What (more) can, and should, assessment do for learning? Observations from ‘successful learning...

Leong, W.S., & Tan, K. (2014). What (more) can, and should, assessment do for learning?

Observations from ‘successful learning context’ in Singapore. Curriculum Journal, 25 (4),

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What (More) Can, And Should, Assessment do for Learning?

Observations from ‘Successful Learning Context’ in Singapore

Wei Shin Leong and Kelvin Tan

Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Academic Group

National Institute of Education

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Singapore has earned accolades as one of the leading education systems in the world, based on

its record in international assessments, including TIMSS and PISA. This has contributed to the

entrenchment of ‘assessment’ becoming an institutional authority of standards, teaching

(performativity) and classroom learning. It is against, and amidst such contexts, that this article

traces how the notion and discourse of formative assessment and Assessment for Learning

(AfL) are widely introduced and used formally across all Singapore schools, particularly after a

recent introduction of new ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ policies. We argue that the very

institutional authority of successful high-stake examination results, which served as critical

standards of performativity of teaching and learning in the classroom, is being challenged. The

changing assessment context of Singaporean schools therefore serves as an interesting case

study site for studying how formative assessment and AfL can be adapted and understood when

'learning' is already seen to be successful.

~~~ ~~~

Gaining its independence only in 1965 from Britain and Malaya, Singapore’s nationhood journey

from a small economy with limited primary industry and few natural resources, to the current

financial, information, service and digital economy powerhouse in South-East Asia, has been

driven largely by substantial educational development. Its consistent and powerful ideological

and cultural consensus on the national significance of education is a prime engine of economy

growth shared by the public and many parents, politicians and the corporate sector (Sharpe &

Gopinathan, 2003). The country’s education system and consistently stellar student

performance in international comparative measures of educational achievement have been

widely reported (McKinsey, 2007; World Economic Forum, 2009; OECD, 2013). These reports

testify to the significant emphasis the country has placed on education. The pertinent policy

questions for local policy-makers and school leaders now revolve around what Singaporean

schools and teachers should do to maintain the high standards of student academic achievement



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in schools. At the same time, the question of ‘what next?’, in terms of supporting and extending

students’ lifelong learning and ability to thrive in the uncertainty of demands of the twenty-

first-century workplace, will become more pressing. Such deep evaluative questions cannot find

their lineage in any other educational systems that are, for instance, grappling with falling

standards of student academic achievement, while managing budgetary cuts in education

funding across schools and higher institutes of education. Yet, many researchers have

highlighted that teachers worldwide are facing an unprecedented challenge to understand and

introduce new classroom assessment practices at all stages of the educational system to raise

students’ academic achievements as good proxies of raising education standards (Broadfoot et

al., 1991; Mok, 2008; Pope et al., 2009; Price et al., 2012). For example, Black and Wiliam (2005)

and Tierney (2006) highlight worldwide efforts to improve teachers’ classroom assessment

skills in countries such as Canada, England, Israel, New Zealand and USA. Spotlights on

classroom assessment have intensified, particularly in countries such as the USA and England in

recent years, as national and international test results become part of the political debates

regarding the need to raise the quality of education (Lang et al., 1999).

This article introduces and discusses the context of the implementation of two recent classroom

assessment initiatives in Singaporean primary and secondary classrooms. First, we discuss the

Singaporean education system, and then examine the distinctive Singaporean school

examination system that has been in place for the past decades. We go on to describe the

implementation of the new ‘Holistic Assessment’ and ‘Balanced Assessment’ initiatives in the

Singaporean classrooms. The article reflects on these changes by discussing how, if new policies

purporting to support teaching and learning are to be taken up within Singaporean classrooms,

one needs first to look critically ‘within’, to understand how a possibly deeply entrenched

conception and practice of classroom assessment has existed according to past values and

priorities. We argue that the very institutional authority of successful high-stake examination

results, which served as critical standards of performativity of teaching and learning in the

Singaporean classrooms for many years, has to and is being challenged. We conclude that the

changing assessment context of Singaporean schools will serve as an interesting case study site

for studying how formative assessment and AfL can be adapted and understood when 'learning'

is already seen to be successful.

Singaporean education landscape

Following a review of primary-school education in 2009, the Singapore government supported a

key recommendation by the Primary School Review Committee (PERI) to address the

overemphasis on testing and examination, particularly at lower primary levels. The Committee

recommended that ‘Holistic Assessment’ that supports students’ learning be progressively

introduced in all primary-school classrooms, starting with lower primary in 2011 (PERI, 2009),

after trialling new ‘Holistic Assessment’ practices in some schools between 2009 and 2010. In

the 2014 International Assessment Educational Assessment (IAEA) Conference held in

Singapore, ‘Holistic Assessment’ has been defined by Ministry of Education (MOE) as follows:



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Holistic Assessment (HA) is the ongoing gathering of information on the different facets of

a child from various sources. A key purpose of HA is to provide feedback to support and

guide the child’s development. To achieve this, the PERI Committee recommended that for

HA implementation, teachers be equipped with the skills (e.g. to use rubrics) to assess and

provide pupils with richer and more holistic feedback on their development and skills

acquisition. Schools are also encouraged to provide parents with a more comprehensive

“Holistic Development Profile” which captures a fuller picture of their child’s progress and

learning throughout the year. (Lee, Oh, Ang, & Lee 2014)

The introduction of an education policy that supports the use of assessment to enhance teaching

and learning in the classroom is relatively late-coming considering the output of research and

policy documents on formative assessment and AfL that have emerged across the world since

