A comparison of teacher and test-based assessment for Spanish primary and secondary students

Abstract

Background: Education systems rely on both teacher and test-based assessments. Where these assessments are used for summative purposes particularly, it is important to understand why, and for which groups of students, teachers’ assessments may produce different results from test-based assessments. Purpose: This paper assesses whether the difference between teacher and test-based summative assessment at age 11 and 15 – as a measure of bias or uncertainty in assessment – is linked systematically to observable pupil characteristics. We also consider the important question of whether these measures of uncertainty and bias in assessment have any relationship with pupils’ subsequent educational choices at age 16. Sample: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper focused on the Spanish educational system that has compared teacher and test-based assessments for school-age children. The sample consists of 3000 primary and secondary students. Design and methods: This research is conducted using regression analysis on quantitative data, comparing teacher and test-based assessments conducted during the academic year 2009/10. Results: The gap between test scores and teacher assessments is particularly large for female students in mathematics, who obtain significantly higher teacher assessments compared with their test scores. Students from semi-private schools (concertadas), who are more likely to be socially advantaged, gain higher test scores in relation to their teachers’ assessments. This is particularly noticeable in reading. Conclusions: This finding is consistent with the notion that teachers overestimate the achievement of girls in mathematics, relative to their test scores. Teachers tend to assess pupils in a relative way and hence teachers in semi-private schools (with higher achieving pupils) underestimate the achievement of their pupils.