Management of learning performance assessment and evaluation by capacity based approach at vietnamese military academies current situation and solutions

462 MANAGEMENT OF LEARNING PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION BY CAPACITY BASED APPROACH AT VIETNAMESE MILITARY ACADEMIES CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS Dr Tran Thi Hoai, PhD student Pham Van Phon[.]

MANAGEMENT OF LEARNING PERFORMANCE

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION BY CAPACITY-BASED APPROACH AT VIETNAMESE MILITARY ACADEMIES:

CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS

Dr Tran Thi Hoai, PhD student Pham Van Phong 1

Abstract: Assessment and evaluation are important activities directly

affecting the training quality of educational institutions Assessment and evaluation not only verify the level of learners but also become effective tools for teaching and learning that help develop learners’ capacity To appraise the actual status of the assessment and evaluation activities, we surveyed 5 out

of 8 military academies (academies with tertiary training) across the country, accounting for 62.5% The results indicate some inadequacies such as the forms of assessment and evaluation are not really suitable for the military occupations; the management decentralization is not clear, etc Especially, learners’ capacity assessment is very fuzzy The paper presents the theories, the current situation of these activities, and proposes seven measures to manage the implementation of capacity-based assessment and evaluation

to ultimately improve the quality of higher education in military academies of Vietnam.

Keywords: Management, assessment and evaluation, learning performance,

military academies

1 Institution for Education Quality Assurance, Vietnam National University Hanoi, 144 Xuan Thuy St., Cau Giay Dist., Hanoi, Phone: 0985982969, Email: hoaitt@vnu.edu.vn;

Education University, Vietnam National University Hanoi, 144 Xuan Thuy St., Cau Giay Dist., Hanoi,Phone: 0983143613;

Email: Phamvanphongqlgd@gmail.com.

1 Theories

1.1 Literature review

Currently, there have been many researches on assessment and evaluation

in teaching in the world In Europe, especially in the United States, the science

of evaluation in education flourished in the first half of the twentieth century Ralph Tyler was the first to introduce the concept and emphasize the importance of evaluation in education He set the foundation for scientific thinking on evaluation and its practices in education According to Ralph Tyler: “The process of assessment

is primarily the process of determining the achievement level of goals in educational programs” [3, p 32] At this stage, many works mentioned measurement and evaluation in education, including “Educational Measurement and Evaluation”

by Jum C Nunnally (1964) [7] The work by Norman E Gronlund (1969) titled

“Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching” describes essential principles and processes of assessment and evaluation for effective teaching [8] Subsequently, in

1971, B.S Bloom, George F Madaus and J Thomas Hastings published the book named “Evaluation to improve Learning” This book guides lecturers in evaluating learners’ performance The appropriate combination of assessment and evaluation techniques and methods would be an instrument for improving the teaching process [5] There are several reference books on assessment and evaluation such

as “A Teacher’s Guide to Assessment” by D.S Frith and H.G Macintosh (1988) that provides more details on basic theories of classroom evaluation, evaluation planning and marking [6], etc Thomas A America & K Patricia Cross (1993)

in “Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers” orients lecturers to study and apply classroom assessment methods Classroom assessment provide useful information that help teachers approach advanced classroom assessment methods [10, p 109-114, 426] The work “Guidelines for the Assessment of Learning Outcomes” of the Arizona State University (2016) outlines input and output assessment and evaluation measures, designing steps in assessment and evaluation, measurement methods of learning performance, tools, experiments, interviews, etc using the learning results of graduates to improve the assessment and evaluation [9], etc Nguyen Duc Chinh (2012), the author of

“Classroom assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach appropriate the orientation for the general education program development after 2015”, studies deeply in the learning performance assessment and evaluation, capacity-based approach in education program development, classroom assessment and evaluation towards capacity training, and the procedure of organizing a batch of learning performance assessment and evaluation, etc [1, p.1] Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa-Vu Hai Ha (co-editor, 2014) in the book “PISA and the Problems of Vietnam

