Assessment of pupils' learning and achievement - types and functions of assessment.

School assessment refers to teaching, i.e. the process of learning and teaching, and its actors, i.e. teachers and pupils. It is an important component of communication between the actors of the teaching process and also between teachers and parents. Assessment in teaching is more than testing and examination; it is feedback to teachers and pupils. Its quality has a significant impact on pupils' learning and achievement and on the teacher's teaching. At the same time, we can say that a safe classroom climate and the quality of relationships are important determinants of how feedback is received by pupils from the teacher and classmates. School assessment affects not only the quality of the educational process and the development of the pupil's personality, but also the overall climate of the school, the classroom and the relationships between teacher and pupil, family and school.

Overall, therefore, teachers are expected to acquire certain knowledge, skills and attitudes that are part of psychodidactic, diagnostic and intervention competences (cf. Vašutová, 2004). School assessment is an expression of the professional competence of teachers who have the right and duty to responsibly assess, in collaboration with the pupil, the quality of the pupil's school performance and behaviour.

 School assessment takes place in the school environment in order to compare the results of teaching, i.e. the teacher's teaching activity and the pupil's learning activity, in relation to the intended goal. School-based assessment involves at least two people who should be in dialogue so that they can jointly view and improve the teaching and learning processes and their outcomes.

School assessment is part of the teacher's diagnostic activity in which the teacher, in collaboration with the pupil, ascertains the pupil's knowledge, skills, attitudes at a certain stage of his/her education in order to compare them with the desired state (goals) and formulate such evaluative statements that will stimulate the pupil to achieve this state (Kratochvílová, p. 21, 2011).

The relationship between assessment and the concept of education

Assessment is very closely linked to the overall concept of education in society and thus to the overall concept of the school and its philosophy. In a traditional school based on the transmission of knowledge, assessment was mainly aimed at finding mistakes and comparing pupils with each other; it was usually carried out at the end of a certain stage of learning and at a certain period of the school year when pupils' results were summarised.

Today's school prioritises the pupil's experience, the gradual construction of his or her knowledge and the formation of skills and attitudes, with the search for the meaning of learning together and the use of the acquired competences in practice. It is characterised by a largely diverse pupil population whose specificities and individual learning needs influence teaching strategies and assessment methods. For collaborative learning, assessment is understood holistically as the way in which teachers and others involved in assessment systematically obtain and use information about the level of student performance or the level of achievement in different areas of learning (academic, social, skills) that students have achieved (Watkins, 2007). Assessment in a diverse classroom community must be based on the values and principles of inclusion. If the school is changing, the way and approach to assessment must also change.

On the contrary, in the personal development approach to school education, assessment processes are carried out in cooperation with the learner, i.e. with the one who is involved in the learning process, who learns to assess the outcome and progress of his/her learning under the guidance of the teacher and to manage it gradually. Learning to monitor one's own work is an essential skill for independent, self-regulated lifelong learning. Teacher assessment is an important complement to learner self-assessment (autonomous assessment). This requirement is based on respect for the learner's personality and on the desire to work together to find the best possible teaching and learning strategies that contribute to effective learning.

Assessment is now no longer simply a means of assessing pupil achievement - assessment for learning (summative assessment), but is changing to assessment for learning (Assessment for Learning) (Butler, Mcmunn, 2006). Thus, it is not only a means but also a goal that helps the teacher and the learner to identify the results of performance and the learning process in order to enable the learner to develop further.

Assessment for Learning is often confused with formative assessment. Both types of assessment share a concern for the positive development of the learner's personality.

Formative assessment (continuous, corrective, feedback, work-based) expresses a different purpose than summative assessment. It provides the pupil with information during the learning process when his/her performance can be improved. It continuously reflects on his/her learning and contributes to his/her self-development. As stated by Starý and Laufková et al. (2016, p. 12), it is an assessment that provides useful information about the current state of the pupil's knowledge and skills. Useful means that the pupil will know in which his/her work is satisfactory or less satisfactory (qualitative component - criterion), to what extent it is satisfactory (quantitative component) and how to improve his/her performance. Promoters of formative assessment Black and Wiliam (1996) point out that for assessment to be formative, it must include the identification of the learner's performance against the objectives. This involves obtaining evidence of learning and interpreting it, evaluating the situation and providing appropriate information to bridge the gap between the current state and the expected state.  Formative becomes, according to the authors, an assessment that produces an effect, i.e. the feedback was useful. 

