An impossible and senseless burden on students memories
Opinion piece: Independent 13th August 2018
Dr. Denise Burns, Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection, DCU
“An impossible and senseless burden on students’ memories.”
This was the conclusion of a report published in 1970 which investigated nine subjects in the 1967 Leaving Cert. A more comprehensive study I completed in Trinity College in 2016, analysed the exam papers for 23 subjects over six years, and came to a similar conclusion. The 1970 report called for reform of the Leaving Cert assessment but nearly 50 years later little change has occurred. The 2016 study considered the exam papers for the intellectual skills that the written papers intended to assess and interviewed thirty students who had just completed the exam for the actual experiences during the examinations. Both the analysis of the exam papers and the interviews of students indicated that, while some subjects required problem solving and creativity, recall of information was the dominant skill involved. This study provided evidence for the folk wisdom that the Leaving Cert is “rote learning and memory recall.” This is not to suggest that rote learning is inferior or inadequate, but rather, the issue is the dominance of rote learning to the detriment of the development of other intellectual skills.
The students said that their preparation for the exams was predicting the questions, preparing answers and learning them off. It is completely understandable that teachers and students use this method of preparation as it gets results. This method also contributes to the socio-economic divide in Leaving Cert achievement as families that cannot afford grinds are disadvantaged. Students also expressed a great deal of anxiety at the volume of information they had to memorise and were dismayed when they could not recall details. On the other hand, students expressed a great deal of satisfaction when the exam task involved problem-solving, originality or creativity.
While we can all acknowledge that the sole purpose of second level education is not preparation for third level, the adjustment for students moving from second level to third must be significant. Most students are 19 or 20 years of age when then make this move and this is a very important time of intellectual development. Lecturers at third level note student expectations of being “spoonfed” as students want information that they can learn and recall. DCU puts an emphasis on innovation and creativity and some students adjust very well to that and others do not. We need more research on the experience of first-year students at third level.
Last February the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment initiated another review of the Leaving Cert. The Council published proposals for reform of the Leaving Cert assessment in 2004 but their proposals were not implemented. Why is reform of assessment so slow? One factor is consultation. We have an admirably high value on consultation with all interested parties. The recent attempt at reform of the Junior Cert assessment was an example of proposals that were very significantly “watered down” after the consultation process. To have a quality debate about proposed reform, we all need to be well informed on what is being proposed so the debate does not resort to misinformation, misunderstanding and slogans.
A crux of proposed assessment reform has been the issue of school-based assessment which has been included in past proposals as it facilitates assessment of a wide range of skills. The debate over the Junior Cert reform demonstrated much misunderstanding of just what school-based assessment involves. Yes, it means teachers assess their own students in oral presentations, in laboratory skills, in written papers, in test conditions in many different ways. This is a huge challenge for teachers who have prepared students for exams by predicting questions and preparing answers. It involves a change in teachers’ professional identity. But the challenge can be immensely rewarding for teachers. I worked in education in Queensland, Australia, from 1972 to 1992 when the Leaving Cert assessment was totally school-based. I experienced the huge growth in teacher professionalism as teachers became expert in the whole range of assessment issues, such as test methods, marking issues etc. My experience and research indicate that, for school-based assessment to be implemented effectively, three factors are necessary: trust in the professionalism of second level teachers, adequate professional development for teachers, and an effective structure for comparability of standards. Do we trust our second level teachers to assess their students? We trust our third level lecturers to assess their students.
Along with the consultation process, a second factor in the slowness of assessment reform is resourcing. Significant professional development for teachers and a system of comparability of standards requires resourcing. Do we have the political will to allocate the necessary resources to reform of the Leaving Cert? We owe it to our young people to provide an assessment system that promotes quality of learning and that stimulates and challenges our young people to develop their intellectual skills at this crucial time of their growth.