Exploring Assessment and Accountability for Children's Learning: A Case Study of a Hong Kong Preschool

Abstract

Research Findings: Assessment and accountability have been given prominent attention in the field of education in recent decades. Educators have been debating what assessment is, how it is practiced in school, and how it is used for accountability purposes. A case study was conducted of the assessment practices in a Hong Kong preschool to understand the issues of assessment and accountability. This study investigates changes in assessment practices and explores implications for assessment and accountability. This research adopted various qualitative data collection methods, including interviews, site observations, collection of documents, and review of personal notes. The findings showed that there was a paradigm shift of assessment practice from an outcome-oriented approach to a process-oriented approach. Results revealed 4 major changes in the new assessment approach that involved the choice of assessment tools, the planning procedures, data collection methods, and new assessment activities. The major changes were built on the idea of assessment for learning and the strength of school capacity supporting self-improvement. The development of a culture of collaboration and professional learning communities helped to enhance teacher development and build school capacity. Practice or Policy: This study urges the improvement of process-oriented assessment, school capacity, and the use of assessment data to understand the impacts of the new accountability system. The study supports a more balanced approach of combining school internal capacity and external systems to uphold school accountability and advocates the use of process-oriented assessment in early childhood education.

Número Completo

“…La elección de esta herramienta se justifica porque constituye el cuestionario de mayor prestigio y más frecuentemente usado para la investigación de creencias sobre el aprendizaje de un idioma y ha sido utilizado ampliamente para explorar las creencias de discentes y docentes, tanto en ejercicio como en formación, así como su evolución (por ejrmplo, Peacock, 2001;Barcelos, 2003;Tercanlioglu, 2005;Mattheoudakis, 2007;Busch, 2010;Wong, 2010;Altan, 2012), lo que, consecuentemente, posibilitaba establecer comparaciones con resultados obtenidos por otras investigaciones en contextos diferentes al nuestro.…”

School—University Partnership: Challenges and Visions in the New Decade

“…One-to-one guidance and ongoing on-site support were found to be effective because they acknowledged that learning depends on teacher collegiality. Chan and Wong (2010) reported on a case study of university members serving as consultants to preschools, developing and implementing new assessment approaches. The project resulted in the development of a culture of collaboration and professional learning communities which helped to enhance teacher development and build school capacity.…”

Preschool veteran principals' perceptions of leadership in Hong Kong early childhood education

“…However, since 2000, the Hong Kong Government has implemented a series of educational reforms. For instance, the Education Bureau published a very comprehensive set of performance indicators to provide a common standard for assessing early childhood education in Hong Kong (S. P. Chan & Wong, 2010;Rao & Li, 2009). The Hong Kong Education Department also tried to improve the ratio of teachers to students, planning to lower the ratio from 1:30 to 1:15 by 2004.…”

“…The QAI results for each school are uploaded to the Education Department's website each year, meaning that the public can review the QAI results. Therefore, S. P. Chan and Wong's (2010) study indicated that most of the preschool principals strove to provide the appropriate development practices for children in order to avoid damaging the school's image in the community.…”

“…Even though there has been professional support, preschool teachers have faced great challenges implementing the QAI (S. P. Chan & Wong, 2010). M. N. C. Wong and Li (2010) found that preschools "had some uncertainties about the requirements of the QAI exercise" (p. 224).…”