IN BRIEF
Values and citizenship education centrally involve the personal development of learners, as well as their acquistion of particular knowledges, skills and understandings. Assessment for values and citizenship education thus covers assessment for personal development (SMSC) and learning, as well as for learning outcomes. Thus it is relevant across the curriculum, and across the school.
Assessment for education and values
Assessment for values education and citizenship is assessment for personal development as well as assessment for learning. An effective lifelong learner is also likely to be an effective citizen - similar qualities are needed for both and these qualities underpin effective learning in school. Personal development and learning cannot easily be separated from each other and both support successful achievement in terms of knowledge, skills and understanding.
Assessment for values education and citizenship should address learning and personal spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, community involvement and the knowledge, skills and understanding needed for effective citizenship.
Evidence for for assessment in these areas can be drawn from: pupil self reflection; teacher and learner observation; quality of dialogue both written and spoken; as well as from what learners know, can remember and can do in relation to specific tasks.
Assessment for personal development and learning is central to citizenship and values education
Citizenship and values education is more than the acquisition of particular knowledge, skills and understanding. It has to do with a vision of what it is to 'be' a citizen, with personally owned values, with hope and aspirations. It has to do with the negotiation of personal biographies with collective stories, with meaning making and personal growth trajectories over time. Essentially it has to do with the development of the dispositions, qualities and capablities of effective lifelong learners.
Assessment in values and citizenship includes personal development, community involvement and knowledge, skills and understanding.
The effective citizen is someone with the dispositions, values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to engage meaningfully in community and wider public life. This includes much more than that which has traditionally been formally assessed in schools. It includes the capacity to understand and own values, to co-operate, to hold and express an opinion, to empathise, to act on others behalf, to reflect on and learn from experience, to respect others who are different, to critique contemporary issues and many more.
Research (Deakin Crick, Broadfoot & Claxton 2002 forthcoming) shows that the following qualities are central for effective learning:
- growth orientation - a sense of getting better at learning over time
- critical curiosity - the capacity to 'get below the surface of things'
- meaning making - making connections with what we already know - learning that matters
- creativity & imagination - imagination, risktaking and playfulness
- strategic awareness - being aware of one's own learning strategies and feelings
- learning relationships - being able to learn from and with important other people, including those at home and in our community, not being isolated
- resilience - the capacity to keep going, seeing failure as an opportunity to learn.
These qualities and characteristics are rather like a shadow of the curriculum itself - they underpin and support achievement, and they are integral to the processes of learning itself. They are also integral to the development of effective lifelong learners and effective citizens. Tracking and formatively assessing these qualities is thus crucial for both learners and their teachers.
Assessment for citizenship should help to develop and nurture learning and citizenship
Citizenship is about the 'formation of persons in community'. Summative assessment, with grades and labels is not appropriate, rather the focus should be on assessment for learning, rather than assessment of learning.
This means that assessment should faciliate the learner in becoming more self aware of themselves as learner citizens and in becoming more able to take responsibility for their own growth and development. This may involve summative judgements (i.e. I know and can do X) but those judgements affirm the learner and give them signposts on their learning journey, rather than labelling them or comparing them with others.
Quality of dialogue is central for assessment for citizenship education
Many of the qualities which are important for effective learner-citizens cannot be measured easily and can be highly subjective. For example, only the learner themselves know the quality of feelings they may experience in relation to, say perceived injustice. Teachers may or may not be aware of this.
The quality of dialogue, which includes listening to the 'other' as well as to the 'self', is a central aspect of citizenship and values education. It is in meaningful dialogue which takes place in the context of trusting relationships that much important citizenship learning takes place. When that dialogue relates to the 'lived experience' of the learner as well as to real life citizenship issues as well as to the normal content of the curriculum, it is particularly powerful. Assessment of dialogue is therefore important.
Personal reflection is a key tool for assessment
Self assessment is a key tool because it also serves one of the key purposes of effective lifelong learning and citizenship: the development of self awareness. It can be a significant means of encouraging learners to take reponsibility for their own development.
Self assessment can be formal or informal, it can be a check list or a written reflection in a portfolio. Teachers can also make assessments through listening to dialogue, reading written reflections and through observation of behaviour and action.
Classroom ethos is crucial
The ethos of the classroom is also crucial for effective citizenship education. How teachers create positive interpersonal relationships, how they stimulate higher-order thinking, how they honour each individual student's voice and cater for individual differences are key indicators of achievement. These can be assessed by teachers and their pupils, and together improvements can be made.
