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Beyond Tests: Alternatives in Assessment

Composed by
Hening Prihatini
NIM: 1720105020

UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH PURWOKERTO

2018
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Abstract : Alternative assessment is considered as a
holistic language performance
assessment. It is seen as an alternative
way in assessing students’ ability of the
language as well as in English. There
are benefits that can be taken by
administering the assessment. Here,
the overview of the alternative
assessment to enrich the knowledge of
us, especially for the writer.
Keywords : language testing, alternative
assessment.
Introduction
English is no more as the ‘alien’ subject for the
students in Indonesia since it has been taught
for years in this country. The students have
been being taught English since they are in the
elementary school but, still, for some students,
English is still frightening subject to be learnt
due to the different structures of the language
itself from Bahasa Indonesia. This issue needs
the solutions as the alternative methods of
teaching English in the classroom. The
alternative teaching methods of English have
been developed to foster the students’
motivation which can affect in improving their
skills in English, for example: Project-Based
Approach, Engage-Study-Activate (ESA), and
Communicative Approach which are more
student-centered. In line with the innovative
teaching methods, the alternative assessment
is also developed to support them.
Assessment is still an important issue as the
feedback or can be a washback to the
instructions done. Kinds of methods of
assessment are proposed to get better
feedback of the instructions. There are many
researches conducted to develop the methods
of assessment. The result, the alternative
assessment is applied as the alternative way of
assessing to get better washback than the
traditional assessment such as multiple-choice
test. Alternative assessment is believed to
have positive washback on the education
(Hamp-Lyons, 1997 in Rezaee et.al, 2013: 153)
since this kind of assessment focuses on the
holistic abilities of students in utilizing
language in real-life situations (ibid). In other
words, the alternative assessment may help
the teachers to review and find out the
weakness of their instruction and improve it.
However, the data of the assessment could
also be used to revise the curriculum due to the
impact of the tests on it and on learning
(Alderson and Banerjee, 2001: 214).
What is altenative in assessment?
Before we talk about alternatives in
assessment, the essential of test, and
assessment as well as alternative are
proposed. Based on Brown (2003), both test
and assessment carry different meanings. Test
measures particulars area of students’
knowledge and competence while the
assessment deals with the holistic area of
students’ knowledge and competence.
Moreover, he (ibid: 6) states that “tests are
formal assessment but not all formal
assessment is testing”. It means that the test
is a part of the assessment. “The assessment is
an ongoing process that encompasses a much
wider domain. Whenever a student responds
to a question, offers a comment, or tries out a
new word or structure, the teacher
subconsciously makes an assessment of the
student’s performance” (ibid: 4).
Test is seen as the subset of assessment which,
in different words, is the device to get the
score of the students’ ability. Since it is a
device, Baley in Brown (2003: 251) argues “one
of the disturbing things about tests is the
extent to which many people accept the
results uncritically, while others believe that all
testing is invidious. But tests are simply
measurement tools; it is the use to which we
put their resuts that can be appropriate or
inappropriate”.
In testing a subject, the teachers are
demanded to define the purpose of the test as
well as in testing a language subject. Bachman
(1990) in Giri (2003: 55) describes that all
language tests must be based on a clear
definition of language abilities, whether this
derives from a language teaching syllabus or a
general theory of language ability, and must
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utilize some procedure for eliciting language
performance. The language performance is not
only encouraged and promoted during the
language test but also in non-testing situation
(ibid).
To make it happens, alternative assessment is
seen as the answer of the problem which
usually follows the traditional assessment. The
problem of traditional assessment is
considered far from testing the holistic ability
in utilizing the language in real-life situation
because it is only focusing on the theory of the
English on a paper-pencil test which is usually
done in a particular time and considered as the
‘standardized’ test. It means that the
alternative is counter the traditional
assessment which allows the students to
assess their own learning process; the process
of assessing is mediated through social
interaction, communication, exchange of
views, and collaborative (Brown,2003: 251-
254).
Despite of testing on paper-pencil test,
alternative assessment is somewhat of a
blanket term that is often used to describe a
variety of alternatives to what is popularly
considered more “standardized” forms of
testing (Al-Mahrooqi and Denman, 2018: 1). It
is more student-centered forms of assessment
which are essentially different from the
conventional forms of testing (Rezaee et.al,
2013: 152-153). It allows assessment and the
instruction to continuously interact and there
by helping teachers to gain a clearer picture of
their learners’ abilities (Al-Mahrooqi and
Denman, 2018: 2).
According to the definitions of the assessment,
the conventional perception of test and
assessment is replaced by the modern one in
which it is more relaxing since it gives more
opportunity to the students to be more
alternative in doing the test and assessment.
