How do we make judgements?
Assessment takes place in reference to some set of criteria.
It’s an act of comparison.
You cannot make a judgement without criteria.
The process involves deciding what something is akin to.
It includes:
- Asking whether the item in question does things that are specified by the criteria.
- Asking whether the item in question bears a resemblance or similarity to things specified by the criteria.
For example:
- Arsenal Football Club produced a good performance at the weekend
The phrase ‘good performance’ makes reference to a set of criteria.
These do not have to be specific or codified.
The speaker may not even be able to articulate them.
But they have to exist otherwise the sentence has no meaning.
In this case, let us imagine that the speaker has been watching football for a number of years.
They have in their mind a range of examples of what they deem a ‘good performance’.
They also have a number of examples of specific elements that might go towards making a performance ‘good’.
They will also have some general rules or expectations about ‘good performances’ that they have extrapolated from individual cases (and collections of individual cases) with which they are familiar.
In addition, they will have internalised judgements made by people they know (like their friends) or that have been conveyed to them (such as through the television).
It is also probable that the speaker has the converse of all this – experiences, examples and expectations around what constitutes a ‘bad performance’.
Through this, they are in a position to judge whether they believe a performance to be good or not.
(Though, bear in mind, this is their judgement, not an objective or absolute judgement.)
Imagine that the speaker has taken their child to watch Arsenal for the first time.
At the end of the match the child, who has thoroughly enjoyed themselves, declares:
- ‘That was a great match! Arsenal were brilliant.’
On what is this judgement based?
Should we accept the child’s judgement without recourse to another authority?
We would perhaps take the judgement as evidence that the child has enjoyed the game.
We might feel that the child was articulating their delight and pleasure at the experience.
That their judgement references a different set of criteria to those we would use to assess the game.
And in that we see that judgement is also contextual.
The context for the child is different to that of the parent.
They are not just judging the game differently.
The criteria against which they are making their judgements are fundamentally different.
What does this mean for our teaching?
Let us draw this back to the classroom.
Elsewhere in the Assessment for Learning Knowledge Base, you’ll find 200 ready-made strengths and 200 ready-made targets.
I wrote these to make your life easier.
They are there if you need to them, as tools you can use to speed up your marking, speed up your written feedback, or to share with your learners.
Let’s take three examples from those strengths and targets, and analyse them.
Our focus is a consideration of the criteria to which they refer.
The general success criteria inherent to education.
Here’s the first:
- Good use of examples. You have thought carefully about how best to explain your points. This makes it easier for the reader to understand what you are trying to say.
Why are the examples good?
Because they have been chosen with care in order to accurately explain the points.
Why is this good?
Because clear explanation benefits the reader by making the meaning of the text easier to understand.
Why is this good?
Because any piece of writing is an attempt to communicate something that is in your head to someone else, through the medium of the written word.
Clarity suggests:
- A closer relationship between that which is in the person’s head and that which they have written.
- That meaning of some sort has been conveyed and that this can be understood by a reader.
So we start to see that we can dig down and draw out the criteria we use when we make judgements.
A bit of digging is required because these things are usually so ingrained, so familiar to us, that we use them without conscious thought.
A second example now. This time a target:
- Ensure your work progresses logically from start to finish, however long it is. The connections between each part of your work should be clear and coherent.
Why should this be a target?
Because it indicates something that is believed to be necessary in order for a piece of work to be judged as good.
Why is logical progression necessary for a piece of work to be judged as good?
Because logical progression conveys understanding and creates coherence.
These two things in conjunction increase the clarity of the work and, by extension, the ease with which it can be read and understood.
Why should a sense of understanding and a feeling of coherency be important?
If it can be sensed that the writer understands that which they are writing about, this gives confidence to the reader and suggests the writer is able to manipulate the material skilfully (what do we mean by ‘skilfully’?).
Coherence is valued because it fits with deductive reasoning (if a then b, if b then c, therefore if a then c) which is itself held in high regard because the proof of its correctness can be assumed from its constituent parts, and therefore without recourse to external criteria (a-b, b-c, therefore a-c).
Again, we see that digging down into the judgement we have made helps reveal the criteria on which it ultimately rests.
Here’s a third and final example. Another target:
- Try to develop your answers in new and original directions. Consider how you might take the ideas and information we look at and put you own ‘spin’ on them.
