Nowadays, it is increasingly acknowledged that how to assess students' learning
validly is one of the biggest issues which educational leaders are facing. While some
people believe that the formal written examination can be the best solution, others
advocate that the formal written examination is not a valid method. As far as I am
concerned, the formal written examination is not a valid way to assess students'
learning, which can be supported by the reasons as follows.
It is reasonable for me to believe that the formal written examination is lack of
comprehensiveness, which is obvious because it only assessing theoretical
knowledge without practical skills. The formal written test can only evaluate the
theory in the book, but cannot evaluate such as practical skills, verbal communication
skills, and interpersonal skills. To further support the above statement,
written exams cannot provide learning tasks that students can practice themselves
such as hands-on tasks.
Moreover, the formal written examination is not so accurate, it is reasonable because
the result is a partial assessment. If students’ abilities are solely defined by one
test on a particular date, it cannot show the long-term learning outcomes of them.
This can be established by a recent study by Oxford University which stated that 76%
of written test scores cannot assess long-term ongoing performance.
In a nutshell, although this controversial topic never fails to attract public attention,
we may safely conclude that the formal written examination is not a valid way to
assess students' learning.