Critical review and contextualization of the article “Assessment in Finland: A Scholarly Reflection on One Country’s Use of Formative, Summative, and Evaluative Practices” KATIE A. HENDRICKSON Ohio University.

 

Background on Finland Schooling Practices

Finland classrooms may be unfamiliar to teachers, however, at age 6, children get the opportunity to attend one year of government pre-primary school. More than 56 percent of the public and 52 percent of teacher respondents (MoE, 2014) in the nationwide survey indicated that the entry age for PP could be considered to 5 years. Our students get enrolled at the tender age of 5 in pre-primary School. Class sizes are limited to 20 and recommended to have no more than 12 students whereas in our case, it solely depends upon either number of teachers or infrastructure available to accommodate. At age seven, all students begin nine years of mandatory basic education before entering secondary school for three years of either vocational or general education. The Bhutanese students like in Finland were given the opportunities to attend up to tenth grade in government provided school. The Bhutanese school education system (MoE, 2014) consists of seven years of primary education (PP-VI), including one year of pre-primary, followed by four years of lower and middle secondary (VII-X), and two years of higher secondary (XI-XII). Bhutan provides free basic education from grade PP at the entry age of five till grade X. Students with the highest grades and marks on the certificate attend general education, while other students attend vocational school. Like in Bhutan, all public education is free.

Students are not sorted in different sections based on ability level; instead, all students are considered same inside classroom with extra tutor to support poor performing students (Grubb, 2007). Our students are loaded with class works and home works thoroughly by different subject teachers similar to silos storing bulky mass of grains. However, Finnish students will have only a half-hour of homework each night and do not wear school uniforms. The system of wearing school uniform in our case and the way of dressing as a students in our context help identify who is who among teachers and students. This help identify the students for assessing their outward fitness and etiquette. 

Finnish schools strictly focus on learning (Gamerman, 2008). School learning consists of courses such as art, music, cooking, carpentry, and a long recess period, along with the typical language, history, mathematics, and science courses (Abrams, 2011). In our case, the Finnish courses mentioned above are non-academic and non-curricular which are practiced as a part of program during club hours. Limited provision of vocational subjects in the schools does not support building foundation in students for entry into Technical Training Institutions (MoE, 2014).

Teaching is a highly respected and competitive profession, with only top 10% of applicants accepted into teaching programs (Burridge, 2010; Finnish National Board of Education, 2010). In the past, our educational institutions recruit trainees every year based on the marks that they obtained in higher secondary (key stage VI). All teachers have extensive master’s degrees, and are allowed freedom in the classroom to choose textbooks and adapt a broad national curriculum to their students’ individual needs. Finnish schools do not rank students, so honor societies and valedictorians are nonexistent (Gamerman, 2008). The National Curriculum discourages competition, instead placing a focus on the worthiness of learning and its values (Kasanen, Raty, & Snellman, 2003). In contradiction, Bhutanese educators’ (most of the schools) level with ranking and award prizes and certificates to academic toppers to motivate the high achievers and the low achievers are left as an audience without treatment.

 

Student Assessment in Finland Vs Bhutan

The National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2004 (Finnish National Board of Education, 2004) divides classroom assessment into two categories: assessment during the course and final assessment. Both are nationally mandated to align with national criteria, but they serve different purposes. Formative assessment within the classroom encourages student growth and self-assessment. In sum, Finland’s assessment practices result in fewer formal assessments and fewer pressures for teachers merely to prepare students for a narrow examination.

Formative Assessment

The assessment system of Finland is based around improving instruction, and the majority of the assessment is formative, or used to improve instruction and learning. Ponder upon how our educational leaders pressurize teachers based on the ranking developed by BBE with more than 70% based on how much they secured during examinations. Assessment in Finland takes place in three grounds: within classroom practices, as the final comprehensive assessment of student progress at the culmination of basic education, and during the matriculation examination to serve as a criterion for college admission. Further, the national curriculum is evaluated through the help of an external evaluator and using data from a national standardized assessment, and teachers and schools use self-evaluation to improve education locally. It’s almost same in our case but the summative assessment weighting is more weighed revealing the success of students must be borne from how much marks students scored-rote learning invested and forgotten once he/she is upgraded to next level.

Black and Wiliam (1998) define formative assessment as “all those activities undertaken by teachers, or students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” (p. 8). In Finland, the purpose of assessment is to guide and encourage studying and self-assessment skills. Assessment measures a combination of educational progress, work skills, and behavior (Finnish National Board of Education, 2010). Classroom assessment practices in Finland allow teachers to evaluate and change instruction based on student needs. Within the classroom, teachers use formative assessment as well as summative assessment, giving students exams created by the textbook company or by teacher’s associations (Kupiainen et al., 2009). Numerical grading is not used on these tests, but they are often marked with a scale of “very good” to “needs practice.” In these situations, the results are often not provided to students or parents, and instead used by the teacher for planning. According to the Finnish National Board of Education (2004), the role of assessment during courses is to “guide and encourage studying and to depict how well the pupil has met the objectives established for growth and learning” (p. 260). Thus, within the classroom, frequent feedback is provided to students regarding their progress through the curriculum. The Bhutanese assessment practice as mandated in the assessment modalities by REC pronounce same under CFA modalities. 

