subject: Holistic Assessment in High School Physics [print this page] The purpose of this article is to discuss that assessment in physics education must be carried out holistically using three essential assessment components. These three essential components are diagnostic, formative and summative methods. They should be used together to form a holistic judgment of student achievement.
The Importance of Student Reflection on Assessment
There is an enormous amount of value to promote reflective student practice when learning physics. Invariably students are passive about their learning and rarely go beyond the boundaries of what is being taught within a classroom. It must be acknowledged that there are a very small number of students that reflect on what they are told and believe that the assessing to confirm understanding is one step to breaking down this pattern of comfortable mediocrity. The assessment components provide holistic opportunities to encourage student reflective practise.
Strategies to Assess Holistically
From a pragmatic teaching viewpoint it is useful to identify specific teaching strategies and how these strategies link to an assessment component. It is also important to realize that there are a host of other classroom based generic strategies which can be modified and used for each assessment component. These components of assessment, with specific strategies, are described as:
Diagnostic
open questioning
brainstorming
quiz or puzzle
Formative
answering teacher's questions verbally
co-operative problem solving
writing or calculating and answer to a problem
clarification of concepts through discussions
Summative
examination
practical assessment
oral assessment
written assignment
Furthermore it can be argued that if any form of one particular assessment is used too frequently it will no longer be valid. Therefore a range of assessment strategies are essential to promote better learning. Therefore this discussion argues that for a holistic assessment in physics education we must use a variety of assessment strategies from all three assessment components.
Holistic Judgments from Student Evidence
There may be valid examples of evidence that the student has provided, both diagnostically and formatively, that can confirm that they understand the material that is being taught. This evidence may be needed because a mistake was made during a summative assessment. For example the evidence may have not been provided for the correct units with the numerical answer of a calculation. Is this a genuine omission or does the student not realize the importance of providing the units? It is likely that if the student could look at the problem again he could tell the assessor exactly what is wrong. The student could then provide the correct units either verbally or in written form. He may have also calculated the problem during a tutorial and provided evidence of the correct units during this formative assessment activity.
This article states that using all three assessment components are essential to probing understanding and therefore promoting better learning in physics education. It is important to also realize that there are limitations to any form of assessment, including over assessing, and because of this there is a need for ongoing discussion. The limitations of the different assessment strategies and the need for further dialogue may be discussed in a future articles.
In summary what is recommended is an educational assessment program that uses all the three assessment components to gather just enough evidence to form a holistic judgment on student achievement.
Further Reading.
Redish, E., Saul, J., & Steinberg, R. Students Expectations in Introductory Physics. Dept. of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 1997.
Osborne, J., & Freeman, J. Teaching Physics. A guide for the non-specialist. Cambridge, University Press, 1997.