Assessment for Learning is a broader concept of assessment than formative assessment. It counts significantly on the learner himself in assessment (see the model of comprehensive developmental assessment in Kratochvílová, 2011). It is a process that involves:

(a) identifying what the learner has already learned and what needs to be further developed in relation to the stated goal,

b) providing descriptive feedback using the assessment criteria in order to improve the pupil's performance,

c) involving the pupil in the assessment (autonomous assessment),

d) mutual dialogue between teacher and pupil.

Assessment for Learning provides descriptive feedback to the learner during his/her learning, which is based on a variety of sources: from the teacher, from the learners themselves (autonomous assessment), from classmates in order to compare their work with the set criteria and expected outcomes. Assessment and self-assessment in a reciprocal relationship contribute to the development of the pupil's personality; they aim to improve his/her performance, not simply to control and summarise results. Pupils gain additional information that enables them to monitor their learning more closely, as well as the experience of giving descriptive feedback to others. Sharing together contributes to a deeper understanding of how the pupil is meeting the objectives. When a learner's self-assessment is given considerable attention and is used to self-manage the learner's learning, we talk about another type of assessment, Assessment as learning.

 Assessment as Learning (Hayward, 2015) is an assessment in which the pupil's self-assessment is the 'heart'. The learner as the link between assessment and learning: monitoring learning outcomes and managing their learning. Is able to use feedback in further development to plan learning objectives and manage their learning. Contributes significantly to the development of metacognitive skills according to Earl, L., M. (2013). It enables learners to ask reflective questions and consider different strategies for learning and action. (Critical thinking, personalised learning).

What assessment to use in the Czech environment?
 

Formative assessment is now the focus of interest for teachers and the Czech School Inspectorate.  School teachers pay a lot of attention to it in education, and principals educate entire "boardrooms". Unfortunately, its meaning is not always well grasped and understood. It is often confused with verbal assessment, the use of various symbols, emoticons, or any kind of continuous feedback on pupil performance. If you ask some teachers what formative assessment is, they will tell you that it is continuous assessment. However, this is not enough to get it right in practice. Without a deep understanding, it is merely a mechanical implementation of interesting methods and techniques, not a total transformation of the culture of teaching and learning and its connection to assessment. The question for the Czech environment is therefore what concepts to adopt and what culture of assessment of pupils' results to promote. It is also a question of what concept our teachers will accept with understanding and willingness to put the concept into practice. What they will not perceive as a forced implementation into their teaching from a foreign environment. We offer to discuss the use of the concept in the Czech environment to use the term assessment supporting learning (similarly abroad assessment for/as learning), or perhaps comprehensive developing assessment. Both terms suggest that it is about supporting the learner's learning. The use of the term formative assessment was also reconsidered by William Dylan. Today he would rather use responsive teaching or feedback as the basis for effective teaching (Hendrick, K. & Macpherson, R. (2019). 

We work with the starting point of authors Black and Williams (1996) who point to the meaning of formative and summative assessment, noting that the terms are not used for the assessment itself but for the function, the purpose for which they are intended. It is an overall "inquiry-based" approach that links teaching with learning and assessment (James, M., 1992, p. 4), and this approach is offered from the beginning in the scheme of the Czech named Comprehensive Developmental Assessment (see Figure 1, adapted from Kratochvilova, 2011), which supports learning (of both teacher and students) and also emphasizes the role of the student in the learning process and his/her self-assessment, which has been largely neglected. It is in line with the principles of Assessment for learning (James et al. 2007) and Assessment as learning (Hayward, 2015). Comprehensive developmental assessment goes back to the origins of the word assessment - assidere: to sit beside or with someone (Wiggins, 1993). Teacher and learner assessment are inextricably linked and it is important to consider a concept where this link and mutual synergy is strongest. Black and Wiliam (2018) also highlight the necessity of linking assessment to other aspects in teaching.

Comprehensive developmental assessment is based on a partnership relationship between teacher and learner and consists of activities where both actors in the educational process identify (monitor) the knowledge, skills, attitudes at a particular stage of the learner's learning in order to compare them with a desired state (goals) and jointly formulate such evaluative statements and implement such measures and personal goals that will stimulate the learner to achieve this state

 (e.g., the learning process).