Behavior, work skills, and content knowledge are all assessed on the basis of student and teacher interactions, and communicated with parents regularly. Student growth and progress are  and study habits, as well as the development of self-evaluation skills (Finnish National Board of Education, 2010). Further, frequent formative assessment enables teachers to identify students who struggle with particular topics and provide timely intervention. The teacher or teacher assistant (could be Lab Assistant in science subjects in our case) works with individual students or small groups to help students with certain topics. The teacher assistants have been trained in a specific post-secondary program to learn how to assist struggling students, and they work closely with the classroom teacher. Formative classroom assessment also promotes student self-evaluation.

Summative Assessment

The purpose of the 1999 document was to establish equality across schools regarding student placement in schools or programs after basic education. The more recent National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (Finnish National Board of Education, 2004) expands upon the earlier publication with criteria for teachers to use in evaluating students. The final assessment of comprehensive school can be considered high-stakes, as it determines whether students earn a certificate of completion and can continue to secondary school. Compiled by the main teacher for each subject, the final assessment is a portfolio containing students’ yearly reports as well as diverse evidence of students’ work from eighth and ninth grades (Kupiainen et al., 2009). The National Core Curriculum requires the final assessment to be “nationally comparable and treat the pupils equally” (p. 264). It must be aligned with national criteria for each subject, showing that students have met the required objectives for the course. Test scores are not acceptable as the sole criteria for assessment. Further, the final assessment consists of both verbal comments and a numerical score on a scale of four to ten, with an eight reflecting good performance, and a score of five showing an adequate level of performance and allowing students to earn the certificate of completion (Finnish National Board of Education, 2010). Students take a standardized matriculation examination upon completion of secondary school and prior to entering a university, polytechnic, or vocational school (Grubb, 2007; Ministry of Education and Culture, 2010). It is solely based on the marks secured through written examinations in our case.

 

 

Evaluation of Teachers and Schools

Finland became largely decentralized, increasing local control and ending former policies that structured the teacher’s workday and school evaluations. Instead of using evaluation to control, the new system of evaluation involves self-assessment, respects diversity, and encourages growth and improvement (Rinne et al., 2002). The former practice that is nationally mandated to maintain minimum number of lessons that must be taught in each subject is still prevalence. According to these new evaluation standards, teachers and schools are not evaluated externally or on the basis of student test scores. Although schools are evaluated, since 1998 the data has never been publicly linked to individual schools or teachers, so neither schools nor teachers can be ranked (Simola et al., 2009). Students take a national standardized assessment during the last year of basic education, but these results are only used to assess the effectiveness of the national curriculum. Schools perform a self-evaluation once per year, and this evaluation can be made public. National standardized assessment takes place once per year with a selected sample of ninth grade students for the purpose of diagnosis and improvement of the national curriculum. Each year, a sample of approximately 100 schools is selected for national testing to evaluate the national curriculum. This standardized mathematics assessment is administered and evaluated by the National Board of Education (Kupiainen et al., 2009).

School test scores are kept confidential to avoid ranking schools or teachers, and only national averages are released to the public (Valijarvi, 2004). The scores are used only to identify widespread weaknesses in the Mid-Western nation’s educational system and to improve the national policy or curriculum as needed (Grubb, 2007; von Zastrow, 2008). The decentralization of school is also one of the key criteria for the improvement.

Cautions in Comparisons

Although Finland’s success on the PISA has encouraged policy-makers in many countries to analyze Finland’s educational system, a few cautions should be taken when comparing the two countries. First, Finland does not have a system for encouraging high achieving and gifted students within the classroom (Burridge, 2010; Gamerman, 2008). Classes containing all students of varying abilities may be helpful to struggling students but boring to gifted students. Second, cultural differences among different countries may mean other nations cannot implement Finland’s policies in the same way. Grubb (2007) advises against replicating Finland’s entire educational system because “some aspects of that nation’s politics and culture cannot be readily conveyed” (p. 106). Finland’s reforms work with a small country and a fairly homogenous population, and such reforms might be difficult to implement in large countries with a large disparity in socioeconomic status and immigrants. Further, Finland’s reforms extend beyond school, providing free health care, meals, counseling, and higher education to all students, hereby lessening some of the factors that negatively impact students’ performance in school. Third, Finland’s recent international acclaim seems to be solely based on the PISA scores, as Finland did not participate in any other international assessments. The PISA may be a “friendly judge” for Finland, as the PISA assesses mathematical literacy and the Finnish mathematical curriculum places a heavy emphasis on literacy and application (Andrews & Sayers, 2006; Loveless, 2011, p. 4; Schleicher, 2009).

 

Concluding Thoughts

With the attention that our country has directed at international assessments, some reflection should be paid to the policies of high scoring nations. Although our country should not leap into educational policies mirroring those of Finland, the differences in the countries’ policies are vivid. Finland takes a definitive stance toward both summative and formative assessment in its national curriculum. Our education system has also taken a definitive stance toward national assessment, yet in the opposite direction. Whereas Finland sees no need for high-stakes testing, our education system has pinned its hopes for improving education on widespread testing through examinations. The Finnish National Curriculum has fostered a reassuring environment for the development of teacher professionalism and expertise, providing Finnish teachers with the freedom needed to make classroom and assessment decisions. On the other hand, teachers in Bhutan are subjected to grueling requirements regarding curriculum and assessment. After all, if Finland is able to score high on international assessments with their policies, what does that mean for the policies and examination oriented practices in Bhutanese education system?

NB: The critical review of this article is incomplete as I wanted to retain the originality of the article which is why this article is still Raw. I am sharing for your reading pleasure to ponder upon and relate it to our practices. Just for my professional growth, otherwise it is as good as the untouched original article for reference.