Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.

Assessment plays an important role in the teaching-learning process and it is a powerful tool for enhancing student achievement and facilitating societal progress (Broadfoot and Black, 2004; Hodges et al., 2014). In this twenty-first century, innovative technologies have the potential to deliver better quality educational assessments that are more useful for teachers and that more readily benefit student learning (Koomen and Zoanetti, 2018). This view is echoed by Gonski (2018) who urges educators to “use new technology not for its own sake, but to adopt ways of working that are more efficient and effective” (p. 99). Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.Beyond commonplace technologically-supported survey methodologies, numerous new technologies offer exciting opportunities for educational assessment. These include touch screens with drag and drop and multi-touch features, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), robots, and behavioral monitoring (e.g., voice recognition, eye gaze, face recognition, touchless user interface). It is at this nexus where innovative education theory, psychology, computer science, and engineering can combine to optimize classroom assessment practices and provide clear links between assessment, teaching, and learning.

The present review examines technology in classroom assessment from the perspective of students, educators, and administrators. Classroom assessment refers to a practice wherein teachers use assessment data from a variety of tools or products to document and enhance student learning (Randel and Clark, 2013). While commonly used tools include teacher-made tests, the current review focuses on externally produced standardized tests by national, state, and district level assessment developers as well as commercial developers. Assessment can be conceptualized in two ways: as facilitating the learning process and as summarizing the current state of knowledge in students. Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.Technology has the potential to enhance both applications. Moreover, technology offers significant advantages across the different stages of assessment, from test administration to linking data to the curriculum. However, concerns in using technology-based assessment have also been raised around developmental appropriateness, item development, psychometric validation, and teacher training. The present review examines these issues, with a focus on technology-based assessment for education in the early years. The early childhood classroom, for the purposes of this review, includes kindergarten and the preparatory year. In some regions, early childhood may also refer to the 2 years prior to and the year following kindergarten. Following an overview of assessment processes in education, we examine the use of technology in assessment before concluding with future areas in need of development.

 

Understanding Assessment Processes in Education

In the educational context, assessment is broadly conceptualized as an ongoing process of gathering evidence of learning, interpreting it, and acting on this evidence to improve future learning and performance (Stiggins, 2002; Bennett, 2011). In this respect, assessment is understood as a social-cultural practice or activity (Broadfoot and Black, 2004; Looney et al., 2018; Silseth and Gilje, 2019). It is embedded in the teaching and learning process which is mediated by the tools used in assessment. Furthermore, the processes used in assessment are closely linked with the social interaction of learners and teachers, with the construction of knowledge achieved by a novice-expert relationship. The quality and individualized feedback to students is also integral to the process (Sadler, 1989; Heritage, 2007). As such, assessment that incorporates both social and individualized perspectives is likely to help student learning (Hodges et al., 2014). Successful assessment systems of the future will closely embody the needs and perspectives of teachers and their students.

The application of assessment within this broader framework generally falls within three categories, namely diagnostic assessment, summative assessment, and formative assessment. These three types are distinguished by their purposes, timing, to whom they are administered, and in test construction and design. However, there can be instances when the same test is used for more than one application, which may not necessarily be appropriate if the test was not designed for this. Diagnostic assessments are designed to thoroughly assess achievement in a given domain and all relevant subdomains. Diagnostic reading tests, for example, assess children’s phonological awareness, graphophonemic knowledge, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Diagnostic tests are administered to individuals who are struggling to learn or who have been deemed at-risk of academic failure. Results from well-designed diagnostic tests help inform educators and special educators what to teach and how to teach. Because diagnostic tests are usually designed to classify students and to determine access to special services, they are rigorously developed and administered in ways that assure that the test scores and their interpretation have high degrees of reliability, validity, and fairness. As such, they are lengthy and often require some expertise on the part of the assessor.

Summative assessments are designed to quantify how much one has achieved to date in a given academic domain and their purpose is assessment of learning (AoL). Summative assessments are standardized tests that are usually administered to all students in a given grade, school, school district, state, or country. AoL occurs at a specific point in time where achievement to date is to be quantified. This is typically at the end of an academic school year, completion of a course, or immediately following an intervention program. Examples include final exams, school district administered standardized tests, the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) [Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2013]. Results from summative assessments may be shared with students, parents, teachers, administrators, and evaluators. These consumers use the indices of overall student achievement to make evaluative judgements against predetermined standards. In recent years, AoL is being increasingly used for high stakes accountability purposes (Stiggins, 2002; Heritage, 2007). For example, in much of the United States, AoL data are used to rank order public schools, determine teacher and principal salaries, decide whether to retain or terminate principals and school district administrators, determine the need for third party takeover of public schools, and defund publicly funded early childhood education programs (Darling-Hammond, 2004; Neal, 2011).