particularly the 1990s. One might speculate that such an introduction was carefully considered

to initiate gradual changes in classroom assessment first in primary and later in secondary

schools. Before this, there were no nationwide, targeted educational initiatives on classroom

assessment, although other curricular and infrastructural policies have been introduced

incrementally since the 1990s. These various policies could be also carefully timed, after

observing how other countries had tried to introduce curricular and assessment changes in

their educational systems. Such a plausibly careful and targeted approach of policy-making and

implementation is well encapsulated in the following extract from the current Minister of

Education’s sharing in a 2013 national forum:

Whatever we do, we must be deliberate and thoughtful about what we need to change,

how fast we can change, and how far we can sustain these changes [...] We must have the

resources to sustain any change. I have been watching the debates on resourcing

education in various countries. Countries that have started with a big bang now have to

make painful changes to cut back. (Heng, 13 March 2013)

The importance of such sustainable change management in Singapore can be seen in how

changes in education policies have been introduced prudently and judiciously by a stable

government dominated by a single political party in the past 48 years of nationhood. The series

of policies (see Table 1) implemented since the late 1990s has sought to create different

innovative and engaging learning pathways and courses for students of varying academic

abilities and interests.

Table 1: Mapping of recent MOE Policy/Initiative Year Recent MOE policy/initiative

1997– 2005

‘Ability-Driven Education’ or ADE policies (Teo, 1999, p. 1) and ‘Innovation & Enterprise’ or I&E policies. Syllabi and university admission criteria were changed to encourage critical and creative thinking, and risk-taking.



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Year Recent MOE policy/initiative

2004 ‘Teach Less and Learn More’ or ‘TLLM’ policies (Tharman, 2005b). Curricular and pedagogical innovations are encouraged for students and teachers to do less rote-learning/didactic teaching. Greater emphasis should be placed on engaged learning, discovery through experiences, differentiated teaching, learning lifelong skills, and character building through innovative and effective teaching approaches and strategies.

2005–2009 ‘TLLM’–Ignite initiatives Encouraging school-based curriculum innovations (SBI) to design curricula that best meet the interests and abilities of students. More authority is devolved to school leaders and teachers for ‘bottom-up’ curricular and pedagogical initiatives, with ‘top-down’ support from MOE (2005). Select teachers are appointed ‘research assistants’ to document and evaluate initiatives.

2009– ‘Holistic’ and ‘Balanced’ Assessment School-based assessment to give emphasis to formative assessment, while strengthening summative assessment practices. The implementation approach focuses on building school-wide capacity to use appropriate assessment methods, and design and deliver sound assessment to support good decision making in teaching and learning. 21st Century Competencies The 21st century competencies underpin the holistic education that schools provide to better prepare students for the future.

2012– Recalibrating evaluation of schools towards ‘holistic education’ The banding of schools by their absolute academic results to be abolished. Reducing the number of self-evaluations of performance measures of school (known as School Excellence Model, or SEM) by half.

The progressive introduction of new policies articulates in different ways and to varying

degrees the espoused goals for schools and teachers to address opportunities for ‘holistic

learning’ (MOE, 2005); that is, students can strive beyond narrowly defined academic excellence

to develop a wider set of appropriate attributes, mindsets and values. The priority that MOE

accords to investing in a Singaporean student’s future success has also been consistently

reiterated in these policies. Ng’s keynote address (2008), as then Minister for Education,

outlined challenges for the year 2015 and a curriculum to prepare students not only for and

through such a diversified curriculum, but also for challenges beyond schooling. At the same

time of introduction of ‘Holistic assessment’, in 2009 the MOE disseminated widely the twenty-

first-century competencies framework to all Singaporean schools (cf:

www.moe.gov.sg/education/21cc). This directs further attention to the enhancement of

students’ learning through holistic education in this new age of a fast-changing and highly

connected world. The role of education to build students’ twenty-first-century competencies

needs to be anchored also on strong values and character, ushering a new educational phase of

a student-centric, value-based education (Heng, 2011). This new phase of Singaporean

education brings a sharper focus to holistic education although it has also raised further

questions about how assessment can and should keep pace with curricular and pedagogical

http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/21cc



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changes. A logical implication of ‘holistic education’ was given further attention by the current

Minister for Education, Heng (2011), when he noted the aspirations and desires of school

leaders and teachers in his speech at the 2011 annual Work Plan Seminar for Singaporean

school leaders and teachers:

Many of you [school leaders and teachers] have asked for support to be more student-

centric, to see to the total development of the person rather than to build up just the

academics…. Our schools and teachers will need time and space, to engage in the more

demanding type of educating – values and twenty-first-century competencies. (Heng,

2011, p. 5, point 36)

Withstanding the challenges of time and space for such a vision of educating, the building of

infrastructure for more student-centricity towards ‘holistic education’ has been consistently

funded in schools and teachers by the MOE over the past few years. For example, in terms of

structural changes to the curriculum, it has provided greater space for school-based flexibility

by reducing syllabus content across subjects, so that 10–20 per cent of curriculum time could be

freed up as ‘white space’ (time off for teachers’ professional learning). Teachers can take time to

design lessons using a variety of innovative teaching and assessment methods to better meet

the needs of their students. The MOE has also reduced the teaching responsibilities of identified

teachers, such as senior teachers or heads of department, to mentor new teachers or serve as

research personnel (‘research assistants’ or RA), and to lead in action research or related

professional development work in evaluating innovative practices in schools (MOE, 2005).

We suggest that while the MOE in Singapore and school leaders have indeed introduced new

policy initiatives giving Singaporean teachers more time and autonomy to design ‘holistic

education’ experiences for students, at least one major deterrent to change remain. For a long

time, a successful Singaporean student was one with good examination results, and a successful