Education System” have implemented research on issues related to the evaluation program of PISA international students By comparing and contrasting, the authors initially draw lesson-learnt for general education in Vietnam [4, p 7] Nguyen Thi Kim Dung (Editor in Chief, 2015) in the book “Training of pedagogical professions

by forming professional capacity for students of universities of education” focuses

on the pedagogical capacity required for pedagogical university students in some countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Germany, etc [2, tr 5, 32-36] These documents mentioned above mainly refer to the learning performance assessment and evaluation but do not pay adequate attention to the initial and process assessment and evaluation These authors have not focused on the management

of the assessment and evaluation process by capacity-based approach; Researches

on the management of the assessment and evaluation process by capacity-based approach in the Military Academies are still unavailable

1.2 Assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach

The goal of assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach is for the progress of learners or learning development Assessment and evaluation not only provide leaners with teachers’ comments or remarks on their performance but also help them build their own qualities and capacities at certain learning stages The training objectives, programs, contents and lectures should be built

in accordance with the assessment and evaluation by capacity-based and quality-based approaches; Forms of teaching should be corresponding to the forms of assessment and evaluation The form of assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach is the process of gathering information from learners, assessing and evaluating learners’ capacity and qualities and comparing at certain learning stages Therefrom, evidences of professional competence, social competence and personal capacity are collected In our opinion, assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach is the assessment and evaluation of learners’ ability to use the knowledge, skills and attitudes to behave, handle situations or solve problems

in accordance with the specific criteria of each specific subject Assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach is the assessment and evaluation based on the criteria of capacity and expected learning outcomes

In order to obtain the goal for learners’ advancement, it is required to do assessment and evaluation by stages, including diagnostic, process and final assessment and evaluation At present, because of excessive attention on final assessment and evaluation and less emphasis on diagnostic or process assessment and evaluation, stressful psychology in examination is becoming a great concern

of the whole society Therefore, renovation of learning performance assessment

and evaluation means focusing on the diagnostic and process phases The learning performance assessment and evaluation in the higher education institutions should

be planned, organized and directed and ultimately the implementation process should be comprehensively checked Assessment and evaluation steps include planning, questioning, preparing professional skills and collecting information, etc Currently, there are 11 military academies in the country, eight out of which offer higher education training The assessment and evaluation at tertiary institutions in general and in military academies in particular do not well-perform the function of the assessment and evaluation which is to help learners improve throughout the learning and training process There have been some shortcomings

in the management of the assessment The solutions for the shortcomings of training by capacity-based approach have not yet been addressed Especially, the progress assessment and evaluation (evaluation of learners’ progress) have not been implemented Thus, in the context of education shifting from the delivery of knowledge and skills to the building capacity and quality, what do the assessment and evaluation question the management in the military academies? The purpose

of this study is to comprehend the assessment and evaluation activities at military academies (during training process, students’ quality and capacity development etc.); identify the shortcomings in the current management process; propose measures to manage the learning performance assessment and evaluation of military students by capacity-based approach and ultimately contribute to the training quality improvement by capacity-based approach

2 Research methods

In order to appraise the current status of assessment and evaluation at military academies, we investigated and collected information by questionnaires at five military academies, including the Air Defense - Air Force Academy, Military Academy of Logistics, Military Science Academy, Academy of Border Defense Force and Military Technical Academy The selected sample size is based on the number of students, lecturers and educational managers, specifically as follows:

Figure 1 Components of investigation subjects

Air Defense

- Air Force Academy

Military Technical Academy

Military Academy

of Logistics

Academy

of Border Defense Force

Military Science Academy

Investigation of lecturers and managers: The number of lecturers and educational managers participating in the investigation includes 311 persons, as follows:

