Standard-Based Performance Assessment’s Scoring Practice in Primary Schools

There is a global shift from teaching of learning to teaching for learning in school. The Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysia, is also emulating the global shift by implementing standard-based educational system starting from 2011. The system upholds formative assessment as a tool to integrate assessment into teaching and learning. However, the scoring in formative environment that is supposed to be conducted as authentic assessment is subjected to reliability issues. Hence, this study was conducted specially to identify the reliability of teachers’ scoring in formative assessment environment and to identify whether there was a significant difference between formative and summative assessment scoring in the study. A total of 11 teachers and 530 students from grade A national primary schools in Selangor have been selected for the study. The data collected from test instruments and performance reports were analysed using quantitative method. The Cohen’s kappa statistical test indicated that teachers’ scoring in formative environment was subjected to low reliability. The result of inter-rater scoring agreement indicated that most of the teachers overestimated their students’ performance level (>80 %, n = 423). In terms of inter-rater agreement in teachers’ scoring, the chi-square analysis showed that there was no significant difference between scoring practices with three variables, namely (1) students’ grade level, (2) students’ gender, and (3) teachers’ option in teaching. The analysis found that there was a significant difference between scoring practices based on school location. The findings further indicated that there was a higher agreement (14 %) identified on scores given to rural students as compared to urban students (7 %). Hence, better professional development and training in quality standard-based performance assessment scoring are seen as ways to improve teachers’ scoring practice in standard-based performance assessment.