Formative assessments are designed to efficiently measure how well students are responding to instruction in a specific subdomain of achievement and to indicate if instructional modifications are warranted. Their purpose is assessment for learning (AfL). AfL does not aim to quantify overall achievement. Instead, its purpose is to generate data useful for guiding instruction. That is, AfL has a focus on the integration of assessment activities into the teaching and learning process. In AfL, test results provide immediate feedback to teachers and students about how much of the recently taught material has been learned. The results are used by teachers to inform lesson planning (Sadler, 1989). Wiliam (2011) notes that educators who use formative assessment must have a strong understanding of what the learner knows, where the learner is going, and how to get there. The feedback afforded to educators and students through AfL serves to guide the learner through individualized teaching approaches that optimize student learning (Wiliam, 2011). It helps students improve as they work to attain higher levels of performance to create new knowledge and highlights the important relationship between classroom assessment practice, learning, and use of assessment evidence to guide instruction.

Early identification, targeted instruction, monitoring of children’s learning, and data-driven instructional changes are key components of programs that close achievement gaps. AfL takes many forms and can inform each of these components. For example, for educators to provide targeted instruction, a student’s mastery of taught skills and their (sub)domain specific learning must be regularly assessed to determine progress toward desired outcomes. Skills mastery tests, traditionally called curriculum-based measures, are one form of AfL and tests assess the extent to which a child has learned specific skills taught in a given curriculum. Skills mastery tests are brief, closely linked to the curriculum, and administered frequently (e.g., weekly spelling tests). Students’ performance on skills mastery tests helps educators appropriately pace their progress through a given curriculum. These tests are necessary but not sufficient for guiding instruction because mastery of a particular skill does not necessarily lead to mastery of that academic domain or subdomain (Fuchs, 2004; Shapiro et al., 2004; VanDerHeyden, 2005). For example, a student who can read “-at” word families may still have difficulty reading a passage that incorporates a variety of rhymes and word structures.

A useful AfL approach includes both mastery tests and General Outcome Measures (GOM; Deno, 1985, 1997). GOMs are broader in item content than mastery tests, and they are not usually linked to a specific curriculum. GOMs are usually administered to all students in a classroom, grade, or school district at predefined increments of time. For example, universal benchmarking often occurs three or four times per school year. GOMs are also administered more frequently to those students who are receiving more frequent or more intensive intervention. The potential strengths of GOMs include brevity and ease of administration, alternate forms that allow frequent re-administration, sensitivity to learning, and implications for grouping children and modifying instruction. These assets make GOMs a fitting approach for monitoring students’ progress and evaluating their responsiveness to instruction. GOMs help teachers evaluate students’ level and rate of achievement, determine needs for instructional change, set appropriate short- and long-term goals, and monitor progress relative to peers or criterion-based benchmarks (Shapiro et al., 2004; VanDerHeyden, 2005; Busch and Reschly, 2007). Thus, GOMs have come to the forefront of educational assessment with the emergence of response to intervention (RTI) frameworks for service provision and identification of children with learning difficulties.

RTI is a framework for linking AfL to instruction through data-based problem-solving. RTI includes an effective core curriculum, increasingly intense tiers of instruction for underperforming students, integrated assessment including universal screening, benchmarking, mastery tests, and progress monitoring, and use of assessment results to guide instruction. RTI can be implemented by teachers and when done so improves student outcomes (Fuchs et al., 1984, 1989; Graney and Shinn, 2005; Heritage, 2007; VanDerHeyden et al., 2007) and is satisfying for teachers (Hayward and Hedge, 2005). A meta-analysis reported impressive mean effect sizes of 1.02 for field-based studies and 1.54 for university-based studies evaluating RTI implementations (Burns et al., 2005). Practice guides from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science (IES) conclude that there is strong evidence for effectiveness of RTI (Gersten et al., 2008, 2009). Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.