The students’ performances in English are also
more developed and promoted. The students
are not taken away to perform their abilities
from the instruction during preparing and
doing the assessment because the assessment
is a part of the instruction itself. This situation
is quite far from the traditional assessment in
which students have less opportunity to foster
their language perfomance in doing the test
such as a paper-pencil test. Furthermore, as
stated by Al-Mahrooqi and Denman (2018:2)
that the picture of the students’ ability is
clearer, the result of the assessment can be
used as the feedback of teaching-learning
process. The result of the students’ works,
whether the teachers predict it or not, reflects
the instructions that the teachers do in the
classroom.
The Forms of Alternative Assessment
There are many forms of the alternative
assessment which can be conducted to get the
holistic abilities of the students in order to
promote the students’ autonomy, in one hand,
and get the feedback of the instruction, in the
other hand. Brown (2003: 254-280) proposes
the forms of this kind of assessment such as
performance-based assessment which “would
require the performance of the above-named
actions which would be systematically
evaluated through direct observation by a
teacher and/or possibly by self and peers and
implies productive, observable skills such as
speaking and writing, of content-valid tasks
and integration of language skills, perhaps all
four skills in the case of project work”;
portofolios which “are an expression of
students’ lives and identities” such as students’
essays and compositions, reports, project
outlines, poetry and creative prose, audio
and/or video recordings; journals which “are
the logs (or accounts) of one’s thoughts,
feelings, reactions, assessments, ideas, or
progress toward goals, usually written with
little attention to structure, form, or
correctness”; conferences and interviews
which “motivates students intrinsically since
the teacher plays the role of a facilitator and
guide, not of an administrator, of a formal
assessment and the students need to
understand that the teacher is an ally who is
encouraging slf-reflection and improvement”;
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observations which is done by the teachers
who observe the students’ performances
during the classes; self-and peer-assessments
which usually the teachers guide them in doing
this kind of alternative assessment through the
check-list sheets or other medias.
Rezaee et.al (2013: 152-153) support Brown’s
proposal of kinds of alternative assessment in
which they give the examples of the alternative
assessment forms as portofolios, interviews,
journals, project works, and self or peer
assessment.
The forms of assessment they (Brown and
Rezaee et.al) pursue foster the students to be
active in their learning process which is an
aspect of autonomous learning. Let’s take
examples of portofolio and project work.
Portofolios are designed to represent the
students’ best work and to show how students’
work has evolved over time while project
works demand the students to create a
product or conduct an activity relevant to the
subject (Robyn et.al, 1996: 29-30). From the
definitions of both forms, it means that the
alternative assessment allows the opportunity
to the students to decide their interests in
doing the assessment. It may also capture
authentic examples of the achievement of
complex outcomes by assessing and evaluating
higher level skills such as problem solving,
reflecting, synthesizing, and creative thinking
that are carried out in realistic contexts (Al-
Mahrooqi and Denman, 2018: 2).
Ornstein (1995) in Iakovos (2011: 84) argues
that to enhance students’ creative thinking,
there are several guidelines, and two of them
are to engage the students in tasks which
encourage them to apply exploration, testing,
searching, and prediction skills; and encourage
autonomous and independent learning. In
conducting the portofolio or project works, the
teachers foster the students’ creative thinking
because the students need to deliver their
ideas in the forms of those assessment. They
have to explore their abilities in order to show
their performance of the assessment.
It is in line with the statement of Rezaee et.al
(2013: 153) that the forms of alternative
assessment concentrate on the processing of
learning and use the assessment as a means at
the service of promoting student learning.
Again, the students are promoted to be more
autonomous in their learning by doing the
assessment since it deals with their best work.
Moreover, the students use their abilities to
complete the assessment where they use them
contextually. Baker (2010: 6) argues that the
term of alternative assessment is that the
assessment is more contextualized and either
simulate or use performance derived
everyday, non-school tasks. This kind of
assessment supports the purpose of language
instruction which is proposed in Assessment,
Articulation, and Accountability (1999: 16),
which is to prepare the students to use
language with cultural understanding and
knowledge in real-life context.
By giving the students alternative assessment
such as the project work, the teachers allow
the students to choose and decide by
themselves what they would like to make for
the project related to the subject. Benson
(2001) in Genc (2015: 24) points out that the
essence of genuinely autonomous behavior is
that it is self-initiated rather than generated in
response to a task in which the observed
behaviors are either explicitly or implicitly
required. It also delivers the students to keep
working not only during the instruction but
also after it. The students become the owners
of their learning process since this assessment
is a part of it.
