Assessing learning across contexts: How to design learning assessments, for what purpose, and what can they tell us about student, school and teacher performance?

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Quality education and improving learning outcomes are main objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals and the recently released US Government Strategy on International Basic Education 2019-2023. Yet how to measure and monitor learning outcomes is no simple task. For instance, the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) has been adapted for use in more than 100 languages and 65 countries and is currently the most widely used tool to measure reading outcomes in USAID projects but the tool also comes with some limitations. Developing it takes time, training enumerators on its use can be labor-intensive and it is most often used as a summative assessment that may not provide sufficient information for organizations to make programmatic decisions. Indeed, how these learning data are used and who collects the data can greatly impact the type of learning assessment needed and drive decisions on assessment design.

What are different ways projects can monitor learning outcomes and assess whether the ultimate goal of improving learning and education quality has been met? How can projects promote local ownership of the assessment process and of data use? In this panel, presenters will describe different types of learning assessments that were developed for different purposes, in order to compare and contrast approaches. With concrete illustrations from projects spanning a variety of contexts, each presenter will discuss the purpose of the learning assessment used and its validity for answering specific research or evaluation questions. Each presentation will describe the methodology and process used to develop the assessment, how assessment items were selected, who administers the assessment and what the assessment data can and cannot tell us in terms of learning outcomes. The presenters will also delve into how the learning outcomes data is informing project design or implementation for greater and more sustainable results.

Case studies span examples from five countries across sub-Sarah Africa (Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania) and six countries across Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal and Sri Lanka). The first presenter will discuss the use of a curriculum-based reading assessment in more than 7000 Ghanaian primary schools by Ministry of Education Circuit Supervisors to monitor learning and identify struggling schools and learners for additional support. The second presenter will discuss a classroom-based reading assessment implemented across eight countries in Africa and Asia. And the third presenter will describe the pilot of a holistic assessment in Kenya and Uganda for rapid response in emergency contexts. Assessors measured social and emotional learning, literacy, numeracy, and executive functioning outcomes of children ages 4-12. These case studies present lessons learned and an opportunity to discuss strategies for developing and implementing formative assessments that can be sustainably used by stakeholders in diverse development and emergency contexts.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Yvonne Cao, FHI 360

Individual Presentations

• Ghana Learning Progress Against Curriculum Expectations (PACE) Assessments: Building Ghana’s capacity to provide differentiated support to struggling schools - Rachel Hatch, FHI 360; Yvonne Cao, FHI 360

• Classroom-based reading assessments: Strategies to improve relevance, utilization and sustainability - Christine Beggs, Room to Read

• Holistic assessments to inform education in the immediate response to emergencies: Learning from Pilots in Uganda and Kenya - Allyson Krupar, Save the Children

Discussant

• Melissa Chiappetta, US Agency for International Development (USAID)