Application of New Technologies for Assessment

The application of technology may provide one avenue for resolving the intricacies of classroom assessment in the twenty-first century. Research between assessment and classroom learning help to refine technology-based supports and theoretical models of assessment, teaching, and learning processes (Black and Wiliam, 1998; Heritage, 2018). To develop the next generation of technology-based assessments, test developers will need to consider the perspectives of policy makers interested in content standards, teachers interested in AoL and AfL, and assessment experts interested in the results collected (National Research Council, 2010, p. 21). The use of technology in classroom assessment promises advanced features not possible with paper-and-pencil tests, such as faster student feedback and computer-generated next steps that allow teachers to make real-time data-driven decisions to inform their instructional changes. In order to realize such insightful and sophisticated technology, attention to student-centered assessment and instructionally tractable assessments is highly recommended (Russell, 2010; Wiliam, 2010). A collaborative approach to test development will improve the implementation process for using computer-based assessments in the classroom.

There are other ways that test developers can advance knowledge in areas such as early childhood classroom assessment, such as designing assessments that align with the five dimensions of innovation for computerized tests (Parshall et al., 2000). The field is ripe for exploration in the area of design features for children, such as item formats, response action, media inclusion, interactivity, and use of scoring algorithms. Research on computer use in young children is still in its infancy and empirical research is newly emerging (Clements and Sarama, 2003; Labbo and Reinking, 2003; Chen and Chang, 2006; Schmid et al., 2008). Technology can be used to enhance children’s learning experience in the classroom, which is also expected to prepare active and informed citizens in a competitive global economy [Ministerial Council on Education, Employment Training, and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), 2008]. Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.The development of innovative computer-based assessments for children will require a rich understanding of developmentally appropriate design features, content expertise, implementation science, measurement, and an understanding for what students and teachers need. Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.

Developmental Appropriateness

The digital age has initiated a generational shift where children are increasingly likely to have openhanded access to technology. Approximately two-thirds of USA citizens now own a smartphone (Pew Research Center, 2015) and ongoing research suggests that even some children from low-income, minority communities have near universal access to mobile devices (Ojanen et al., 2015). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) currently recommends that children younger than 18 months should avoid screen media and children ages 2 to 5 should limit their screen time to 1 h per day of quality programs (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016). While the research evidence on child and technology use continues to grow, studies on children’s computer interventions have demonstrated promise in areas like language and literacy (Lankshear and Knobel, 2003; Burnett, 2010; Neumann, 2018; Neumann et al., 2019). Arguably the biggest factor relating to developmental appropriateness is the nature of the technology itself.

Research has repeatedly shown that young children can experience difficulty manipulating a computer mouse when performing drag and drop sequences due to their limited motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and the size of their hand relative to the mouse (Joiner et al., 1998; Hourcade et al., 2004; Donker and Reitsma, 2007). Instead, the use of touch screen tablets in education and assessment for young children is recommended. Touch screen tablets can be used by young children and children with special needs who may lack the fine motor skills to effectively use a standard keyboard or mouse (Neumann and Neumann, 2018). Using multimodal features, touch screen devices offer opportunities to administer tests in ways that can facilitate the assessment process (Lu et al., 2017).

With the widespread use of touch screen devices, feasibility research on the developmental appropriateness of children’s tablet use is underway. Early findings suggest that 2-year-olds can perform tap and drag gestures when using touch screen devices, and 3-year-olds can tap, drag, free rotate, as well as drag and drop (Aziz et al., 2014). Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.Touch screen tablets offer different ways for students to interact with the screen and thus allow for test items to conform to many different item types. Children can use their fingers to draw, tap to highlight objects, swipe objects away, tap and drag objects to other places on the screen, pinch to zoom in and out, twist to rotate objects, and scroll up and down a screen. This physical interaction can also create a testing situation that is more engaging for children than traditional paper-and-pencil tests (Woloshyn et al., 2017).

As children develop their fine motor skills and advance to writing, there is also the capability to assess handwriting using a stylus pen. A stylus pen allows children to create shapes and letters and form lines of different thickness when pressure is applied on a digital surface. Research shows that children can easily manipulate the stylus for drawing and writing and are engaged by the activity (Chang et al., 2005; Matthews and Seow, 2007). Falk et al. (2011) demonstrated the feasibility of measuring children’s handwriting by using a Wacom Intuous 3 digital tablet and a custom-built pen. These digital tools measured spatial, temporal, and grip force parameters. In their sample of first and second graders, static grip was associated with lower legibility. These input methods offer a variety of ways to appropriately assess multitouch gestures and handwriting skills in older students.