teacher was one who was able to help his/her students achieve good examination results.

Therefore, overcoming the examination performativity agenda may pose a challenge to school

leaders and teachers choosing to innovate in their core businesses of teaching and learning. This

is likely to happen even with the recent abolition of school banding by absolute academic results

and the recalibrating of the evaluation tool of the school’s performance such that schools can, as

the current Minister of Education emphasised in his speech (Heng, 2012) to principals during

the 2012 annual Work Plan Seminar, ‘focus on putting students at the core of their daily work’

(p. 5). Therefore, it may appear that the issue is not whether any of these new policy initiatives

are designed to effect changes in classroom practice. Rather, it is whether there are indeed ‘new’

practices within classrooms that are true to the intent of the espoused student-centric policies

and initiatives that have been articulated strongly in recent years, while the national

examination system is still in place.

Singaporean school examination system



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Of the many legacies left by the British after their colonisation until 1959, the examination

system has been one of the most enduring. The decision to stay with a British system of

education and the Cambridge Examination Syndicate was prompted, among other reasons, by

the desire to maintain a competitive edge with the rest of the world (Tan et al., 1998). The

Cambridge Examination Syndicate is globally viewed as a fair and unbiased way to evaluate and

certify educational attainment, which is of particular importance in a credential-led society like

Singapore (ibid.).

The use of examinations for certification is not an unusual practice, particularly in Confucian-

heritage cultures (Biggs, 1996) within Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong

and Singapore. Cheng (1996, p. 9) argued that the ‘examination is the soul of the ethos about

education in Asian societies’. He goes on to describe examinations as not merely selection

mechanisms, but also as ‘training opportunities for competition, adaptation, endurance,

perseverance, and so forth’ (ibid). Researchers have commented on how the imperial

examination system of the past Confucianistic era in China is a ‘shared living culture’ (Yao, 2000,

p. 261); it is a motivating force for modernisation and strength for the people in these countries

to remain competitive in all international arenas. Students are enculturated from an early age

that acquiring the necessary paper qualifications is a prerequisite for securing a respectable job,

income and social status. Hence, Lee (1991) discussed the implications of examination-

orientated schooling in Asian societies, arguing that the hidden curriculum of such education

systems is ‘education for earning, not learning’ (p. 227).

Indeed, the importance of education in Singapore is regularly discussed and debated within the

Singaporean society terms of academic achievement, specifically doing well in examinations

that are used to sort students into various educational streams, schools and eventually even

within society (Zao Bao, 2009a; 2009b; Straits Times, 2009; Today, 2009; Lim, 2012). The

national examination was seen by policy-makers as necessary in the early years of Singapore’s

nation-building as being able to help citizens acquire the highest qualifications quickly in order

to contribute to the workforce of a fast-growing society (Goh, 2005). The country’s survival as a

young nation is dependent on ensuring the people, as the most dependable resources for

nation-building, can be quickly ‘stratified’ according to their skills and abilities through public

examinations. This is in keeping with Cheng’s contention (1996, p. 7) that the ‘examination is

the major goal-keeper of the quality of education output, quality in the sense appropriate to the

particular societies’.

‘Streaming’ examinations

The sorting or streaming process through the national examination has been a contentious

aspect of the Singaporean education system, which has been debated and modified in the years

of the nation-building process. Until 2008 all Singaporean students were ‘streamed’ as early as

Grade Three, based on school examination results, into different categories of ability. The best-

performing students went into schools offering a Gifted Programme, followed by the EM1 or

EM2, which accommodated the average and above-average students based on their summative

results for English, Mathematics and Mother Tongue. The academically weakest students in

these subjects were put into the EM3 stream, where students were prepared for post-secondary

vocational studies. Since 2008 this process has been modified by a subject-based banding policy



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(Ng, 2008). Pending summative results in Grade Four, students are able to choose a mixture of

standard and foundation subjects in English, Mathematics, Mother Tongue and Science,

depending on their proficiency and aptitude in those subjects. Students can choose to read

subjects at different levels of difficulty based on their performance, interest and teachers’

advice. Giving more authority to students (and parents) to make a decision about which

learning track is most suitable replaces the ‘automated’ and ‘one-size-fits-all’ streaming process

of the past.

At the end of primary school in Grade Six, students are again streamed, based on national

examination results of the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) into secondary schools.

Here, the academically outstanding and above-average students are channelled into the Express

stream, whereas weaker students go into the Normal stream, where they take five years to

complete their secondary education rather than four. The best-performing students in the

Normal stream can, upon completion of the General Certificate in Education (GCE) Normal or N

level examinations, move into the Express stream to take the GCE O level examinations with the

rest of the population, but in practice only a small number succeed in this lateral transfer. The

Ministry is beginning to introduce greater flexibility in subject offering in the lower secondary,

by allowing students posted to the Normal stream to take some subjects at a higher level. This

will be prototyped in 12 secondary schools from 2014 (MOE, 2013).

Beyond secondary school, students who do not drop out to work or pursue technical, vocational

or professional studies compete for limited places in the junior colleges, where students sit the

GCE A level examination. Students who perform well enough in the A level examination can be

admitted to one of the only six universities in Singapore. The close tracking of students’

academic performances is enabled through the various school-based examinations. In the

course of the four primary and secondary school terms, which are situated within two school

semesters spanning roughly five months each (January–May and July–November), schools

typically administer continual assessments (CA) and semestral assessments (SA) at the end of

each alternate term respectively. These are pen and paper examinations that help teachers to

assess summatively the student’s learning for each subject (with the exception of non-academic

subjects like Art, Music and PE, whereby schools typically do not enforce tests and

examinations, although that is possible) at the end of each term or semester. These continual

and semestral assessments in turn reinforce the importance of doing well in national

examinations in order to qualify for the more desirable streams or schools. An emphasis on

assessment as examination by Singaporean teachers, students and parents in general is thus

inevitable. The very limited research studies on teachers’ classroom practices conducted by

local researchers suggested that the current assessment regime has inhibited or constrained the

willingness and opportunity of Singaporean teachers to change their teaching practices in line

with current policy priorities that favoured what policy-makers considered ‘learner-centred’

pedagogy (Hogan et al., 2013). Instead, teachers have continued to draw on teacher-focused

teaching strategies that are oriented to students’ examination performances (Koh & Luke,

2009). This in turn suggests the tension between MOE policy priorities and the overall reception

and valuing of these policy directives by many Singaporean teachers.

‘Holistic and balanced assessment’



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In 2008 the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI), led by Grace Fu, incumbent

Minister of State for Education, was formed to study ways to enhance primary education in the

context of TLLM. At the same time, an Assessment Review Corporate Planning Team (ARCPT)

within the MOE was convened to review and explore ways to refine the examination and

assessment landscape in Singaporean schools. Recognising the robust primary and secondary

education system, which is respected for its high standards, both committees concluded that the

national standardised examinations, such as the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE),

should remain a key stage examination. Such an examination ensured that the ‘national

assessment framework continues to maintain high standards and ensure the acquisition of

strong foundational knowledge’ (PERI, 2009, p. 35). They noted that the national examination

system articulates explicit curriculum goals and standards, and sets a defined benchmark for all

pupils and teachers to work towards. This has helped students to meet minimum standards at

each of the key stage levels, while avoiding the huge disparities in educational standards across

schools evident in other countries. The experiences from these countries suggested to the panel

that there was a continued important role for national examinations in Singapore’s education

system, namely, to maintain academic rigour and standards (Heng, 2013).

The PERI Committee also agreed with views from members of the public who felt the need to

shift towards a less examination-oriented culture, particularly at lower primary levels, to help

students enjoy learning across all subjects. The PERI Committee thus proposed that internal

school-based assessment could afford to shift some focus away from summative assessment to a

more formative one so that the system could be better balanced to help students benefit from

constructive feedback in both academic and non-academic subjects (PERI, 2009). In particular,

the PERI Committee suggested that a ‘Holistic Assessment’ policy be established to look into the

recommendations in Table 2.

Table 2: List of PERI’s recommendations of ‘Holistic Assessment’ (PERI, 2009)

‘Holistic Assessment’ Recommendations (PERI, 2009)

1. Encourage schools to move away from a strong emphasis on examinations in Primary 1 and 2, and explore the use of a variety of bite-sized assessments to help build pupils’ confidence and desire to learn.

2. Place less importance on end-of-semester examinations in Primary 1 in order to facilitate pupils’ transitions from pre-school to primary school. Primary 2 pupils could be slowly eased into taking examinations.

3. Equip teachers to use rubrics to assess and provide pupils with richer and more holistic feedback on their development and skills acquisition in academic and non-academic areas.

4. Encourage primary schools to provide parents with a more comprehensive ‘Holistic Development Profile’ that captures a fuller picture of their child’s progress and learning throughout the year.

5. Continue to provide clear guidelines for the learning outcomes for each subject at the end of every level, to facilitate teachers’ design of appropriate assessment tasks and



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ensure students’ continued mastery of foundational skills.

6. Develop a system to assess the schools’ ability to develop their pupils in academic and non-academic areas and to provide a more holistic education.

The PERI Committee recognised that while the high-stakes nature of national examinations

could have unintended consequences for teaching and learning, such as the narrowing of

curriculum and teaching, focusing only on a small set of limited learning outcomes, they

continue to play an important role in Singapore’s education system. At the same time, an

Assessment Review Corporate Planning Team (ARCPT) within the MOE was convened to review

and explore ways to refine the examination and assessment landscape across all Singaporean

schools. The recommendation for changes in assessment beyond primary schools proposed by

ARCPT involved helping secondary and junior college schools and teachers to think about the

judicious use of both ‘Assessment for and of Learning’ (AfL/AoL). The ARCPT Committee shared

a similar view with PERI Committee, in that rather than revamping the national examination

system at this point, schools and teachers could take measured steps to build up capacity for

school-based assessment, which could better complement the national examinations, providing

students with a more comprehensive learning experience. The recommendations for changes in

assessment beyond primary schools proposed by ARCPT involved helping schools and teachers

to think about the possibilities of ‘Balanced Assessment’, involving the use of practices that

continue to support students achieve high academic standards while widening their learning

opportunities. Some of the important recommendations included:

Both ‘Assessment for/of Learning’ should be positioned as an integral part of good

teaching practices.

Help teachers to use a broad range of assessment instruments, beyond traditional

standardised tests, to assess students on a wider set of learning outcomes such as

twenty-first-century competencies and skills. Help teachers to identify a broader set of

learning outcomes, beyond cognitive achievements.

Work closely with existing expertise in NIE to design professional development and

learning experiences of effective classroom assessment for teachers, school leaders and

MOE officers.

The implementation of ‘Holistic Assessment’ or HA begins in 2010 for 16 pilot primary schools

(Tan et al., 2014). To ensure that implementation is systemic and sustainable in this ‘Piloting

Phase’, schools implemented HA across one grade level at a time, starting at Primary 1 and

expanding implementation to the next grade level with each year. During the full ‘Roll-out

Phase’ (2011 – 2013), the remaining primary schools in Singapore embarked on HA to

implement its ‘core features’. In the current ‘Deepening Phase’ (2014 – 2016), the focus is on

enhancing teachers’ assessment competency and raising the quality of overall assessment vis-à-

vis pedagogical and curricular changes. In the secondary schools, details of adoption and

professional learning in formative assessment or AfL are not as well reported currently.

However we do know the since 2013, the authors and other colleagues in same department

have been running a series of assessment literacy workshops for secondary school teachers.



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These workshops are coordinated by MOE, and address a range of assessment issues ranging

from formative assessment, assessment rubrics and self-assessment. This is in anticipation of

the first batch of some primary school students who have experienced ‘Holistic assessment’ and

will be transiting to secondary schools very soon.

The current policy discourse is laid out such that terms like ‘Assessment for Learning’ and

‘formative assessment’ are one of the essential considerations in ‘Holistic and Balanced

Assessment’. They are also read as interchangeable entities or forms of assessment (as also

reflected in this article) that are assumed to be understood and accepted by local readers. MOE

has cited this definition of AfL in the local intranet portal site under the heading of ‘purpose of

assessment’:

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is assessment that supports teaching and learning. For

instance, teachers may identify gaps in student learning, and provide quality feedback for

students on how to improve their work. AfL is used to redirect learning in ways that help

learners master learning goals, and is primarily used for ensuring that the intended

learning outcomes are achieved by students. For these reasons, it is formative in nature,

and is central to classroom instruction [bold and italics in original]. (MOE-OPAL, 2014)

There is a further suggestion that ‘Holistic and Balanced’ Assessment practices could be more

explicitly defined for different subjects and grade levels of students. This could happen through

working with teachers, researchers and school leaders, through research projects or

professional development and learning sessions. To sustain the implementation of ‘Holistic

Assessment’ in primary schools for instance, Teacher Learning Communities (TLC) were set up

in schools with the support of MOE. In 2013, Teacher Learning Communities were piloted in 72

primary schools, involving more than 1,000 teachers. In 2014, the number of primary schools

that have opted to set up TLC has increased to 125, involving more than 3,000 teachers from all

subject areas (Tan et al., 2014). In the TLC, teachers made use of Embedding Formative

Assessment: A Professional Development Pack for Schools (Leahy & Wiliam, 2010) as the main

resource for professional learning. A learning cycle involving discussion of formative

assessment strategies, trying out of formative assessment strategies in class, and peer

observation and discussion was repeated across the year. MOE provided support to primary

schools and teachers on board by providing access to consultation, necessary resources (e.g.

website links, video recordings of formative assessment-infused lessons), as well as organised

networking sessions between primary schools.

Critical look at the recent Singaporean assessment policies

As Ogawa et al. (1999, p. 291) pointed out, while various education policy initiatives have been

‘well laced with a language suggesting improvement, change, growth, effectiveness and

development, there has been relatively little attention to a second, key language’. This second

language is that of teachers suggesting the feasibility, tensions and contradictions of changes

that are on-going in classrooms. Singaporean teachers may be able to appreciate why there is a



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need for a more expansive conception of classroom assessment. However, ‘Holistic and

Balanced Assessment’ may be radically different from past conceptions of assessment as forms

of testing and examining; there are therefore many potential challenges involving coming to

terms with the new policy and creating a new understanding of practice in both

conceptualisation and implementation. How teachers can reconcile a possible dilemma between

helping students achieve grades in tests and examinations for public accountability, and also

make any new classroom assessment ‘count’ for student-centric aspirations, may remain a

matter of policy and practical tension. In overcoming this tension, we propose there are at least

two pressing issues to address: balancing AfL and AoL, and efficacy of bite-sized assessment.

Balancing Assessment for Learning (AfL) and Assessment of Learning (AoL)

The word ‘balance’ is a very powerful word. As a value laden term, it presupposes that what is

balanced is right, and what is not (that version of) balanced is therefore unbalanced. Yet,

balance can mean a number of different things. It could mean a compromise between two

irreconcilable ideas and practices. It could mean accommodating diverse (not contradictory)

ideals. It could mean pragmatic concession or compromising between different purposes of

education altogether. It could also mean indecision – not making a firm decision that is required,

but making a non decision.

The term balance is regularly used in the context of assessment and it may be worthwhile to

consider what the word should mean, and the relationship it is referring to between the two

ideas that need to be ‘balanced’. Balanced assessment is usually meant to achieve a

comprehensive set of purposes, to ensure that we achieve all the purposes we need through

‘balance’. However, there is no universal agreement amongst assessment scholars and

practitioners on what balance actually means in assessment (Edwards, Turner, & Mokhtari,

2008; Koo, Chua, & Tan, 2012; White, 2007; Wresch, 1998). In fact, there have been doubts cast

on whether there can realistically be parity of assessment for learning and assessment of

learning practices and purposes. The phenomenon of backwash theorises that some students

only learn what they perceive will be assessed. Hence, AfL constructs the curriculum, and

determines what can be learned (better) from AoL. The backwash effect of high stakes

assessment in Singapore poses challenges to utilising assessment, especially formative

assessment practices, for enhancing learning in Singapore schools and classrooms. In extreme

circumstances, this may mean that AoL dominates AfL to the extent that AfL exists only for the

purpose of enhancing students’ results in AoL. So the ‘balance’ between AoL and AfL may not

eventually be a pervasive reality. AfL is historically and structurally disadvantaged and

dominated by AoL. Yet we recognise that the high stakes examinations cannot possibly

articulate everything that is worthwhile and necessary for students to learn. Hence, teachers

will have to find new ways, and new reasons, for convincing students (and their parents) that

AfL should not only be used only to improve examination results eventually, but also to

construct and enhance important learning that cannot be tested in examinations. In view of the

dominance of examination/testing-oriented approaches of teaching and learning in Singaporean

schools, it is the deeper-learning potential of AfL within classroom assessment that is probably