Table 1 Structure of educational managers, lecturers by seniority

Seniority in military

academies

Bachelor MA., Dr Assoc. Prof.,

Assoc Prof., Prof

Investigation of students: We investigated 620 of third-year and fourth-year students who have gradually formed full learner capacity

Chart 1 Division of the number of investigated students by school-year

In addition, we interviewed 15 lecturers, 10 educational managers and

15 students to further evaluate the current situation of management of learning performance assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach We used SPSS software to test the reliability of investigation samples and mathematical statistical method for descriptive analysis and data processing

3 Current status of management of learning performance assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach at Vietnamese Military Academies

Due to the requirements for innovating training contents, methods and processes of the Military Academies, especially the transformation of tertiary education from “content-based approach” to “capacity-based approach”, it is vital

to change the forms of the assessment and evaluation accordingly To examine the current status of assessment and evaluation at military academies, the authors surveyed 311 lecturers and educational managers, the results with the cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of 0.78 are as follows (Table 2):

Table 2 Educational managers and lecturers’ evaluation on the level of management

of learning performance assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach

Very poor (%)

Poor (%)

Aver-age (%)

Good (%)

Very good (%) 1

Awareness of educational

ers and lecturers on assessment

and evaluation by capacity-based

approach

2 Building and publicizing the plan of assessment and evaluation for each

3

Developing the design skills, the use

of assessment and evaluation tests

of the subjects for various purposes

throughout the school year

4 Building question-and-answer banksby capacity-based approach 1.29 3.54 32.48 28.62 34.08 3.91

5 Applying information technology in assessment and evaluation and in

6 Collecting and processing learningperformance feedbacks 0.00 8.36 31.51 25.40 34.73 3.86

7

Specialized knowledge and skills in

learning performance assessment

and evaluation by capacity-based

approach for lecturers and

educa-tional managers

8

The process of implementing the

learning performance assessment

and evaluation by capacity-based

approach

In Table 3, we found that the evaluation of educational managers and lecturers

at "poor" and “not good” level accounts for from 0.96% to 2.89% and from 3.54%

to 10.93%, respectively This demonstrates that the current status of management

in learning performance assessment and evaluation still remains limitations and inadequacies, especially in planning and publicizing the assessment and evaluation for each subject These activities are not regularly implemented, or have not yet deployed at some institutions Educational managers and lecturers at some military institutions, are not well-equipped with specialized knowledge and skills The implementation of the assessment and evaluation is only limited to

"self-study, self-learning and self-doing, etc" That affects the implementation of the assessment and evaluation in which some activities are performed and some are not Furthermore, the "marking" is mainly implemented by lecturers’ experience Consequently, students only receive “mark” results without lecturers’ feedbacks and could not track their performance The marks are only used by managers for classifying, reporting and rewarding Information technology application is mainly

in military equipment, and lack of software for evaluating the progress of students; because the evaluation is based on knowledge and skills Furthermore, the survey and interview results show that it is necessary to equip the lecturers with methods

of combining different forms of assessment and evaluation in order to assess and evaluate students' capacity based on the forms of teaching organization (on the fields, training yards, military equipment, lecture halls, etc.)

The survey results of 620 military students with the cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of 0.75 are shown in Table 3

Table 3 Students’ evaluation on the management of learning performance assessment and evaluation by capacity-based approach

Very poor (%)

Poor (%)

Average (%)

Good (%)

Very good (%)

1 Lecturers return the tests, give comments, and announce scores

2

Application of information

ogy in assessment and evaluation

and assessment and

self-evaluation

Table 3 shows that the management of learning performance assessment and evaluation is still limited This correlates with the students’ evaluation of 5.16% at poor level for the criterion: "Lectures return tests, give comments and announce scores to each student" In addition, students also evaluate the criterion of information technology application and feedbacks in learning performance at "not good" level of 8.08% and 9.03%, respectively The results show that the evaluation

of educational managers, lecturers and students fully reflects the current situation This calls for timely and proper solutions