Review by: Hasanbegovic, Jasmina (2006-01-24)

This article highlights the growing importance of assessment as an integral part of the learning process and presents the most relevant developments in this area connecting them with recent research into learning lasting for life. New methods of instruction and new learning environments demand the reconceptualisation of current tests and assessments. Research and practice fail if assessment is not congruent with the instructional goals. The author helps to discard assessment primarily as a means to determine measures and thus certification. He introduces an assessment culture in which potential benefits of assessing impact all stages of learning and transforms "assessment into a tool for learning".

First, the author outlines the main characteristics of this new assessment culture. Referring to the results of a recent conducted meta- analysis and other research findings he discusses then important issues of the assessment culture, such as the effects of the new learning environments from the angle of assessment:

He points out that innovative learning environments which introduce constructive principles have to adapt the assessment practice to the heart of the matter, that means to focus "the application of knowledge" when solving problems to be able to succeed. Faced with powerful effects of assessment which refer to the learning effects and the consequential validity of assessment (pre-assessment effects, post-assessment effects), assessment should be designed strategically to have educationally sound and positive influences. Moreover, the focus should be laid on small scale classroom assessment instead of large scale high stakes testing. He also emphasises, that the use of summative assessment squeezes out assessment for learning and has a negative impact on student motivation.

His literature and research review on students' approaches reveal that the learning approach has a strong relation to the student's assessment perception as well as assessment scores. But the research results do not confirm the relation of a deep learning approach to higher achievement. Students' deep learning approaches are not significantly positively related to academic achievement, students' surface approaches are not necessarily significantly related to assessment scores.

The author seeks after an answer for this mismatch of research results by taking assessment preferences and perceptions of students into account. Research on students' assessment preferences and perceptions focus on the format of assessment and its' relationship with students' approaches to learning. Research results show that differences in assessment preferences correlate with differences in learning strategies or determine the students' perceptions, but again it seems very hard to foster deep learning. As a possible explanation for these findings, he refers to the concept of study orchestration as the contextualised study approach adopted by individual students or group of students. Especially, the students' perceptions of 1) the clarity of goals, 2) the appropriateness of the workload and 3) the usefulness of the literature influence students' learning strategies.

After discussing main problems in assessment research, the author specifies some of the emerging developments like blended assessment, assessment engineering and competence-based learning. Finally, he gives some comments and recommendations for assessment research and practice.

To sum up, this article gives insight into a very important educational field and its related problems. However, if assessment as "a method tool for learning" should be realised, the research on assessment has to change direction itself. It is not enough to only change the type of assessment for innovative environments and analyse the learning effects. Research on assessment should also ask for what specific learning result or goal what learning method ought to be introduced. Deep learning as a learning goal demands to search for appropriate assessment methods and includes a design-based research design. Otherwise, research keeps focused on very abstract learning effects which are not useful for practice.