Reflective assessment in knowledge building by students with low academic achievement

Yuqin Yang,Jan Van Aalst,Wen Tian,Carol K K Chan

doi:10.1007/s11412-016-9239-1

Abstract

This study investigated whether and how students with low prior achievement can carry out and benefit from reflective assessment supported by the Knowledge Connections Analyzer (KCA) to collaboratively improve their knowledge-building discourse. Participants were a class of 20 Grade 11 students with low achievement taking visual art from an experienced teacher. We used multiple methods to analyze the students’ online discourse at several levels of granularity. Results indicated that students with low achievement were able to take responsibility for advancing collective knowledge, as they generated theories and questions, built on each others’ ideas, and synthesized and rose above their community’s ideas. Analysis of qualitative data such as the KCA prompt sheets, student interviews and classroom observations indicated that students were capable of carrying out reflective assessment using the KCA in a knowledge building environment, and that the use of reflective assessment may have helped students to focus on goals of knowledge building. Implications for how students with low achievement collaboratively improve their knowledge-building discourse facilitated by reflective assessment are discussed.

Highlights

One of the most important challenges facing schools is to ensure that students, especially those who are educationally disadvantaged, have the necessary tools and opportunities to engage inThe University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong, China 2 School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK higher-order learning goals such as collaborative inquiry
This study aimed to help students with low achievement to engage in sustained knowledge building through reflective assessment; it was part of a large project that involves a series of case studies to investigate the design, process and effects of reflective assessment on the improvement of students’ attempt at knowledge building, using the Knowledge Connection Analyzer (KCA) an assessment tool developed by our reseach team
This study investigated whether and how students with low achievement could engage in reflective assessment in knowledge building, supported by the Knowledge Connection Analyzer (KCA)

Summary

Introduction

One of the most important challenges facing schools is to ensure that students, especially those who are educationally disadvantaged, have the necessary tools and opportunities to engage inThe University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong, China 2 School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK higher-order learning goals such as collaborative inquiry. Among the most important principles of knowledge building are collective responsibility for community knowledge, epistemic agency, constructive use of authoritative sources, idea improvement, and synthesis and Brise-above.^ These are primarily accomplished through progressive discourse, typically online discourse on Knowledge Forum®. Another important aspect of knowledge building is the principle embedded and transformative assessment (Scardmalia 2002), which posits that assessment is part of the knowledge-building process and transforms it This study examines this kind of assessment but primarily targets collective responsibility for community knowledge, for which we use the proxy BAre we a community that collaborates?^ and synthesis/rise-above, for which we use the proxy BAre we putting our ideas together?^ (van Aalst et al 2012)

Objectives

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion