Study On Large-Scale Assessment

By understanding students’ level of academic development, large-scale assessment provides an important guidance to deepen the education reform, improve the quality of teaching and promote students’ academic development. Along with the rapid development of knowledge economy and the deepening of the globalization, education evaluation, especially the large-scale evaluation, has gradually received a lot of attention from the teachers, education researchers and the department of education. This research, from a view of history, theory and case, studied the large-scale academic assessment. It can not only effectively promote our understanding of large-scale academic assessment, but also can find more theoretical supports and empirical guidance for the development of the theory and practice of our country’s large-scale academic evaluation.This study made a beneficial research discovery in the following five aspects:(1) The definition of large-scale assessment In this part, the author used the method of literature study and comparative study, summarized the concept of education evaluation, education measurement, and academic achievement assessment. On the basis of these concepts, we made a definition for the large-scale assessment. Large-scale academic assessment is a kind evaluation by making a value judgment based on a certain number of students’ level of academic achievement and teaching correlation factors, to monitor students’ study effect and judge the performance of education policy. It not only can be a regional evaluation, but also can be a country’s evaluation, and even an international evaluation.(2) The history of large-scale assessment. By means of literature search and interview, the author investigated the history of large-scale academic assessment. The history of the development of education evaluation, laid a theoretical and practical foundation for the development of large-scale academic assessment. Knowledge economy and globalization puts forward new requirements for personnel training and the education evaluation, and this provided a realistic possibility and necessity for the development of large-scale assessment. The history of the large-scale assessment in the basic education and higher education tells us that establish specific implementation and guarantee mechanism, make full use of the portfolio assessment can effectively promote large-scale assessment carried out more smoothly. At the same time, we should promote the schools’reform and students’ learning practice effectively on the basis of guarantying the reliability and validity of evaluation.(3) Theoretical analysis of large-scale assessment. Dissect the theories of large-scale assessment through literature research, comparative study and other methods, we have known that the research and practice of large-scale assessment is based on deferent kinds of theoretical basis, the theories are differ from different periods. While large-scale academic assessment in Scientific Management Perspective promotion the scientization of education evaluation, it ignores the differences in the assessment process and the efficient allocation of resources. The New Public Management theory through introducing the market mechanism to the large-scale academic assessment, achieve the efficient allocation of resource, and greatly increased the evaluation personnel sense of responsibility and work efficiency in the separation of powers and authorization. Social constructivism focuses on realizing personal construction and social construction in a certain situation, and promoting a further development and improvement of large-scale academic assessment through communication and consultation.(4) Typical cases analysis of large-scale assessment. I have interpreted many cases of famous large-scale assessment from foreign countries and international organizations through literature research, interviews, case studies, comparative research and other methods, and become realize the further understanding of it. Through the analysis of PISA, TIMSS and NAEP, I have realize that large-scale academic assessment can not only provide important information for educational administration and decision-makers, but also effectively promote the improvement of teachers’ teaching methods and the development of students’ school work.(5) The future trend of large-scale academic assessment. By analyzing design-based research, big data and data mining that have potential values for the development of large-scale assessment. We have recognized that design-based research which is focuses on the real practice situations, has provided us a new research paradigm. Big data and data mining can help us realize the scientific and standardization of large-scale academic assessment. The interaction between them can make us accomplish the effective integration of theory and practice, and achieve large-scale assessment shift from labor-intensive work to technology-intensive work.Through studying the history, theory and famous cases of large-scale assessment, we have developed a deep understanding of existing problems and possible solutions about the development of large scale assessment in China. Falling behind of guiding ideology, the unreasonable evaluation content, and the backward of evaluation methods are serious problems of large-scale assessment in China. Successful experiences of large-scale assessment research and practice in foreign countries give us important ideas for improving:strengthen basic research and theoretical innovation, strengthen the scientific of organization, implementation and decision-making, focusing on the use of information technology, network technology and other advanced technology, give full consideration to the current education reform and educational innovation demand.