Healing assessment trauma: an experience of mutuality in Action Research

Abstract

Learning assessment is a pedagogical reality such as in teaching professional education courses with preservice education students. Assessment problems like horrifying and boring test papers must be addressed because these cause trauma to learners. Using an Action Research Method, I subjected my test materials to democratic critiquing and enhancement process, taking-into account the experiences of my learners and the viewpoints of my colleagues as my study participants. Said materials were utilized as my pedagogical action to address student assessment animosity. The results made me discern that though the contents of my test papers were aligned with the learning outcomes defined by the Commission on Higher Education, they were merely words and sentences in monotone appearance and thus, not eye-catching. Consequently, I crafted a Holistic Written Assessment Guide (HWAG) ensuring in test paper construction the pedagogical values of multiple intelligences, learning taxonomies, grammar review necessity, proper coverage and level of difficulty sequencing and marking, and time-number of items balance. Utilizing this new form and substance of my learning assessment material and engaging with it turned out to be liberating thus mutual healing to me as a transformed purveyor of education, to my students as healthy collaborators, creators and ultimate beneficiaries of learning, and to educators in the global environment as inspirers of democratic, equitable, and lifelong education. With this mutuality, this paper potentially enables leaders of nations to engage in the transformation of the pedagogical landscape.