most in need of further persuasion.

Efficacy of bite-sized assessment



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There is a tendency in Singapore to devote more weight to the notion of holistic learning, but

less thought to the forms of assessment practice that prompts students to learn holistically

(Tan, 2011). This may be partly attributed to the tendency to take an episodic approach to

assessment, i.e. the approach to assessment design of discrete and unrelated tasks which

aggregate to a semblance of an assessment plan (if any). The assessment term commonly

employed in Singapore’s school context, ‘Continual Assessment’ (or CA) refers more to the

accumulation of distinct episodes of assessment which are not the final ‘Semestral Examination’

(or SA), rather than to a sequence of related assessment practices that prompts students to

connect different topics and ideas to each other. The PERI committee had recommended that

schools should be encouraged to ‘move away from an overly strong emphasis on examinations,

and explore the use of bite-sized forms of assessment which place more emphasis on learning

rather than on grades alone.’ (PERI, 2009, p. 35). To illustrate what will be understood as a bite-

sized assessment task (in place of a formal examination), Textbox 1 shows a sample of such task

from a primary school (Ang, Quek & Idris. 2014) that has presented on their HA practices in the

2014 IAEA conference.

Textbox 1: Sample of bite-sized task

Pick and Tell is an assessment of communication skills which is a vital 21st CC skill necessary

for the globalised world that we live in. There are two learning outcomes for this assessment.

One learning outcome is to equip pupils to plan and present information for a variety of

purposes. Another learning outcome is to enable pupils to produce spontaneous and planned

texts that are grammatically accurate, fluent, coherent and cohesive. These learning outcomes

are aligned with the English Department’s objective of preparing pupils with the skills to

communicate in internationally acceptable English. Thus, we design the assessment Pick and

Tell for the lower primary pupils to scaffold them towards developing skills that will make them

become confident and skilled communicators.

In Pick and Tell, each pupil is given ten minutes to prepare a speech based on a picture. The

pupil will randomly pick a picture from a set of picture cards to talk about. There will be a

different picture for each child in the class […] Pupils can talk about anything related to the

picture based on their experiences or knowledge. They have to mention at least three ideas with

appropriate introduction and conclusion.



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13

Pupils are assessed based on a set of rubrics.

According to the school:

Our assessment for learning is aligned to 21st CC outcomes. [We support] the assessment

for learning which is based on a learner-centred 21st century education. The learning and

assessment in classrooms are thinking-driven and holistically integrated through

purposeful engagement. (Ang, Quek & Idris 2014, pp. 3).

Teachers can then subsequently make use of this activity as one of the “formative assessments”

to communicate feedback (rather than grades) on the pupils’ learning in their holistic reports

card to their parents.

It is not apparent what these bite-sized forms of assessment should actually do for enhancing

students’ learning (while not totally disregarding grades). It is submitted that partitioning

learning into bite sized portions may have the unintended effect fragmenting earning into even

more unrelated segments of information which do not add up to a coherent whole. This would

not culminate in holistic learning that can provide students with a coherent understanding of

their curriculum. At least one international observer and scholar has pointed out that such a

recommendation is worrisome as there is a possibility that this could lead to further



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performance-orientated learning to the detriment of sustained and real learning (Klenowski,

2009). Accordingly, it is highly contentious to consider summative assessment tasks that have

been broken up into continuous or modular assessment as being synonymous or part of

formative assessment practices. Such over-simplification has been pointed out by other

assessment scholars as being highly problematic (e.g., Bennett, 2011; Ecclestone, 2010). .

The efficacy of ‘bite-sized assessment’ and accompanying assessment practices to integrate

learning over a period of time has to be rigorously investigated. At worst, the

compartmentalization of different topics into different assessment questions discourages

students from making connections of their knowledge, which in turn compartmentalises the

curriculum into disparate and unrelated segments. The increasing modularization of syllabi

exacerbates the adverse consequences, creating artificial modularizations of knowledge with

accompanying assessment practices isolated within artificial modularized boundaries. This

results in what Sadler (2007) describes as decomposition of knowledge, i.e. segmenting the

whole into manageable units such that it is difficult to ‘the make the bits work together as a

coherent learning experience that prepares learners to operate in intelligent and flexible ways.’

(p.389). Consequently, learning is reconstructed for students as experiencing the curriculum in

a linear fashion, moving from one topic to the next without necessarily making sense of the

subject as a whole. The risk of constructing and perpetuating reductionist views of learning

cannot be discounted.

Looking ahead

Given that the Singapore state is currently implementing a new classroom assessment policy,

albeit in a gradual manner, first in primary schools, and progressively to all secondary schools,

the Singaporean context presents another unique site of study to clarify the understanding and

implementation of innovative classroom assessment. The changing teaching and learning

context of Singaporean schools towards ‘learner-centred and balanced assessment’ (MOE,

2013) serves as a very interesting site for studying how formative assessment can be adapted

and understood within a context whereby critical standards of performativity of teaching and

learning in the classroom, is being challenged. This emerging starting-point has the potential to

form the basis for continued and sustained development towards formative assessment that is

closer to the principles of AfL, or what Carless (2010) refers to as the ‘extended form’ of

formative assessment. There could be other ideals or values of teaching and learning in

Singaporean classrooms that are not necessarily bounded by purposes of formative and

summative assessment per se, but in fact suggest possibilities of productive synergies between

the two. Assessment cannot remain ‘purely’ formative or summative in this sense, but must

adapt according to who is using the information of assessment, where the users are and, going

even further, when they are using it (Harlen, 2005). This suggests that both formative

assessment and summative assessment cannot be thought of just as a technical bifurcation of

‘purposes’, but rather as complex educational and indeed social processes within particular