Assessing toddlers using touch screen technology is the new frontier. Twomey et al. (2018) found that children as young as 2-years-old can complete a cognitive assessment using a touch screen device. A range of touch screen technologies are already being developed and applied in classroom assessment as the preferred response action. For example, a tablet is used in the Profile of Phonological Awareness (PRO-PA) in which it provides an interface for the teacher to ask questions and enter in student responses (Carson, 2017). A tablet is also used in the validated Emergent Literacy Assessment app (ELAa) which plays pre-recorded audio to ask questions and uses a touch screen interface to collect responses from the child (Neumann and Neumann, 2018; Neumann et al., 2019). Future research is needed to enhance developmentally appropriate features of tablets to improve digital assessment experiences for young children.

Item Development

Technology-based assessments offer more variety in stimulus presentation than is available with paper-based test booklets or flip books. Touch screen tablets, computers, and virtual modalities have multimodal features to give students opportunities to strengthen learning, motivation, collaboration, engagement, and productivity and can be used for multiple formats in assessment (Woloshyn et al., 2017). The use of technology promises improved measurement of higher-order understanding and performance because of its flexibility in integrating media and exploring new item types. Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.The criticism against current state-level assessments are that they rely heavily on multiple choice items thereby suggesting a lack of rigor (National Research Council, 2010). There is a vocal disenchantment with multiple choice items due to a reported overreliance on measuring factual knowledge rather than higher-level skills (Pellegrino and Quellmalz, 2010). A proclivity for multiple choice items in assessments has an overarching effect in the classroom as well and research suggests that teachers are more likely to rely on multiple choice items in their classrooms when year-end assessments do too (Abrams et al., 2003). Nevertheless, multiple choice test items are more efficient than open-ended items (Jodoin, 2003), easier and cheaper to develop (Stecher and Klein, 1997), equitable for children of different backgrounds (Bruder, 1993), and can be refined to measure higher-level skills (Parshall et al., 2000). For emergent readers, multiple choice items can be designed as multiple-choice graphics. The use of technology-enhanced test items in early childhood assessments is still largely untapped and a delicate balance between innovation, cost, and efficiency is needed when designing items.

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To increase the rigor of multiple-choice items, test developers and teachers can use multiple choice variants. By using multiple response items, children must choose more than one answer choice to get the item right. By using ordered response items, children must choose the correct sequence for an event. Technology can enhance and facilitate the administration of these and other types of items with the use of touch screen technology as they can be used in multiple formats. For example, students can touch a hot spot on a graphic as their answer choice (O’Neill and Folk, 1996; Parshall et al., 1996, 2008; Scalise and Gifford, 2006; Becker et al., 2011). Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.Students can also highlight texts for assessment purposes (Davey et al., 1997) and be assessed on their drawing and mark making abilities (Scalise and Gifford, 2006; Kopriva and Bauman, 2008; Boyle and Hutchison, 2009; Dolan et al., 2010). Drag and drop features can be used to select and move objects, order objects, connect objects, and sort objects. The limits of traditional item types can be further explored with the use of touch screen technology, and in addition can be enhanced by integrating media-based features (e.g., sounds, animations). Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.

Adapting a multiple-choice paper-based test into a computerized format is a natural evolution when transitioning to technology-based assessments, but there is a growing call for greater innovation. The use of media such as graphics, audio, and video are ideal for emergent readers who are not yet fluent readers. Recent and future advances in behavioral monitoring (e.g., eye gaze, face recognition, touchless user interface) offer exciting opportunities for even more diverse ways that students may demonstrate their learning. For example, group administered expressive tests may become a possibility to the extent that voice recognition software advances to accommodate dialectal differences and multilingual influences on articulation and tone. Similarly, gesture recognition and facial expression recognition provide additional non-verbal modalities to help reduce the reliance on verbal skills common to many traditional assessment approaches.

Incorporation of movement via animation or video clips readily supports assessment of verbs on vocabulary tests, which have always been difficult to elicit from static illustrations on traditional paper-based assessments. A study on computer-based storytelling in kindergarteners found that computer administered stories using animation, video, sounds, and music were more effective at supporting language development than computer administered stories using still images (Verhallen et al., 2006). Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) presentations offer highly engaging stimulus presentation in the foreground, experimental control of the background, and truly interactive means of responding. The interactive computer tasks of the future will include multiple modes of assessment and there is headway being made in the area of K-12 science assessment. Opportunities to develop interactive computer tasks should be taken when these offer advantages to static assessment modes. For example, items can be developed to indicate slow motion, scenarios that are invisible to the naked eye, hazardous situations, and the manipulation of objects (National Assessment Governing Board, 2014). Linking students within the same virtual environment through avatars may also offer the potential to assess skills requiring teamwork, cooperation, and communication. Use of Technology to Support Assessments and Instruction Essay.