The lessons referred to here are rooted in a qualitative study in which I explored the classroom assessment practices of a group of mathematics teachers. More than the actual practices themselves, I am primarily interested in teasing out what teachers' everyday classroom assessment realities can tell us about the local ongoing assessment reform exercise for which energy, time and resources have been invested.
The Maltese educational system has traditionally promoted the 'talented' few at the expense of the rest who are basically left to face humiliation and neglect. This sad reality has fed, possibly to the present day, on the mistaken conviction that the 'abler' students would later be able to 'put most of what they learnt back' into the economy.
As a result, in spite of the recent increases in student numbers at post-secondary and tertiary levels, Malta still lags behind most EU countries. Suffice it to say that only 37 per cent of 18-year-olds in Malta were still in education in 2000 compared to the EU-15 figure average of 75 per cent of 75% (European Commission, 2005a), and in 2004 the number of Maltese aged 20 to 24 who had completed upper secondary education stood at 48 per cent (the lowest in the EU) whereas the EU target for 2010 is 85 per cent (European Commission, 2005b).
Within our still highly differentiated educational system, students are continually being 'weeded out' of mainstream education by means of a high-stakes examination system that is supposedly meritocractic.
Research evidences however that this 'selection' - a term that is becoming increasingly anachronistic as far as assessment is concerned - is based on reasons that are not related to education (eg. social class - see Sultana, 1995; date of birth - see Borg & Falzon, 1995, and Borg, Falzon & Sammut, 1995; and gender - see Darmanin, 1992). Little wonder then that Ventura and Murphy (1998) have defined our educational system as 'intrinsically inequitable'.
Particularly problematic in this respect is the local form of schooling that is solely geared towards the achievement of good academic results. Self-esteem in Malta appears to be linked with examination performance. For we tend to value ourselves and others tend to value us on the basis of examination results (Chetcuti & Griffiths, 2002).
Apart from causing excessive stress among teachers, students and parents alike, our examination-oriented schooling process is very likely to channel teachers towards 'teaching to the test' in an effort to increase the pass rates of their students and, at the same time, defend their school's and their own reputations.
"Tomorrow's Schools" (Wain et al., 1995), a report that examined local educational policies and practices, highlighted the disastrous consequences of this 'test-like' teaching reality. In particular, it warned that the overloaded curricula, in conjunction with the local over-emphasis on examination achievement, are promoting a culture of coverage as opposed to understanding and a classroom pedagogy aimed primarily at short-term targets.
Instead of promoting independent and creative thinking, such a system - which invariably privileges memory and the storage of information - encourages what Bartolo (1997) calls a 'culture of mimicry'. This is characterised by students, even the best ones, being very good at reproducing what they have read in books, but finding it difficult then to analyse and apply knowledge to real-life situations.
Assessment earmarked for reform
This appalling and potentially disastrous situation (at personal, social and economic levels) has led to numerous calls over the years for the reform of our school system. Following a period of 'incubation', it now appears that we have forged a wide consensus about the vision ahead.
For the people who help define educational policy in Malta - be they politicians, Education Division officials, teacher educators or the Malta Union of Teachers - agree in principle on the key issues of quality education for all, the need for more students to continue with their education beyond mandatory school age, curricular breadth at pre-university level, and the need to render assessment practices more formative at school level.
Possibly also due to our realisation of the economic foolhardiness that underpins 'human wastage', it is now standard practice to have official policy documents, legislation and other forms of communication reaching schools and teachers harping, among others, about the need for social inclusion, the holistic development of students, and learning as a lifelong process.
A reformed assessment process has in the meantime been projected as one of the main keys for achieving this 'revolution'. The question however remains as to whether it is possible to achieve this change in local educational culture simply through an improvement in assessment.
The assessment changes, especially at classroom level, that have been proposed (and which are now supposedly being implemented) reflect our evolving understanding of what learning actually entails (see Buhagiar, 2005).
The realisation that learners are constructors rather than recipients of knowledge, apart from drastically de-emphasising the transmission aspect of teaching and promoting teachers as facilitators of learning, has led to the emergence of an alternative assessment paradigm that links assessment to helping students learn.
This is in direct contrast to the traditional 'assessment of learning' model that links assessment to classifying and grading students, primarily by means of tests and examinations.
