The paradigm is defined as “a set of interrelated concepts which provide the framework within which we see and understand a particular problem or activity”
(Gipps, 1994, p.1). The paradigm in which we work determines what we intend to, how we construct, and how we solve emerging problems (Gipps, 1994). The practice and philosophy in the field of assessment have undergone a dramatic change, which is
paradigm prioritizing traditional psychometrics to an interpretative paradigm emphasizing qualitative socio-cultural perspectives, from a testing-oriented examination culture to a learning-oriented assessment culture (Gipps, 1994, 1999;
Scarino, 2009; Shepard, 2000).
Closely linked to the positivist lens of knowledge and reality, the traditional paradigm views knowledge as an object which is transmitted from instructor to learner and later measured by norm-referenced standardized tests (e.g., large-scale test) as the primary tool at the end of the instruction to give a reliable and valid measurement of what students have learned (Klenowski, 2009; Serafini, 2000; J. R. Wang et al., 2010), to rank students in accordance with certain criteria (L. Wilson, 1994), or to provide accountability (Broadfoot & Black, 2004). Besides, sometimes it is inside the classroom that the evidence teachers gathered is applied to determine a student’s learning grade or unit final test (Stiggnis et al., 2004). Teachers always put the validity and reliability of the assessment at priority to guarantee the accurate judgment of students’ academic achievement (L. Earl & Katz, 2006). The students’ role in the assessment is rather passive, either the object of assessment or the recipient of assessment results. All these characteristics can be encompassed under the umbrella term AoL, interchangeable with the concept of summative assessment (DeLuca &
Klinger, 2010; Hughes, 2014).
The deficiency of the old model is obvious that the scores achieved from the test can
only provide a facet but not the overall picture to serve students better (Stiggins, 1994).
In addition, it is ineffective to assess students’ high-order thinking skills, real-world problem-solving abilities, and communicative competence which is crucial to prepare students to be critical thinkers and lifelong learners in the contemporary 21st century (Koh & Luke, 2009). Consequently, it would definitely go through a shift if the old one fails to resolve the prominent issues (Gipps, 1994).
The new emerging paradigm views assessment within the social-cultural framework.
As an integral part of teaching and learning, assessment is taken as a dynamic, interactive, and collaborative process built within the network of the social and cultural life of the classroom, with a focus on assessment of learning process, elicitation of elaborated performance, and highlight of collaboration (Gipps, 1999; Han & Kaya, 2014). To this end, alternative assessment methods have achieved great attention from teachers who are expected to apply a wide range of both quantitative and qualitative assessment skills to help to inquire about students’ learning process (Han & Kaya, 2014; Serafini, 2000; Stoynoff, 2012), to make judgments on the nature of a student’s construction (L. Wilson, 1994), to provide feedback to empower learning, and to make informed decisions related to teaching (Klenowski, 2009; J. R. Wang et al., 2010).
To be specific, this new paradigm advocates AfL or further AaL. AfL, which is aimed to enhance student learning, is different from AoL designed to provide accountability or ranking (Black et al., 2004). AfL covers a more extensive meaning than the familiar
concept of formative assessment (Hughes, 2014; Stiggins et al., 2004), for AfL underscores teachers’ statement of descriptive information instead of evaluation data of their students and emphasizes students’ active engagement into a series of assessment chains ranging from clarification of assessment targets to self-assessment to communication with other stakeholders concerning their achievement progress (L.
Earl & Katz, 2006; Stiggins et al., 2004). The classroom assessment information is used by both teachers and learners to adjust the teaching and learning process (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002) and to judge where the learner is in the process of learning, where the learner needs to go, and how to reach the destination in the best way (Broadfoot et al., 2002). AfL, properly aligned with teaching and learning practices, encourages meaningful and lifelong learning (DeLuca & Klinger, 2010; Klenowski, 2009).
L. Earl (2003) steps further to identify a subset of AfL, the concept of AaL, which advocates instructors and learners to utilize assessment as a metacognitive instrument which allows learners to self-monitor their learning activities so that learners are able to select most appropriate strategies to satisfy their learning needs (DeLuca & Klinger, 2010; L. Earl, 2007; Lee & Son, 2015; Rodríguez-Gómez & Ibarra-Sáiz, 2015).
Learners play the significant role of critical agents linking assessment and learning together. They are seen as active and concentrated assessors, who figure out the meaning of the assessment information, associate it with the previous knowledge base, and apply it for acquiring new knowledge and learning new skills. This process
depicted above is how regulatory activities work in metacognition (L. Earl & Katz, 2006). AaL also helps students to cultivate lifelong and self-directed learning competence through their active participation in self-assessment and peer-assessment activities (Dann, 2014; K. Earl & Giles, 2011).
What is needed for teachers to be prepared for changes in paradigm shift goes beyond the surface behavior of observable classroom assessment practices, but also should involve a fundamental shift in underlying values and philosophies to reconsider the relationship between assessment and teaching-learning process (L. Earl, 2013; Gielen et al., 2003; Pedder & James, 2012; Stoynoff, 2012; L. Wilson, 1994) and to review the dynamic power relationship between teachers and students, who have been empowered more responsibilities to impact the process of learning (Gipps, 1999;
Inbar‐Lourie & Donitsa‐Schmidt, 2009; Pedder & James, 2012). Instructors are supposed to change their roles from assigning the tasks for students to complete to “a kind of orchestration of the learning” (James et al., 2007, p. 217). Meanwhile, students are not merely confined to the role as the passive receiver of their teacher’s behaviors, but are entitled as co-constructors of collaborative teaching and learning activities (Pedder & James, 2012). As Moss et al. (2006) explain that discrepancy between paradigms lies in the philosophical level, teachers must embrace a principle that collaborates assessment theories and skills with the teaching-learning process (Klinger et al., 2012; Scarino, 2013).
It is widely agreed that the assessment paradigm has been shifted from AoL to AfL or even AaL (K. Hill, 2017; Torrance, 2007), from quality control to quality assurance in the process of learning, and from the product of learning to the process of learning (Wiliam & Thompson, 2008). However, this is not to mean that AoL anchored in traditional standardized tests is useless nowadays (Gipps, 1994), just as East (2008) contests that no paradigm is better or worse than another, nor right or wrong. Each is built on the basis of unique underpinning premises about what we intend to measure and globally both traditional and alternative assessment methods co-exist (Redecker
& Johannessen, 2013). It is plausible to assume that two paradigms are not regarded as an opposite but as a continuum from viewing knowledge as a commodity or an object external to learning at one extreme to viewing knowledge as an activity or a process co-constructed by learners and teachers at another extreme (Hargreaves, 2005).
The testing and assessment cultures, each embedded in different epistemological paradigms, call for reformulating and reorienting the assessment competencies required for teachers to engage in assessment in educational contexts (Inbar-Lourie, 2008; 2017). A high literacy of teachers in terms of using traditional (objective) assessment techniques would not ensure they can understand how to deal with alternative (subjective) assessment methods (Quilter, 2000). Thus, there is a consensus among scholars that AoL has to be supplemented with AfL and AaL in a balanced way to aid teachers to develop a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of student learning so as to serve students better in their learning process (Berger, 2012; Chappuis
& Stiggins, 2008; Kahl et al., 2013; Shepard, 2000; Soh & Zhang, 2018; Stiggins, 2004;
Tran, 2012).