classrooms.

Balancing of tensions



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15

There are other important sources of tensions that need to be rationalised in assessment in

Singaporean schools, beyond the rhetorics of balancing AfL and AoL. Firstly, there should be a

balance between the regulatory needs of assessment against the effects of assessment on

learning. The term consequential validity refers to the extent of (positive) effects that

assessment has on learning. High consequential validity means that assessment has positive

effects on students’ learning. Low consequential validity means that students are discouraged

from learning, or distracted from what they are meant to learn. Assessment validity is often

emphasised in terms of assessment evaluating what it is that it is meant to measure. This has to

do with relevance. Assessment validity should be balanced against consequential validity of

assessment so that assessment does not unduly pose negative consequences on students’

learning.

Secondly, there should be balance between aggregate measurement of each individual learning

achievement, and holistic judgments of learners’ attributes. Not everything can be measured.

And certainly not everything should be measured. There is a place for ‘scientific’ quantitative

measurements and aggregations of learning. This is useful for comparative purposes between

individuals in a cohort. There is also a place for personal ipsative assessment of each individual

that is holistic and judgemental. Ipsative assessment, or student referenced assessment, refers

to assessment practices wherein learners judge their personal improvement/enhancement of

learning against their previous attempts, rather than against their peers. In particular, ipsative

feedback practices, which is based on a comparison with the learner’s previous performance

and linked to long term progress, is more likely to be usable and offer additional motivational

effects (Hughes 2011). Hence, ipsative assessment is not meant for comparison, ranking or

discrimination between students. It is a personal and individual assessment of each learner for

that individual’s growth and development.

Finally, there should also be a balance within AfL in terms of balancing assessment for imminent

learning, and assessment for future learning. It is observed that the discourse of AfL tends to

focus on imminent improvement within a short period of time. Feedback practice is premised

on the assumption and purpose of getting students to close their gaps quickly so that the

improvement can show in high stakes tests and examinations. Whilst this in itself is not wrong,

it does intend to ignore the kinds of learning and improved learning that happens over a longer

and future period of time. In light of our growing emphasis on 21st century learners, it is

increasingly important to reconsider the effects of assessment on each student’s long term

future learning capacity. A useful concept would be the notion of sustainable assessment (See

Boud, 2000), which can be defined as ‘assessment that meets the needs of the present and

prepares students to meet their own future learning needs.’ (p.151). This involves teaching

students to be independent assessors, and learners, and decreasing the adverse impact of high

stakes assessment on their future learning capacity.

Future research direction

The implication for future researchers to note is that, while the formative assessment-oriented

practices in Singaporean classrooms may not come up to the standards of sustainable

assessment, if the summative assessment-oriented practices can be harmonised with a mastery

learning focus, it can play a useful rather than detrimental role in the learning journey of the



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students. We look forward to reporting in future how successful Singaporean schools have been

in upscaling ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ across the levels. Further research could

suggest a particular conception and practice of classroom assessment that is sophisticated

enough to blend multiple goals of teaching and learning. Where the mastery of learning-

oriented approaches of teaching aligns itself more naturally with formative assessment that

abides more stringently to the principles of AfL (Assessment Reform Group, 2002) a more

performance-oriented version of formative assessment could be another starting-point for

understanding how learning and teaching can take place productively in a different way. This is

particularly so if the conceptualisation and enactment of classroom assessment is not viewed

statically, but is amendable to changes dynamically according to different classroom contexts

and periods of the year.

Such an implication of further research work on classroom assessment in a specific Singaporean

classroom context and beyond is consistent with James and Lewis’ (2012) conclusion that

assessment needs to be harmonised with the understanding of learning and teaching within a

prevailing social–cultural theory (James, 2008). For researchers of classroom assessment, this

means accepting that the socio-cultural dimension of the classroom matters; that it may be futile

to expect any consistent and global theory of formative assessment or AfL to be practised

uniformly across contexts. Rather, we have to accept and live with certain contradictions and

see dilemmas not as impediments of understanding but rather as opportunities for re-creating

new ways of knowing particularly in terms of local sense-making.

A very promising development in the Singaporean education context is the discontinuation of

the use of school ranking or league tables to monitor school performance. Concurrently, huge

investment is made by the Singaporean MOE to ensure the up-to-dateness of the national

examination syllabi across all subjects and levels, and how teaching, learning and assessment in

the classroom should be sensitive to progressive learning outcomes (e.g. twenty-first-century

competencies). Therefore, if the summative assessment tests and examinations incorporate the

intended curriculum, and the implemented curriculum does not deviate excessively from the

intended one, teaching to the test can be desirable because it reflects the desired total

curriculum and valued learning outcomes (Biggs, 1998). This is possible also if, according to

Stobart (2008), we can find out why and how students are able to situate their achievement as

being represented not by just a grade or marks, but rather within a much wider qualitative

continuum descriptor of complex performance and analytical skills to a more concrete recall of

discrete information and specific authentic occupational tasks.

Policy-making and school leadership

Where policy-makers and school leaders are aware of the different teachers’ conceptions and

practices of classroom assessment, they can develop and adapt policies and research findings

that are responsive to specific inconsistencies between their teachers’ practices and

conceptions. How a national or school policy defines and articulates both formative and

summative-oriented classroom assessment practices is very important to guide teachers’

decision-making. Teachers may value and be committed to students’ long-term learning

aspirations but may be confounded by the need to reproduce shorter term performance-driven