The newly emerging assessment culture is now generally known as 'assessment for learning'. Students and teachers are basically being called to interpret classroom evidence, ideally obtained collaboratively in recognition of the need for students to take responsibility over their own learning, in order to decide where the students are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to go there.
This is indeed the spirit behind the important formulation of Principle 9 of the 3-16 NMC (Ministry of Education, 1999) that calls for 'a more formative assessment' in local schools. Maltese teachers, including the participants in my study, are thus operating within a context that is purportedly guided by this vision.
The study
Using a research methodology that draws on ethnography, the data gathering process - which spread over a three-year period - used document analysis, observations and interviews to gain an understanding into the daily experiences, particularly with regards to classroom assessment, of a group of mathematics teachers.
The teaching style used by these teachers, apart from generally adhering to the 'talk and chalk' modality that characterises teaching as a transmission process, can be normally subdivided into three easily recognisable separate segments, with one phase following the other.
These are exposition (ie. teacher presents theory and solution methods and students take down notes), practice (i.e., students work questions to practise the solution methods) and consolidation (i.e., teacher clarifies students' difficulties). Their assessment practices complemented this traditional classroom scenario. It was found that, generally speaking, their assessment practices:
¤ lack an effective educational base (practices derive mostly from personal and collective experiences).
¤ pursue traditional forms and approaches to teaching (traditional assessment approaches are primarily used to check if what the teacher is 'transmitting' has been 'captured' by the students).
¤ emphasise non-professional functions (assessment is largely used to judge student performances and to prepare students for examinations).
¤ are firmly in teachers' hands (students are on the receiving end of assessment).
¤ are characterised by collegial isolation (almost complete lack of assessment collaboration among teachers).
¤ are not well integrated with teaching and learning (little emphasis on using assessment to help students learn).
¤ provide teachers with surface knowledge of students (teachers get to know very little about their students' learning).
¤ provide students and outsiders with limited feedback (teachers keep to themselves most of what they learn about their students' learning).
Overall, the study indicates an assessment reality that remains alien to the emerging view of assessment that is primarily at the service of learning. In particular, the participating teachers - who generally see themselves as competent assessors and see no, or little, reason for doing things differently - appear to link quality assessment mostly with adequate monitoring of and timely support to the notion of teaching as transmission and learning as practice.
Again, their proven ability to fairly predict students' examination results was often projected as proof of the quality of their assessments.
Policy implications
Much along the lines reported elsewhere in Malta (see Grima & Chetcuti, 2003) and in other countries (see Black & Wiliam, 1998), the teachers' classroom assessment practices identified in my study appear to be largely 'untouched' by the numerous calls to bring classroom assessment primarily at the service of learning.
This study consequently suggests that in spite of the many published policy documents, media communications and ensuing legislation, the much publicised reform process has probably still not reached where it matters most - that is, the teacher/classroom level.
Not only have the classroom practices of the teachers studied remained practically unchanged, but these teachers also appear to be largely unfamiliar with and/or unmoved by the spirit of the intended reforms.
Indeed, they are largely convinced of their practices and have no intention to drastically change them. By itself, this finding sheds important insights on the current implementation strategy of the local reform process in which 'assessment for learning' features prominently.
It emerges clearly that improved policies, even if backed by legislation, do not necessarily lead to improved practices.
There is not even the guarantee that teachers actually get to know the details of the new policies, let alone understand and desire them. The top-down local practice of having a few 'experts' drawing a policy document on the initiative of the Education Minister and only subsequently organising meetings, among others, with teachers to primarily convince them of its worth (the latest example is the school networking exercise) does not appear to be bearing fruit.
In reality, one reform seems to follow another with very little to show at classroom level. It may even well be that when teachers, as in my study, largely fail to appreciate the intended reform vision and make it their own, they are very likely to see any proposed changes as 'senseless impositions' by classroom outsiders.
This does not augur well for the eventual success of the reform, irrespective of how good and well intentioned it may be. The much-needed assessment reform in Malta stands a better chance of success if its policies are embedded within teacher, school and national contexts that support rather than suppress it (see Buhagiar, 2004). But this does not appear to be presently the case.
Dr Buhagiar teaches at the Junior College and is an Associate Member of the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research (EMCER) at the University of Malta.
References
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