Thinking clearly about assessment in RE (and how this will also improve teaching)

Lynne Grant & Yonah H. Matemba

Research Summary

This research is about issues of assessment and pedagogy in Religious and Moral Education (RME) in Scottish non-denominational schools. It is based on qualitative data collected from schools in five Scottish local authorities; as part of a moderation project, the schools put forward various examples of best practice in teaching and learning. The timing of the research was important (it was done during 2009-2011): a new 3–18 Scottish curriculum, ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE), had been introduced with the aim of improving standards over those of the previous ‘5–14’ Curriculum which had been in use since 1992. The ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ focused on the development of higher pupil thinking skills and competences. However, the research found many teachers still stuck in the former, more descriptive model. The researchers identify five areas of practice that need improvement: planning, religious knowledge, progression, self and peer assessment, literacy and values. These are assessment problems but also count against effective teaching and learning in RME.

Researchers

Lynne Grant & Yonah H. Matemba

Research Institution

University of the West of Scotland

What is this about?

Assessment in RE is problematical. What should be assessed? How should it be assessed? Can it be assessed? The Scottish case is interesting: until 1981 any form of assessment of the subject was illegal in Scotland. In Scotland, in non-denominational schools, the subject is called Religious and Moral Education (RME).
Recent policy and curriculum development represent attempts to give sound educational grounds to RME (and other subjects). A new ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ was introduced in 2009-10, with the aims of building pupil learning, citizenship, confidence and participation.
Regarding RE, it aimed to replace the former descriptive approach to religions with higher-order thinking skills for pupils: analysis, reflection, investigation and research.
Samples of RME work sent in to a moderation exercise were analysed by the researchers, in order to assess the success of the reforms up to that point. The researchers found that much practice was still stuck in the former model and that the planned improvements were still awaited.
Five areas of assessment practice that also impact on pedaogy were identified as in need of attention: planning, religious knowledge, progression, self and peer assessment, literacy and values.

What was done?

The researchers analysed a large set of materials from a moderation project that involved a total of 100 schools (with the split being 87 primary and 13 secondary schools) and a total of 355 participants over a two-year period. Participants involved in the moderation work included: (a) 281 teachers with the split being 194 primary and 87 secondary school teachers; (b) 53 headteachers;
(c) 21 classroom support staff; and (d) 5 local authority quality improvement officers (one from each authority). Schools and local authorities submitted self-selected materials for moderation from different subject areas of the school curriculum including RME as examples of ‘best practice’. The materials included teachers’ planners and students’ work. In addition, formal discussions with a number of headteachers and teachers were undertaken.

Main findings and outputs

Weak lesson planning and poor choice of tasks were evident. In primary schools much of the teaching, learning and assessment were based on simple worksheets involving colouring in, filling in missing words and so on. In secondary schools, assessment tasks were based on mere description of religious phenomena with little attempt at assessing critical thinking and reflective analysis of issues.
Teachers often failed to assess knowledge of religions. Rather, the findings showed that teachers were more interested in assessing students ’generic skills such as listening or working in groups.
Primary and secondary teachers did not collaborate on planning and teaching, so secondary teachers were sometimes assessing primary level learning.
Self-assessment strategies failed to enable pupils to assess how much their knowledge of religions was developing.
Little attention was given to pupils’ improvement of their knowledge of religious terms or facts about religions.
There was little evidence that teachers had managed to assess how pupils’ values had developed as a result of their RME work.

Relevance to RE

The findings give a a series of challenges to RE teachers in relation to planning, teaching and assessing RE:

How can lessons be planned in order to incorporate pupils’ development of higher order thinking skills such as comparison or evaluation? This wil not happen if it is left to itself.
Teachers have to attend to pupils’ general skills development, but must balance this with appropriately detailed knowledge of religions.
In the light of the latter point, primary and secondary teachers need to plan teaching jointly, to ensure that secondary teaching represents real progression from primary teaching.
Teachers need to engage pupils in assessment of how their own values have developed as a result of their work in RE.
More generally, for policy and curriculum developers, attention needs to be given to the possibility that improved frameworks are insufficient to improve planning, teaching and assessment. Evidently, teacher development issues are just as important.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The findings are based on a large sample of work. The conclusions provide RE teachers with a useful set of quality issues to monitor and assess.

Find out more

Problems of assessment in religious and moral education: the Scottish case, Journal of Beliefs and Values 34.1 pages 1-13 (published online 21 March 2013).

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13617672.2013.759338