practices. At the organisational level, collective awareness of dissonance between the varying



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conceptions and practices of individual teachers can become a very powerful catalyst for school

self-evaluation, organisational learning and change. The knowledge and values of formative

assessment to support students’ longer-term learning, for instance, can potentially result in a

‘change-provoking disequilibrium’ (Woolfolk Hoy et al., 2009) that can stimulate both teacher

and organisational longer-term learning (rather than be focusing excessively on short-term

gains in performance). However, this can only happen if there is sufficient awareness of why

teachers currently maintain particular conceptions and practices of classroom assessment.

We believe many Singaporean teachers are already working very consciously, energetically, and

caringly for their students in their own ways. Recently, the five-yearly Teaching and Learning

International Survey (Talis) that saw 34 countries taking part (OECD, 2014) found Singapore

teachers to be among the youngest - 36 years old compared with 43 on average worldwide –

and they worked typically 10 hours more than the Talis average of 38 hours. Many of them tend

to learn and work in contexts of some form of dissonance between conception and practice of

classroom assessment. In the process, they may choose to embrace this dissonance, regarding it

as part and parcel of their professional lives, or it may prompt them to reconsider their

practices and/or the values they place on them. Such professional-choices are very personal to

the teachers and we should continue to find ways to understand why certain teachers’

orientations towards dissonance and dilemma can be more positive than others. Mapping out

such discursive spaces offers ways of connecting a teacher’s professional identity to a context of

dilemmas of current expectations and changing requirements of classroom assessment. In doing

so, school leaders can help teachers to know and look towards changing their conceptions and

practices that are neither constrained by the presuppositions of conventional thinking nor

necessarily foreclosed by the exigencies of existing practice.

Teachers’ professional learning

Within the Singaporean context, changes in classroom assessment practices are currently

prompted at the level of school-wide innovation that is well supported by MOE. Teachers must

know, understand and reflect on the context and purpose of change sufficiently to evaluate their

own conceptions and hopefully develop a desire to learn and adopt the proposed change.

Teachers’ knowledge and valuing of the innovation need to converge adequately (Gardner,

2010). Awareness-raising will quickly founder if teachers are not particularly supportive of the

proposed change; if they see no benefit or value for themselves or if they cannot envisage using

it in the classroom. There will be a need assist teachers to examine the attitudes, beliefs and

values permeating their day-to-day classroom assessment work; how they have may subscribed

‘uncritically or unwittingly, to particular conception of learning on which their classroom

assessment practices are based (James & Lewis, 2012).

The appeal of new assessment policies such as ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ may prompt

teachers to discover more about alternative views of classroom assessment. However, the effect

of such persuasion may be short-lived as teachers may jettison them because the cycle of

reflection and action has not been fully engaged and practised. A cycle of reflection, grounded in

examining their practices of classroom assessment, could stimulate teachers to ask and respond

to difficult questions, which would otherwise remain tacit (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Pope et al.,

2009). The process of making the tacit explicit is not likely a singular encounter of a revelation



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that has been known; it is a dialectical one in which familiar and tacit teachers’ knowing

interacts with and is reshaped by newly explicit knowing. Such professional learning is not

necessarily situated within a formalised and organised setting. Instead it may be ‘sparked off’

first by informal professional dialogue with colleagues and then further taken up through

school-based professional learning platforms such as lesson study and professional learning

communities, which form an important intermediary between the status quo and a new way of

knowing (Eraut, 2004; Putnam & Borko, 2000). In such platforms, teachers could be helped to

discern the critical aspects of classroom assessment (leading to differences of conceptions and

practices), and also the variation of experiences that could be possible and within reach of the

teachers. The spaces of discussion, conversation and experimentation become a ‘safe space’ for

individuals and groups of teachers to deliberate about possibilities and also to contextualise the

learning within their own classroom.

Conclusion

As a whole, the case of Singapore has pointed out many mediating influences of classroom

assessment, and findings from such case study suggests that the socio-cultural dimension

matters; that it may be futile to expect any consistent and global theory of classroom

assessment to be practised uniformly across contexts. The question of whether students in

Singaporean schools are enjoying the accolades of being ‘high-performing’ at the cost of being

deprived of ‘sustained and real learning’ is very difficult to answer at the moment. In the first

place, there is an assumption in Klenowski’s (2009) concern for instance that ‘sustained and

real learning’ is mutually exclusive from ‘performance-oriented’ learning; an assumption that

has been challenged by researchers such as Sadler (2007), who suggested that learning and

performance are not necessarily diametrically opposed. There is evidence that even though

Asian teachers and students make use of what researchers in the USA and UK deem to be

surface approaches to teaching and learning through didactic teaching and rote-learning

towards the tests, they are able to help their students access deep learning through the process

(Tweed & Lehman, 2002). A major challenge for teachers and researchers in Asian countries

‘importing’ and studying an Anglo-American education innovation within local schools is being

able to contextualise the theory and practice of the innovation in an appropriate and defensible

way; it is also about being sufficiently open to the genuine insights contained within local forms

of thought (McLaughlin, 2009). This is important not least because ‘Western’ conceptions and

practices are not unproblematic as they stand, but may require enrichment and amendment

from other sources of information. Various elements of culture and politics can interplay in

many and complex ways that are embedded in a national culture as a whole. Definitive

generalisations are ideals at best, and any deep understanding should come only from case

studies within individual countries. There is still much to be learnt about the ‘successful

learning context’ within Singaporean schools what (more) can, and should, assessment do for

learning.

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