15 Assessment for
Learning in Hong Kong
Conceptions, Issues and Implications
Rita Berry
INTRODUCTION
Hong Kong has a long history of using formal, high-stakes summative tests
as the sole assessment method to make decisions on individuals’ educational
upward movements, employment opportunities and social mobility.
Standardized tests and examinations are set at diff erent stages in the education
system as the screening device. To survive this exam-oriented system,
a common practice is to teach and learn to the tests. Many teachers review
past examination papers, make educated guesses on the questions for the
examinations, provide students with model answers and make them memorize
the answers by heart. This kind of rote learning suppresses thinking
and minimizes creativity. Being aware of these problems, the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region (SAR) government has taken bold initiatives
to make a change. These include the large-scale attempt in reforming learning
and assessment practice using the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC)
and its linked Target Oriented Assessment (TOA) in the 20th century and
the Assessment for Learning (AfL) movements in the education reform in
the 21st century. The focus of these two main initiatives has been to make
assessment work for learning, as refl ected in the concepts of AfL (used
interchangeably with formative assessment) (Berry, 2011b).
The fundamental principle of AfL is making a strong connection
between assessment and learning. Being an integral part of the curriculum,
pedagogy and assessment cycle, assessment is used to induce, promote and
advance learning. It helps teachers to monitor student learning, identify
the learning needs of the students during their learning progression and,
when the needs have been identifi ed, provide direction or feedback to the
students in the steps to be taken to enhance learning. Students’ involvement
in the assessment activities is taken seriously, as they are the main players
of learning. The information gathered from assessment is interpreted and
with the new understanding of student learning, decisions can be made on
diff erent educational levels including adjustment of teaching content and
activities, modifi cation of curriculum plans and amendment of policies.
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THE ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING LANDSCAPE IN HONG KONG
In the last two decades, the call in education worldwide for a change of
assessment culture has been echoed by some AfL advocates in Hong Kong.
These advocates criticized that the then prevailing curricula in Hong Kong
schools were primarily academic, teacher- and textbook-centred and driven
by high-stakes, norm-referenced examinations. Biggs (1996), for example,
criticized that, for years, educators had based their assessment practices on
assumptions inappropriately adopted from psychology and from the testing
establishment. He drew people’s attention to the education function
of assessment—using assessment as the means to support learning. The
SAR government responded positively to the AfL movements. In the 1990s,
the government introduced the TOA in its large-scale curriculum reform.
The TOA was the assessment component of the TOC. Based on the TOC
Assessment Guidelines (Education Department [ED], 1998), Morris et al.
(1999) elaborate the purposes and characteristics of TOA, as follows:
Purposes of target-oriented assessment:
Target-oriented assessment is an integral part of the Target Oriented
Curriculum. Its fundamental purpose is to promote learning. TOA
involves:
making considered judgement of learner performance, based on
explicitly stated criteria;
recognizing learners’ strengths and areas for improvement in learning;
and
assisting learners to make further progress and charting the
changes in their learning.
TOA allows for continuity in assessment of learner progress which
can be monitored and supported over time, within and across stages.
Characteristics of target-oriented assessment:
Target-oriented assessment
is based on criterion-referencing principles;
is valid and reliable;
covers a comprehensive range of purposeful and contextualized
assessment activities and reporting strategies;
requires teachers to include a range of well-planned assessment
activities and recording/reporting formats in the teaching/learning
plan; and
acknowledges that the complexity of learner performance cannot
be described by a single test score.
These characteristics highlight the integration of teaching, learning &
assessment and holistic learning in TOC. (p.3)
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This government-led TOC was a large-scale attempt to link assessment
with learning. It was a form of outcome-based education in which students
progressed towards specifi c learning targets through carrying out learning
tasks (Morris and Adamson, 2010). TOA required teachers to record
students’ learning outcomes in a highly detailed fashion, which teachers
generally found very tedious, diffi cult and too time-consuming to conduct.
The formative assessment initiatives of TOC were unfortunately not well
received despite their good intentions. Though perceived as unsuccessful,
the AfL concepts embedded in the TOC were regarded as theoretically
sound and were promoted heavily in the education reform conducted in the
21st century.
Since 2000, the SAR government has embarked on a new round of education
reform, which highlights assessment as key for learning. In its document
Learning for Life—Learning through Life (Education Commission
[EC], 2000), the government points out the inadequacies of the existing
education system, saying that the learning eff ectiveness of students remains
not very promising and that learning is still examination-oriented and scant
attention has been paid to “Learning to Learn”. The Curriculum Development
Council (CDC, 2002) advises that all schools should review their current
assessment practices and put more emphasis on AfL and that teachers
should seek to identify and diagnose student learning problems and provide
quality feedback for students on how to improve their work. The council,
in its most recent published assessment guidelines (CDC, 2009), stresses the
strong linkage between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The guidelines
point out that assessment involves collecting evidence about student
learning and interpreting information and making judgements about students’
performance with a view to providing feedback to students, teachers,
schools, parents, other stakeholders and to the education system.
Two new initiatives were included in this new round of assessment
reform, including the implementation of Basic Competency Assessment
(BCA) for primary and junior secondary education and school-based
assessment (SBA) solely for secondary education. Both of them are used as
vehicles to drive AfL forward (Berry, 2011c). BCA covers three subjects,
namely, English Language, Chinese Language and Mathematics. It consists
of two components—Student Assessment (SA) and the Territory-Wide System
Assessment (TSA). SA is a resource bank provided through the internet
for the purpose of assisting teachers to identify the learning strengths
and weaknesses of their students. With the information obtained, teachers
could then organize or reorganize their teaching to enhance learning in
students. TSA is conducted by the government, collecting information from
students at the end of their primary 3, primary 6 and secondary 3 schooling.
This kind of assessment takes the paper-and-pencil mode except for the
oral assessment component of English Language and Chinese Language.
Only a random sample of students is involved in these assessments. The aim
of these assessments is to help the government review policies and provide
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focused support to schools. The government stresses that BCA is low stakes
in nature, aiming at using assessment to enhance teaching and learning
(Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority [HKEAA], n.d.[a]).
However, school personnel see this diff erently, criticizing that these are the
strategies the government uses to close down schools which perform poorly
in the TSA. To help students achieve better results in the TSA, many teachers
use the assessment items in the SA resource bank to ‘drill’ their students
instead of using them to support learning.
SBA, formative in nature, is an assessment conducted by the teachers at
secondary schools. SBA is a salient feature of the Hong Kong Diploma of
Secondary Education (HKDSE) examination, fi rst administered in 2012.
HKDSE is a high-stakes public examination which students take at the end
of their six-year secondary schooling (new 3+3+4 education structure—six
years of secondary and four years of tertiary). In the HKDSE, all the 24
subjects include an SBA component (Berry, 2008, pp.34–36, table 2.4).
In this new curriculum and assessment structure, SBA is treated as a part
of the public examination system. Marks are collected from students by
various types of assessment methods over a period of time in their secondary
school and will count towards the total marks of the certifi cation
system in Hong Kong. The contribution to the summative measurement
varies from subject to subject, from 15% to 50% (HKEAA, n.d.[b]). The
government sees the potential of SBA in enhancing t