Why should this be a target?
Because we value originality and independence of mind.
This is closely associated with dominant values in the West.
Also, because to put your own ‘spin’ on something suggests you understand it sufficiently well to be able to reframe it in accordance with your own ideas and ways of thinking.
Understanding is valued because it is confirmation of learning.
Learning is valued because it is the successful transmission of knowledge, or the successful facilitation of knowledge acquisition, such that the person who has learned is in a position that is qualitatively different from where they were before.
The learning supplements the person as they are, giving access to things that previously may not have been known or doable.
Points to Consider
There are two things to note about these examples.
First, we could continue the analysis in each case.
The point at which I have stopped is not the end.
In example three, for instance, we could question why it is that the increased capacity to do and think is seen as good.
Second, I am not suggesting that you need to be thinking at this level of detail when you are giving your learners strengths and targets.
I have shared this little bit of analysis to indicate the structure of thought that underpins the strengths and targets we give learners as part of the assessment process.
For a strength or target to be of use to a learner, it must reference some set of criteria linked to the learning.
In the case of strengths, they should explain to the learner what they have done well and why this is a good thing.
In the case of targets, they should explain to learners what they can do to improve and why this will be an improvement.
By sharing two hundred strengths and two hundred targets in the Knowledge Base, I have attempted to make life easier.
This is because:
- The strengths and targets are complete and non-subject specific. You can read through your learners’ work, select appropriate strengths and an appropriate target and then copy these out, amend them, or tweak them.
- The strengths and targets offer a wide range of examples covering different aspects of learning. You can look at these and adapt them to suit your needs or use them as inspiration.
- They give an insight into some of the general criteria that underpin education. You an pull these out and use them to more easily create strengths and targets of your own.
I am now going to share another tool designed to save you time.
It is concerned with making explicit some of that which is referred to in point (iii).
General Criteria of Reference in Education
Although the curriculum at primary and secondary level is split into separate subjects, there are many criteria by which learners are judged that are common to most (and sometimes all) of these different areas.
If you can familiarise yourself with these, it will help you to assess learners’ work more quickly and more effectively.
It will also help you to give relevant strengths and targets with less effort.
When you have a strong grasp of the underlying criteria that many (possibly all) judgements refer to, the process of making judgements is hugely speeded up.
To illustrate, consider how a very experienced teacher can often mark learner work twice or three times as fast as a less experienced colleague.
Whatever stage of your career you are in, you can streamline the assessment and feedback process by nailing down the general criteria in your mind.
That way, every individual judgement you make takes place more quickly.
And it’s through the accumulation of these small gains that you find yourself marking books and giving feedback more quickly than before.
Here I have a non-exhaustive list of general criteria for you.
The items on it will no doubt be familiar, though you may not have thought about them before in this way:
Accuracy
For example:
- Accuracy in the use of words in speech or writing.
- Accuracy in the use of words to communicate what one thinks.
- Accuracy in terms of recall.
- Accuracy in the use of a skill.
- Accuracy in the creation of something.
Reasoning
Subdivisions include:
- Logically correct reasoning.
- Reasoning that is explained.
- Inductive and deductive reasoning (the first is from experience, the second is from general premises).
- Reasoning in support of an argument.
- Reasoning used in conjunction with evidence and examples.
Clarity
Subdivisions include:
- Clarity of thought (as evidenced through writing or speaking).
- Clarity of communication (which could be through various media).
- Clarity as a result of planning, editing or refinement.
- Clarity of an aspect of communication (such as argument or analysis).
- Clarity of purpose.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
The taxonomy is hierarchical. It runs from low-order to high-order thinking.
Each level contains criteria we use to make judgements:
- Knowledge. Knowing things. Being able to recall and remember things.
- Comprehension. Understanding things. Being able to describe what things mean.
- Application. Applying things. Being able to use things correctly.
- Analysis. Analysing things. Being able to explain how things are, what their structure is and how they function.
- Synthesis. Synthesising things. Using that which is known to create things that are new.
- Evaluation. Judging things. Having a degree of mastery such that you can make judgements about things (with that mastery including mastery over the criteria that must be referenced when making a judgement).
Mastery
This includes things like:
- Mastery of a particular word or idea.
- Mastery of a skill.
- Mastery of a process.
- Mastery of a pre-existing form (such as a style or genre).
- Mastery of a method.
Reflection
It could be argued that this includes introspection, although some would suggest that ought to be in a category of its own.
Reflection includes things like:
- Being able to reflect on what one has done.
- Being able to reflect before doing something.
- Being able to use reflection to shape decision-making.
- Being able to reflect critically.
- Being able to use reflection to learn.
Thinking Critically
Constituents of this include:
- Asking questions of things.
- Considering multiple perspectives.
- Inquiring as to why things are as they are.
- Analysing and evaluating.
- Searching for evidence.
Being Creative
Constituents of this include:
- Thinking creatively.
- Doing things that are original.
- Using what you learn to do or create new things.
- Combining elements to make wholes.
- Establishing and exploring connections.
Problem-Solving
This includes things like:
- Using and understanding trial and error.
- Trialling different strategies.
- Deducing and inferring.
- Hypothesising.
- Developing solutions.
As I say, this list is not exhaustive.
Nonetheless, I hope that it will prove of use to you.
Each category is applicable to many areas of the curriculum.
Many of the categories are applicable to all areas.
Each one is general.
All can be couched in the language of a subject or made specific through reference to the lesson content.
For example:
- Your diagram of a river delta has been produced in an imaginative way, demonstrating that you are thinking creatively.
- Your analysis of why birds have wings has been presented in an imaginative way, demonstrating that you are thinking creatively.
- Your story is highly original and engaging for the reader, demonstrating that you are thinking originally.
Before we move on, I will give a short summary of the section:
- Identify the criteria of reference (or use the ones I have identified) that run throughout education.
- Become familiar with these.
- Bring them to mind when giving feedback.
- This will save you a lot of time.
Specific Criteria of Reference in Education
As well as general criteria, different areas of the curriculum have specific criteria.
We might describe these as the criteria of reference of the subject area.
Some are shared.
For example:
- In both history and English you must be able to use sentences and paragraphs correctly in order to clearly communicate your meaning.
And then there are things that are specific to individual subjects.
For example:
- In English, you need to be able to analyse the meaning of poems.
- In history, you need to be able to analyse the meaning of sources.
Now, I have chosen these examples deliberately.
They show the interplay between general and specific criteria.
The process of analysis is the same in both cases.
It is the act of breaking an item down to see how it functions and what its meaning is.
However, the analysis of poetry is not identical to the analysis of sources.
The two overlap but they also have elements that remain unique.
As such, it is advisable to spend some time exploring what it is that is referred to by phrases like:
- ‘She is superb at geography/dance/design.’
- ‘This is an example of outstanding work in English/PE/computer science.’
- ‘He is really thinking like a mathematician/historian/scientist now.’
If you can do this, and come up with a list of criteria akin to the general ones I set out above, there are two major benefits.
First, you will make your life easier.
You can combine the general criteria with your subject-specific criteria and use them to identify strengths and set targets.
You will not have to start afresh each time you mark a piece of work.
You will have created a thinking tool for yourself.
One you can use again and again. One that will save you a lot of time.
Second, your learners will profit enormously.
This is for two reasons.
First, they will be receiving strengths and targets that are closely tied to the determinants of success in a particular subject – the general and specific criteria of reference.
Second, you can share these criteria with your learners.
This is similar to how you share success criteria and mark-schemes with them.
The difference is that both of those refer to specific tasks, whereas the general and subject-specific criteria are applicable across the board.
Sharing these with learners will really help them to understand what it is that success means in the subject area that you are teaching.
When you are developing your own list of criteria:
- Do not worry about whether it is definitive or not.
- Accept that it will be subjective but that this will be within a framework of expertise which you possess in relation to the subject.
- Make use of the general criteria to construct specific criteria (as overlap is inevitable).
If you are a secondary teacher, you can create a single list relevant to your subject (possibly with some variations based around age).
If you are a primary teacher, you can create lists for some or all of the subjects you teach. Though, for time-saving purposes, you might prefer to just focus on English and maths to begin.
In conclusion …
To summarise, having a list of general criteria and a list of subject-specific criteria will:
- Save you time.
- Improve the quality and consistency of your formative feedback.
- Help you give learners a clear idea of what constitutes success.
And, of course, it will deepen your understanding of education, and of the subjects you teach.
Often in ways you never expected at the outset.
