Session Information
09 SES 06 A, Relating Assessment Policies and Performance Interpretations to School and Student Variables
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper builds on the work of Winter, Rimini, Soltanbekova and Tynybayeva (2014) that discusses the national standardized test for school leavers in Kazakhstan, the Unified National Test (UNT). The UNT not only acts as certification as part of Secondary School Attestation at the end of schooling in Grade 11 but also acts as selection for entry and funding for Higher Education. The position of this test in a National Qualifications Framework for Kazakhstan or the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) remains to be defined by the Kazakhstani Ministry of Education and Science (MLSP & MES, 2012). This seems out of kilter with Kazakhstan’s national report (EHEA, 2012) on its preparation of its Higher Education sector to be compliant to the Bologna Process. Furthermore, the discourse on pre-tertiary qualifications and appropriate assessment methods in that sector appears to be stalling that potentially dispenses with the previously proposed move from an 11-year to a 12-year schooling model (Kirgeyeva, 2015).
The broad aim of this research is, therefore, to examine whether Kazakhstan, as it enters a more international arena, can successfully have a mixed regime of assessment that operates a qualifications system in its Higher Education sector but uses national standardized testing as an entry point into that system? This leads onto the two overarching research questions: What are the common understandings of the purposes of assessment in Kazakhstan and are they being cohesively met with the current situation?
Black (1998, p35) proposes that assessment fulfils the following purposes: ‘formative to aid learning’; ‘summative for review, transfer and certification’; or ‘summative for accountability to the public’. Black (1998) also suggests that tensions between purposes are common. Drawing on the purposes of education identified by Black (1998), this paper focuses on Kazakhstani stakeholders’ constructs of the purposes of assessment. Further papers will follow to represent the wider context through more developed findings from Higher Education including an examination of the predictive validity of the UNT. Once the project has been completed, contrast between sectors and a fuller interpretation to satisfy the overall research objectives will be available. However, as an interim, this paper has merit in delivering understanding of the purposes of assessment, as seen in schools and more generally in the post-Soviet context of Kazakhstan where cultural differences to the Western constructs of assessment may be found.
A qualitative method appeared appropriate as first enquiry in capturing the understanding of stakeholders so, taking the UNT as the discussion focus; the three purposes of assessment (Black, 1998) were investigated through interviews with teachers, school principals and other stakeholders.
The research questions for enquiry into the purposes of assessment in Kazakhstan are listed below:
What are schools’ (teachers and principals), colleges’ (teachers and principals) and HE institutions’ (staff and undergraduate students) views on:
- how well the current assessment system reflects a student's success in learning the prescribed curricula in secondary education?
- the advantages and limitations of the current assessment system in comparison with other forms of school certification, university admission procedures and school improvement or accountability measures?
- how appropriate the current assessment system is as a national instrument to compare performances in terms of teachers' and schools' accountability?
- the extent that the current assessment system reflects the competences that students should acquire at the end of secondary education according to the EQF and as suitable preparation for a Bologna-Process compliant HE sector?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Black, P. (1998) Testing: Friend or Foe? Theory and Practice of Assessment and Testing, London, Falmer Press. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research In Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc. EHEA (2012) National Report regarding the Bologna Process implementation 2009-2012: Kazakhstan. European Higher Education Area: Retrieved 21st January 2015 from http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/National%20reports/Kazakhstan.pdf Kirgeyeva, E. (2015). The deputies of the Majilis offer giving up 12-year schooling. News article published January 14th 2015 online by Kazakstan Pravda. Retrieved 21st January 2015 from http://www.kazpravda.kz/en/news/view/majilis-deputies-offer-giving-up-12-yr-schooling MLSP, & MES (2012). On approval of the National Qualifications Framework: Joint Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated September 24, 2012 № 373 and the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated September 28, 2012 № 444. Retrieved 21st January 2015 from http://adilet.zan.kz/rus/docs/V1200008022#z7 Winter, L., Rimini, C., Soltanbekova, A., & Tynybayeva, M. (2014). The culture and practice of assessment in Kazakhstan: the United National Test, past and present, in D. Bridges (Ed.), Educational Reform and Internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.