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1.0 Introduction介绍
1.1 Research background研究背景
教育评价是一个以一定的教育价值或教育目标为基础的过程，它运用可行的科学手段，通过系统的信息收集和分析，确定教育活动的价值、教育过程和教育效果，为提高教育质量提供依据。教育决策（Andersson和Palm，2017年）。教育评估对及时发现教师教学、学生学习过程中存在的问题、提高教学水平、提高学生学习能力和成绩具有重要的指导、诊断和促进作用（Meusen Beekman、Brinke和Boshuizen，2016）。我国是一个历史悠久的国家，在教育评价方面，我国采取了数千年的总结性评价手段，一般在教学活动结束时，为了了解教学活动的最终结果而进行总结性评价（邹、张，2013）。目的是测试学生的学习是否最终达到教学目标的要求。总结性评价的实施带来的结果是，师生都非常重视考试成绩，把考试成绩作为师生成功的最重要标准（Senye Mir、Arum_-Prat、Pla Campas和Ram_rez，2016）。这种评价方法导致中国学生考试成绩较高，但自学能力差、创造力差等诸多问题。为了解决这些问题，90年代中国教育部门开始引入形成性评估（邹、张，2013）。对学生的学习成绩和教师在教学过程中的教学效果进行形成性评价，引导教学过程正确、完美地进行（黄、常，2011）。形成性评估的主要目的不是选择几个优秀的学生，考试成绩不是形成性评估的唯一标准，而是寻找每个学生加强学生学习的潜力，并向教师提供反馈以改进教学活动（Andersson和Palm，2017）。我国各级教育和各学科教学都大力提倡形成性评价。例如，教育部2001年和2011年颁布的《中学课程标准》强调了发展性评价对鼓励教师在教学中使用形成性评价的重要性。随着我国网络的发展，越来越多的教师利用网络进行形成性评价，但网络给原有的师生关系、沟通、信息传递模式带来了沟通的便利和变化，同时也给形成性评价带来了效益和影响。MET（邹、张，2013）。总之，国外大量的理论和实证研究表明，形成性评价对提高学生的学习成绩和学习动机、提高教师的教学活动、理解我国目前的计算机辅助形成性评价以及对其缺失的理解有着特殊的意义。我国应进一步推动形成性评价在中国互联网时代发挥积极作用，以弥补我国教育在评价手段、方法和理论上的不足。
Educational assessment is a process based on certain educational values or educational goals, it makes use of feasible scientific means, through systemic collection and analysis of information to determine the value of educational activities, educational processes and educational results to provide basis for improving the quality of education and educational decision-making (Andersson and Palm, 2017). Educational assessment plays an important role in guiding, diagnosing and promoting the timely discovery of the problems in teachers’ teaching, students’ learning process, the improvement of teaching level and the improvement of students' learning ability and achievement (Meusen-Beekman, Brinke and Boshuizen, 2016). China is a country with a long history, in terms of educational assessment, China has taken thousands of years of summative evaluation means, summative evaluation is generally carried out to understand the final results of teaching activities when teaching activities come to an end (Zou and Zhang, 2013). The purpose is to test whether students’ studies have finally met the requirements of the teaching objectives. The result brought by the implementation of summative evaluation is that both teachers and students attach great importance to examination results, it takes test scores as the most important criteria for teachers’ and students’ success (Senye-Mir, Arumí-Prat, Pla-Campas and Ramírez, 2016). This evaluation method leads to that Chinese students have high test scores, but they have weak self-learning ability, poor creativity and many other problems. In order to solve these problems, the Chinese education sector in the 1990s began to introduce formative assessment (Zou and Zhang, 2013). Formative assessment is conducted towards students’ learning results and teachers’ teaching effect in teaching process to guide a teaching process to progress correctly and perfectly (Hwang and Chang, 2011). The main purpose of formative assessment is not to select a few excellent students, and test scores are not the only criteria for formative assessment, but to find the potential of each student to strengthen the improvement of students’ learning, and to provide feedback to teachers to improve teaching activities (Andersson and Palm, 2017). The current formative assessment has been vigorously advocated at all levels of education in China and in the teaching of various disciplines. For example, the secondary school curriculum standards issued by the Ministry of Education in 2001 and 2011 have stressed the importance of developmental evaluation to encourage teachers to use formative assessment in teaching. With the development of China's network, more and more teachers make use of the network to implement formative assessment, but the network brings communication convenience and changes to the original teacher-student relationship, communication, information transfer model at the same time, these changes bring benefits and impact to formative assessment (Zou and Zhang, 2013). In short, a large number of theoretical and empirical research abroad shows that formative assessment have a significant role in improving student achievement and motivation, improving teachers’ teaching activities, the understanding of China's current computer-assisted formative assessment and understanding of the lack have an particular significance to further promote formative assessment to play its positive roles in the Internet age of China, so as to make up for China's education in the assessment means, methods and theoretical deficiencies.
