Article Review: Validity & Reliability

Here is a link to the article reviewed: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343108075_Balancing_the_demands_of_validity_and_reliability_in_practice_Case_study_of_a_changing_system_of_primary_science_summative_assessment

Summary

In order to create assessments that accurately reflect student learning, teachers should know why the assessment is needed. The article opens with background information on the topic, the author’s reasoning behind the chosen title, and what the focus of the article is about in relation to the topic (Earle, 2017). Readers are reminded that validity and reliability need to be balanced in an assessment, and teachers need to choose which assessments need to be higher in validity or higher in reliability because no assessment will be high in both (Earle, 2017). Determining what information students have retained would warrant higher reliability, but providing students different options for an assessment would warrant higher validity.

Every teacher is responsible for analyzing assessments for validity and reliability. An entire school can analyze their practices, but the teacher is most immediately responsible. The teacher is the one determining which activities are conducted in the classroom and for what purpose (Earle, 2017). The article urges teachers to assess student learning in multiple ways. Alternating assessment strategies increases the variety so that the validity and reliability fluctuate enough to show a more balanced report of student learning. Teachers should regularly share their curriculum objectives and assessments to challenge each other to be better; they should ask staff members at meetings for ideas on how to engage students better, which in turn helps them to retain information and succeed on their assessments (Earle, 2017).

The article as a whole focuses on assessment choices (Earle, 2017). Some assessments are higher in validity while some are higher in reliability. Teachers should determine which assessment best helps the students learn and shows their level of understanding.

Analysis

Balancing assessment directly impacts instruction. I greatly appreciated the paragraph about balancing validity and reliability. My expectation was to read different types of marked assessments (quizzes, tests, papers, projects), but the paragraph focuses on formative assessments guised as activities. I agree that teachers make decisions in class that directly impact assessment, but I liked how the article emphasized the reverse. A lot of teacher training materials focus on instruction and activities, but I also need to be careful to consider a variety of assessments and how they will impact my instruction. The article suggests real examples, which I believe would help students learn better because they would be more engaged and see the relevance more.

Reflection

Sharing my assessment ideas with my peers increases my own reliability as a teacher. It never occurred to me how valuable sharing my grade level standards and objectives as well as created assessments with fellow teachers would be to my own personal development as a teacher. I loved how the very end of the article said balanced assessments increase student and teacher learning. Assessments are as much for the teacher as they are for the student. If I truly want to see how much my students understand, then I need to strategically create assessments, formative and summative, that help them and me determine their level of understanding. I also believe that sharing ideas with various coworkers will help me better determine which assessments (whether marked or activities) I should choose to best match a specific purpose.

References

Earle, S. (2017). ‘But I’ve not got time for any more assessment’: balancing the demands of validity and

reliability. Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching.