Tan, Kelvin

Rubrics offer concrete artefacts of what schools evaluate to be of merit, and what educators and schools value to be worth rewarding. Assessment Rubrics Decoded offers Insights into a myriad of issues that affect, and are affected by, the construction of merit in students’ learning and the articulation of (underlying) educational ideologies in the assessment of student achievement. Designed for both students and teachers – who should have parity of involvement in developing and using rubrics – this book covers the problematic issues of assessment in schools while offering readers practical to navigating the ensuing tensions and dilemmas. The notion that rubrics may hinder assessment transparency is also discussed, with examples, to warn against uncritical use of rubrics that may discipline rather than help learners. The perspective of a school leader in providing assessment leadership to rubrics usage across a school is included for extending awareness of rubrics beyond classroom contexts. This provides an informed approach for teachers to understand the stakes and complexities involved in judging learning, and learners, whilst offering concrete options and suggestions to consider.

This book will be a valuable resource for classroom teachers, school leaders, teacher educators and researchers interested in the field of assessment rubrics.

There exist studies such as that of James and Pedder (2006), Brown (2004), Hargreaves, Earl, and Schmidt (2002) which purport to measure teachers’ assessment conceptions and practices. However, there has not been any known study that seeks to explore the contextual factors which affect the teachers’ assessment literacy. These factors, both socially and contextually value-laden, are likely to influence and/or affect teachers’ conceptions of assessment. While teacher literacy regarding assessment principles has been emphasized in preservice training and inservice professional development (Popham, 2009; Stiggins, 2004), such training and development do not occur in vacuums, but are carried out and accepted by people, coming from and embedded within the varied cultures and contexts. As each school is different and performance on assessment literacy may most likely be judged by people operating in these different cultures, what may actually be implemented and operationalized are likely to be subject to peculiarities of these social cultures (Fullan, 2010; Wiggins, 1993). Hence, this study addresses the gap of bridging these missing and yet, essential elements of understanding teachers’ conceptions of assessment. A new, 41-item instrument was developed based on Kozma’s (2003) framework of micro, meso, and macro-level contextual factors and focus group discussion with teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators. The draft instrument was refined through further teacher interviews to improve legibility and interpretation of the item stems. After pilot testing and analysis with RateFOLD (Luo & Andrich, 1999), a final version was developed with 30 items, and is currently under further study.

The Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM) initiative is a fairly recent discourse on the use of learning centered pedagogies in the Singapore Education System. First mentioned by the Prime Minister of Singapore in his National Day address in 2004, Teach Less, Learn More and its accompanying acronym TLLM is frequently mentioned in relation to ideas and practices aimed at enhancing student learning. However, the widespread use (and misuse) of the term may have given rise to some confusion over its precise meaning. This paper examines the underlying discourses of the TLLM initiative in the Singapore education system and questions whether it is understood in ways which are consistent with its original intentions. The term ‘Teach Less, Learn More’ itself suggests a strong tendency to interpret TLLM with a quantitative perspective. However, official statements pertaining to shifting the TLLM focus from “quantity to quality in education” indicate a qualitative intent. Quantitative and qualitative discourses share different origins and epistemologies. Consequently, the contrasting quantitative and qualitative understandings of the goals of education, the means of teaching, the manner of assessment and evaluation and the notion of student learning exists in tension with each other. The tension between quantitative and qualitative discourses in the Teach Less, Learn More initiative in the areas of curriculum, assessment and learning are explored in this paper and three possible ways to (re)interpret the Teach Less, Learn More initiative are suggested.