1.2 Research aims and objectives
The research aim of this study is to understand the current situation of computer-assisted formative assessment in Chinese middle schools and to understand the shortcomings to recommend on the future development of computer-assisted formative assessment in Chinese middle schools. Based on this, the following research objectives are formed.
Research objective 1: to present the current status of the use of formative assessment in the teaching process in Chinese middle schools;
Research objective 2: to take e-learning at home as an example to discuss how China's middle schools use computers to implement formative assessment;
Research objective 3: to analyze the current problems in the process of using e-learning at home in formative assessment by Chinese middle schools and to make recommendations on how to improve these issues in the future.
2.0 Research methodology
2.1 Understandings of formative assessment
Formative assessment is the evaluation on students’ learning process, it aims to confirm the potential of students to improve and develop students’ learning (Andersson and Palm, 2017. The task of formative assessment is to evaluate the performance of students' daily learning process, the achievements and the emotions, attitudes, strategies and other aspects reflected, so as to motivate students to study and help students to effectively control themselves in learning process, so that students can get a sense of accomplishment, enhance self-confidence and cultivate the spirit of cooperation (Meusen-Beekman, Brinke and Boshuizen, 2016). Formative assessment is not simply from the needs of evaluators, but also more from the needs of those evaluated, it pays attention to learning process and students’ experience in learning; it has emphasis on the interaction between people, emphasizing the interaction of a variety of factors in assessment and paying attention to teacher-student exchanges (Senye-Mir, Arumí-Prat, Pla-Campas and Ramírez, 2016). In formative assessment, a teacher's duty is to determine tasks, to collect information, to discuss with students, to play a guiding role in the discussion and to evaluate with students.
Summative evaluation is evaluation carries out to understand the final results of teaching activities when teaching activities finish for a period of time (Andersson and Palm, 2017). All the examinations at the end of a semester or at the end of a year belong to this evaluation. The purpose is to test whether a student's studies have finally met the requirements of the teaching objectives. Summative evaluation emphasizes the results, in order to make a comprehensive assessment for those evaluated, to distinguish the levels of students, and to assess the effectiveness of the entire teaching activities (Sheard and Chambers, 2014).
From the above concepts, it can sum up the main differences between formative assessment and summative evaluation (Zou and Zhang, 2013; Meusen-Beekman, Brinke and Boshuizen, 2016; Senye-Mir, Arumí-Prat, Pla-Campas and Ramírez, 2016; Andersson and Palm, 2017). Firstly, the purpose of formative assessment is mainly to improve students’ learning process and adjust teaching program to promote students’ progress and development. The purpose of summative assessment is to determine the final learning outcomes for the screening and selection of students. Secondly, from the point of view of evaluation, formative assessment mainly evaluates students’ learning process, and the summative evaluation mainly evaluates students' grades. Thirdly, considering from the subjects of evaluation, formative assessment is mainly carried out by teachers and students, and summative evaluation is main completed by teachers. Fourthly, judging from the content of evaluation, the main evaluation content of formative assessment includes knowledge, skills, emotional attitudes, learning strategies, cultural awareness and so on. While summative evaluation mainly evaluates knowledge and skills of students’. Fifthly, in terms of evaluation means, the means of formative assessment can include daily observation, job assessment, questionnaires, self-assessment / mutual assessment, interviews, quizzes, activity records, etc., and summative evaluation means are mainly tests. Sixthly, the implementation of formative assessment is after the end of teaching of a unit or a project, and the frequency is higher. The implementation of summative evaluation is mainly after the end of a semester, it is generally 1-2 times per semester. Finally, the results of formative assessment include a description of whether it meets the requirements of the target, so as to point out the shortcomings and to make recommendations, and summative evaluation mainly records a student's test scores.#p#分页标题#e#
2.2 Understandings of computer-assisted assessment (CAA)
With the progress and popularization of computer technology, in the late 20th century, information technology has been widely used in educational evaluation, according to a British national survey conducted in 1995 and 1999, computer-assisted assessment (CAA) was applied in almost all disciplines (Xu and Liu, 2005). With the research and application of CAA, some new development methods and the development of formative assessment theory emerge, computer-assisted formative assessment has become the most important content of current educational evaluation theory and practice.
