Assumption 3: To improve their learning, students need to receive appropriate and focused feedback early and often; they also need to learn how to assess their own learning.

Assumption 4: The type of assessment most likely to improve teaching and learning is that conducted by faculty to answer questions they themselves have formulated in response to issues or problems in their own teaching.

Assumption 5: Systematic inquiry and intellectual challenge are powerful sources of motivation, growth, and renewal for college teachers, and Classroom Assessment can provide such challenge.

Assumption 6: Classroom Assessment does not require specialized training; it can be carried out by dedicated teachers from all disciplines.

Assumption 7: By collaborating with colleagues and actively involving students in Classroom Assessment efforts, faculty (and students) enhance learning and personal satisfaction.

From Thomas A. Angelo & K. Patricia Cross, CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES: A HANDBOOK FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS (2d. ed. 1993)