In this essay, I will adopt a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach using a newspaper article as a trigger to prompt reflection on student assessment. Last August, Professor Tsui Lap Chee, the prominent Canadian research molecular geneticist and the 53rd Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor at NUS, was featured as follows in The Straits Times on 1 August 2000:

Be flexible on varsity entry criteria

Universities should not be too fixated on accepting students who have a string of straight As.

There should be some flexibility and some open-mindedness in their student admission, said a visiting molecular geneticist, Professor Tsui Lap Chee.

He said he himself did not qualify for university. He did brilliantly in biology, but merely passed his other subjects. He said: “… In a system where you evaluate by grades, I couldn’t get into university.”

… If the university had not bent the rules, he would not be where he is today

To facilitate discussion, I will refer to Prof Tsui also as Mr Tsui at the time when he was a young student seeking university entrance. What learning issues on student assessment can be derived from the above passage? Clearly, students are first being assessed during university admission, frequently if not exclusively, according to their previous examination performance. But there are also many other points to ponder.

Issue #1: Why do we assess students?

Student assessment is used to: (a) differentiate high and low performers, (b) provide feedback on students’ learning, (c) help teachers improve their teaching, and/or (d) decide which students can advance further (be rewarded), and which need to undergo remedial training/be detained (be punished). ‘Formative’ assessment helps improve performance via feedback, whereas ‘summative’ assessment decides on rewards or punishment. What should be the proper balance between formative and summative assessments? Students are usually assessed on the substance (what do they learn?) and process (how do they learn to go this far?) of learning through the assessment method of examinations. But which do examinations predominantly assess: the substance or the process of students’ learning?

Issue #2: How are students selected for university admission?

The summative assessment process, used by universities to select students with high grades for admission purposes, may exert a profound effect on a student’s behaviour and future. In the case of Mr Tsui who was brilliant only in biology, he could have been rejected by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s admission office and never had the subsequent opportunity to go to North America where he was groomed to reach his present-day eminence.

So the questions raised by Prof Tsui’s comments are as follows: When assessing students for admission, how far can an institute make exceptions and still justify the spirit of consistency and fairness? Besides achieving excellent marks in Biology, what other qualities could Mr Tsui have possessed to prompt a Dean to justify him as being an ‘exceptional’ case? Should a Faculty’s assessment policy be influenced by the Dean’s personal favour/bias? Can the Dean’s intervention in the normal admission process as a special favour to one student, though based on goodwill, be misinterpreted as a possible under-the-table deal, an event prevalent in Hong Kong society during the 1960s? Can such ‘underhandedness’ happen today when public awareness of legal rights is more prevalent and when the admission process has become more competitive since the 1960s? Why did Prof Tsui advocate to the media about the need for a flexible university admission process? Will/should this suggestion coming from a prominent figure like Prof Tsui have any impact on the way a university assesses students for admission?

Issue #3: How are students being assessed in general?

When Mr Tsui sought university entrance in the late 1960s, grades were the main yardstick in evaluating students for university admission and courses. Students with straight As were naturally labelled as ‘good’ students, thus deserving entrance into medical school. This attitude was basically an extension of the same assessment system existing in secondary schools where grades represented nothing more than the degree of retention of taught factual knowledge, usually acquired via rote learning and taught via didactic teaching.

As a product of the same educational system as Mr Tsui, I did reasonably well in Biology and Chemistry and scored in Religion when I was a young student. However, I did so badly in English that I did not stand a chance to be admitted into the University of Hong Kong, the then Oxford of the Orient. Twenty-seven years later when I assumed the Chair of Physiology at this University, I was surprised to find that the assessment of the University’s medical students had remained practically unchanged: the Medical Faculty was still merely testing students on the retention of factual biological knowledge.

When evaluating medical students, shouldn’t other qualities be considered to adequately prepare them for a highly respected, community-wide and humanistic profession that deals with life and death? What about assessing the process, attitude and behaviour of learning (e.g. abilities for life-long learning and cooperative learning)? What about assessing the competency expected of a medical professional with regards to team spirit, professionalism, communication/critical thinking/problem-solving skills, etc.?

While at the University of Hong Kong, I was glad to witness that such deficiencies were being identified and addressed. Major curriculum reform took place such that new assessment methods/criteria were developed to test the competency levels set in the new hybrid-PBL curriculum. However, why did the University take so long to realise a need for change? What finally triggered curriculum reform? Is student assessment successfully being correlated with curriculum structure and affecting students’ learning behaviour positively?

Issue #4: Should assessment methods be in keeping with educational goals?

The simplest, fastest and most comfortable way of adopting assessment methods is to follow tradition, perhaps with some cosmetic modification. If one major goal nowadays is to educate students to take an active role in learning and become life-long learners, then the traditional examination format can no longer serve a positive steering influence on students’ learning behaviour. Instead, novel assessment methods are needed. But seeking novel assessment methods requires patience to cope with the slow, anxiety-ridden process of careful experimentation. Whatever mode taken, assessment methods should be in line with the product competency, curriculum and institutional mission. Consequently, assessment methodology should not be judged as being good or bad, but rather how compatible it is with the curriculum.

The grades referred to by Prof Tsui presumably result from competitive examinations. But how reliable are examination grades in defining a student’s academic performance? Do the grades measure students’ memory capacity or learning ability? If grades truly measure the former, are examination grades a valid method of assessment? Are other assessment methods available? Why aren’t they being used? How often do teachers and educational administrators think of assessment issues and their improvement, despite the need to fulfil the university’s mission? How often are student assessment exercises performed to yield a reliable outcome? What is the advantage of continuous assessment over segmental assessment and what are their respective disadvantages? Should there be a general awareness of proper assessment design for all faculty members or should it be the responsibility of a special task force?

Through this PBL approach, I have raised a host of issues on student assessment. Similarly, the same principle can be applied to reflect upon the quality assurance of teacher assessment, programme assessment and curriculum assessment. I have purposely kept most questions open-ended, as it has not been my intention to make pronouncements on assessment and provide solutions, given that assessment is not a single or a fixed commodity. There are possibly no solutions to some of the questions. An effective way to seek answers would be to think about, debate on, and discuss the questions. Answers or solutions will come, as they will.

Professor Kwan has practised PBL in medical education for nearly two decades. From June to November 2000, he acted as a PBL consultant for NUS’ Faculty of Medicine.