The project work, e.g making a short movie,
can be executed both individually and in
groups but the most common one is
conducting it in groups. The groups allow the
students to colaborate each other to perform
their abilities in producing the works of the
groups. Besides giving them a chance to
socialize each other by doing the discussion
and the colaboration, the influence of the
peers both in the groups and the classroom
helps the students to be more autonomous
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due to the same goal to be achieved. Lee in Lai
(2017) states that learner autonomy is
constructed not only individually, but also
socially. In a positive way, peer influence can
actually motivate youth to study harder at
school (de Guzman, 2007). They may become
the master of their own learning process. They
combine their abilities in a form of product of
the assessment.
It provides easly understood information and
more integrative in the classroom (Alderson
and Banerjee, 2001: 228) and directed to be
more responsive and accountable testing to
individual learners (Mc Namara, 1998 in ibid).
Those can be the reasons for the teachers to
use the data of the assessment as a feedback
of the instructions that they have done
whether they need improvement or not.
Despite of the benefits of the assessment, still,
the alternative assessment meets challenges
that should be considered.
The Challenges in Running the Alternative
Assessment
Although alternative assessment is applicable
to foster the students’ autonomy, there is no
clear templates exist to guide the technical
practices of alternative assessment developers
(Linn, Baker, Dunbar (1991) in Baker, 2010: 2).
Dikli (2003) in Al-Mahrooqi and Denman
(2018:2) mentions that the issue of
subjectivity, reliability, and validity and the
large investment of time and energy are seen
as the challenges of the alternative assessment
that often require from teachers. Since the
assessment is about the holistic assessment of
the students’ performance in learning, it faces
difficulty in giving the standardized report of
the students’ works. Baker (2010: 10) argues
that the reports of the students’ performances
should be conditioned by data on instructional
exposure by giving them deeper and more
persistent meaning.
The scoring technique and the form of it on
students’ performances in this assessment
could be an obstacle for the teachers to
employ them in their instructions due to the
issues mentioned. Bakers (ibid: 11-13)
proposes how to make the assessment more
valid by forming the criteria. She states that the
internal validity criteria are the cognitive
complexity dealing with what is beyond
surface features that assessment demanded
by the measure; the meaningfulness of the
task which deals with the contextualization in
a setting which students are likely to
understand, and the clearance and the
expression in the language or symbols
generally accessible to students in the
dicipline; content quality which expresses
accurately and to prevailing standards; and
consquences & fairness.
Besides that, there is a chance faced by the
students to not show their best perfomances
on the assessment because the limitation of
the students’ knowledge of arranging the
assessment. Baker (ibid: 9) assumes that the
teachers have not taught the students to do
what they have to perform on the assessment
because of the unresponsive administration,
and so forth. In delivering the knowledge of
preparing them to do the assessment, the
teachers meet the limit time and the other
administration of the instruction. The teachers
are able to understand how to teach the
complex cognitive but do not do so for the
alternative assessment because of inhibiting
multiple choice tests (ibid) as the
‘standardized’ tests. To employ the
assessment in the instruction, all aspects of the
learning process take a part.
Conducting Alternative Assessment
To overcome the challenges in conducting the
alternative assessment, teachers may make
the criteria of the standards of the assessment
by giving a clear definition of the purpose of it.
Pitoniak et.al (2009: 8-9) pursue the steps to
conduct the assessment as below:
1. Test Purpose must be clear in order to
give a valid interpretations of the test
to be applied on the basis of the test
scores.
2. Defining the Construct is correlated to
the standard of the test given which is
made by the teachers.
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3. Developing the Assessment
Specifications which defines the test
content and explain how that content
will be assessed.
Those steps toward the validity and reliability
of the assessment given to the students which
can help them to be more autonomous in
doing the test; and help the teachers in doing
the scoring even though the subjectivity could
not be avoided but it can be less. In the scoring
form, the teachers can use the rubric or
checklist to help them assessing the students’
performances so that the teachers are able to
assess the holistic abilities on students’
performances.
Conclusion
To foster the students’ autonomy, it needs a
proper device in learning process as well as in
the assessment. The ‘standardized’ test is
considered as a conventional test due to
conveying the students’ authentic language
performance. Since the method of teaching is
developed, the assessment also follows it. To
give a better definition of students’ language
performance, the alternative assessment is
proposed to it.
The assessment is considered assessing the
holistic aspects of the students’ language
performance. It is also considered as a device
to foster the students’ autonomy since the
assessment is not taken away from the
instruction. The students have opportunities to
decide the best work they would perform in
language assessment as well as the interaction
to one each other because the assessment
demands them to work in and out of the class.
Although there are several benefits of the
assessment, the teachers face the challenges
in administering it. The issue of validity and
reliability haunts them to do it because of the
subjectivity of the teachers in giving the scores.
To avoid the problem, it is very cruicial to make
a clear definition of the purpose of assessment
that would be given to the students. The
teachers should also be aware in constructing
and developing the specifications of the
assessment. By doing so, the alternative
assessment is seen as an ideal assessment in
fostering the students’ autonomy on their
language performances.
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