Assessment for learning (AfL) is of critical importance in developing innovative educational engagements and learner capacity. Impact of AfL may be exhibited in a number of ways. These include promoting learning, developing students' capacity for accurate self-assessment and facilitating adjustment of instruction for enhanced outcome achievement (Black et. al., 2004). Research demonstrating the merits of AfL has led to enthusiastic promotion and adoption of AfL-informed policies, worldwide and in Singapore. AfL significantly influences current Singapore educational policy and planning initiatives. At the primary level, a Holistic Assessment approach calling for assessment to support students' learning is being progressively introduced in all primary-school classrooms (PERI, 2009). At secondary level, considerably less empirical research has been conducted. However, the recommendations of the Assessment Review Corporate Planning Team (ARCPT) call for increasing the presence of AfL to produce balanced assessment, in which Assessment for and of Learning (AfL/AoL) function sympathetically (Leong & Tan, 2014). Additionally, AfL is being promoted at the secondary level through professional development targeted at relevant assessment practices (Leong & Tan, 2014). Adoption and practices of AfL, however may vary significantly from intentions expressed through policy and promotion. One factor is the complex dynamic that assessment change, policy, development and practice exist in (Deneen & Boud, 2014; MacDonald & Joughin, 2009). There is also significant variation in understanding what, precisely constitutes AfL (Taras, 2010). There is corresponding variation in how different stakeholders perceive AfL and how they generally conceptualize the purposes and merits of assessment (Brown, 2011; Deneen & Brown, 2011; Fulmer, 2013). These factors all exist in relationship to particular contexts. In Singapore, the context of high-stakes testing and assessment-driven meritocracy impact how people perceive, interact with and practice assessment (Tan, 2011; Tan & Deneen, forthcoming). Therefore, understanding how intentions and perceptions of AfL relate to practices requires accounting for a complex set of factors and their inter-relationships. As Singapore moves forward with AfL changes, it is imperative that research be conducted towards achieving these understandings, especially at the secondary level. The aim of the proposed study is to establish a systematic understanding of AfL in the Singapore secondary context that may inform research, policy, practice and development. This will be accomplished through meeting the following objectives: - Explain relationships among AfL policies, perceptions, practices and contexts. - Develop and validate a model that accounts for these factors and relationships. - Present analytical findings that may inform theoretical and practical understandings of AfL in the Singapore secondary and global contexts. A complementary (qualitative and quantitative) methodology will be used. Data collection will be carried out in two phases. Means of data collection will consist of large-scale survey distribution, stakeholder focus groups/interviews, and classroom observations. Factor analysis, ANOVA and MANOVA will be applied to survey data. Qualitative data will undergo inductive, iterative coding (Miles & Huberman, 1999). Initial and full results will be shared via two sharing seminars for MOE, NIE and schools. Results will be framed several ways, including: - A theoretical model of AfL in the Singapore context. - School-based case studies. - A comparative analysis of participating schools. - A policy-practice relationship analysis. Research results shall inform several specific outputs, including several tier-one journal articles, a policy recommendation document for Singapore MOE, two sharing seminars and participation in international conferences by the investigatory team.

Assessment systems reward certainty and thrive on predictability. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has punished our assessment systems severely for over reliance on controlled premises for our high stakes assessment, and this should compel us to re-examine the reliance on certainty and control in our assessment policies and reforms. Singapore is a useful context to examine such re-examination of assessment imperatives on a national scale. The city-state typically orchestrates its major policy reform with great discipline, standardisation, and detailed co-ordination. However, such qualities may not be ideal for its assessment reform needs in the post-pandemic future. Three recent assessment reforms are examined as examples of pre-pandemic assessment policies predicated on certainty. This paper discusses whether such reforms are fit for post-pandemic purpose(s), and argues for shifting the emphasis of assessment from securing examination reliability to developing learners’ assessment resilience.

The education system in Singapore has been transformed since its independence from colonial British rule in 1965. Reforms have occurred in four distinct phases: the survival phase; the efficiency phase; the ability-driven phase, and currently its values-driven and student-centredness phase. Each phase of education has been supported and driven by corresponding assessment reform. In the past few years, there has been a distinct effort to shift assessment purposes and discourse away from high stakes testing for placement and stratification, towards using assessment to signal and support learning within and beyond schools. Three assessment reforms are examined in this chapter—the reduction in emphasis on examinations in primary schools in 2008, the shift away from norm-referenced assessment in the high stakes national examination for primary students (announced in 2016), and the changes to assessment and streaming in secondary schools announced in 2018. These reforms demonstrate the tight alignment between policymaking and school implementation and offer insights into the complexities in grappling with tensions between maintaining rigour and control in high stakes summative assessment against transparency of assessment standards for use in formative assessment in schools.

In this chapter, the structure or the anatomy of a rubric is explained. The term “rubrics” is perceived to be used in a variety of ways, not all of which are consistent. The anatomy of a rubric is explained as a way of defining a rubric in terms of its constitutive structure, and it is argued that a rubric essentially is a qualitative instrument comprising of qualitative descriptors of achievement standards and assessment standards and assessment criteria. Quantitative elements such as the scale and weighting of rubric may be added to increase the resolution of a rubric’s discrimination. Assessment rubrics serve the need to provide sufficient detail and clarity for the intended learning in the development of the rubric instrument. Yet, sufficient autonomy for subjective interpretation and educative autonomy of the users of a rubric needs to be accommodated. To the end, a suggested rubric is provided for readers to ascertain their understanding of the functions and complexities of assessment rubrics.