Computer-assisted formative assessment (CAFA) is the use of computers to carry out formative assessment. It includes assessments conducted by both online and offline ways (Sheard and Chambers, 2014). Computer-assisted formative assessment is expected to be increasingly important in students’ learning. Computer-assisted formative assessment has been proved to be effective in study in acquiring positive student feedback to improve students’ performance (Maier, Wolf and Randler, 2016).
Formative assessment theory holds that human learning and development is a dynamic process, positive feedback in the process is more effective than result control, because the information obtained from the process is more comprehensive and authentic (Sheard and Chambers, 2014). Through assessment on if students have achieved periodic goals, it can confirm the development achievements of students in time to enhance students' confidence and improve their interest in learning. Assessment on students' learning process requires certain process information (Gikandi, Morrow and Davis, 2011). Traditional paper-based folders have many problems and difficulties in storage, maintenance, and retrieval. Information technology applications such as e-works and electronic archives provide technical solutions for these problems (Gikandi, Morrow and Davis, 2011).
Electronic works are documents or procedures that students use to express their innovative thinking and problem-solving results by modern information technology. Through assessment on students' electronic works can help students to understand their strength and lack in learning to promote students to establish their own learning goals (Wilson et al., 2011; Gikandi, Morrow and Davis, 2011). Learning archives collect and preserve some information in learners’ learning process, which is a very effective means of demonstrating and evaluating learners' efforts and achievements in learning (Wilson et al., 2011; Gikandi, Morrow and Davis, 2011).
Due to the support of computer technology, formative assessment can have more advantages, such as rapid feedback, more flexible forms of feedback, multimedia feedback content, free assessment time and place to reduce the pressure of part-time students’. There is great convenience for communication between students, between students and teachers, and it is very beneficial to promote mutual trust and cooperation among them (Maier, Wolf and Randler, 2016; Gikandi, Morrow and Davis, 2011).
China's research on computer-assisted formative assessment (CAFA) is consistent with that of foreign research. They also explain the importance of the use of computer in formative assessment in terms of communication convenience, information transfer, storage and data analysis. In addition, China's related research is also concerned about the importance of CAFA for adult education, continuing education and vocational training. Sang (2004) points out that the lack of effective teacher-student interaction and time pressure are two important factors that affect the quality of distance learning, and CAFA will help to solve these two types of problems.
2.3 Current situation of computer-assisted formative assessment (CAFA) in China
CAFA is now paid attention by some schools and teachers in China, especially in the field of English teaching in secondary schools, CAFA has been applied to a certain degree. Some scholars have also published some articles to elaborate on the advantages of CAFA, but in general, CAFA is currently not widely used in China, the main reasons are showed as follows.
With the development of computer technology, measurement and evaluation theory, the role of computers in the formative assessment of foreign education is becoming more and more prominent. The related research is also very rich and mature. However, China's CAFA research is not optimistic, Xing (2006) believed that China's research on test theory and assessment theory is very weak, there are not many scholars who study examinations and assessment problems, and there is very rare CAFA works and articles. Due to the lack of teachers with skills in terms of education measurement and assessment, some schools have deleted the course of "education measurement and assessment. There is quite a lack of funds and personnel for research on CAFA.
CAFA is an interdisciplinary subject, which involves knowledge of related fields such as education, statistics and computer. However, there is not a systematic teaching material which can combine computer knowledge, formative assessment knowledge, as well as teaching practice knowledge to introduce CAFA (Wang, 1998). This is very unfavorable for the training of CAFA-related personnel.
Compared with foreign countries, there is still very low frequency and small range in the use of CAFA by Chinese schools and teachers, some teachers and students even have some misunderstanding on CAFA that there is too much trouble in the use of CAFA and the efficiency is not high. This is closely related to the use of traditional summative assessment and the over-reliance on measurement and evaluation results by schools and teachers in China (Huang, Liu and Li, 2002).
China's CAFA development and application is still in the relatively low stage, most of the main functions of CAFA is only recording learning results, publishing information, and it fails to resolve many practical problems in education by applying CAFA, such as how to use CAFA to test learners' advanced cognitive ability, how to use CAFA to get more favorable evaluation information, how to strengthen the security of network examination and how to improve the operability of formative assessment through computer aids (Huang, Liu and Li, 2002). CAFA is not just a technical issue, but a problem of a rational application of technology, deficiencies in CAFA features and application also lead to students’ and teachers’ lack of enthusiasm and motivation in the use of CAFA.
In short, CAFA has made initial development in China, but due to the lack of CAFA research and personal training in terms of CAFA, teachers and students have deviation on the concept of CAFA, and in China, CAFA itself has deficiencies in the application and function, resulting in that CAFA has not been widely used in China.
References
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