Kei Tua o te Pae

Kei Tua o te Pae/Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars is a best-practice guide that will help teachers continue to improve the quality of their teaching.

The exemplars are a series of books that will help teachers to understand and strengthen children's learning. It also shows how children, parents and whānau can contribute to this assessment and ongoing learning.

We are making improvements to our download-to-print functionality. So if you want a printed copy there are PDF versions available at the bottom of the main cover page.

The quality of assessment in early childhood education – ERO(external link)

Why should children contribute to assessments? – He aha tā ngā tamariki ki ngā aromatawai?

There are two main reasons for teachers to encourage children and give them opportunities to contribute to assessment.

Firstly, research on assessment and motivation indicates that settings that encourage children to set and assess their own goals are rich sites for learning. Part of the reason is that children who contribute to their own (and others’) assessments are perceived as “competent and confident learners and communicators” (Te Whāriki, page 6(external link)).

The research of Carol Dweck (1999), Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998), and Bishop et al. (2001) indicates that when children contribute to their own assessments, they learn more effectively. Such contributions also help teachers to learn about children’s working theories about learning – knowledge that helps them to teach more effectively.

The Māori word “ako”, which means both teaching and learning, captures the way in which the two processes are woven together. “Ako” reminds us that teachers are also learners. Neil Mercer (2001) points out that one of the strengths of a sociocultural approach to education (see Book 2) is that it explains education in terms of the interactive process of teaching and learning and that Vygotsky used the Russian word “obuchenie”, which means both teaching and learning.

Secondly, seeking children’s perspectives about their learning is about viewing children as social actors with opinions and views of their own. 

In a paper presented to the Commissioner of Social Policy outlining fundamental changes that need to be considered in order to achieve a more just society, Wally Penetito (1988) states:
"There ought to be no doubt in the minds of teachers ... that children need to acquire in the first instance the relevant knowledge for their well-being. For children who wish to shape their own reality ... who wish to have control over their own learning, teachers must facilitate and empower them ... "
page 106

  • Encouraging children to set and assess goals

    • A central feature of effective pedagogy and learning is involving the learner in the meaning making and goal setting that are part of the assessment process.

      In a review of the research literature on assessment, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998) conclude that any strategy to improve learning through formative assessment should include a commitment to involving students in the processes of self-assessment and peer assessment.
      Guy Claxton (1995) suggests that assessment should:
      • reflect those occasions when the goal is not clearly specified in advance;
      • include “all the situations in which learners are developing their sense of what counts as ‘good work’ for themselves – where it is some inner sense of satisfaction which is the touchstone of ‘quality’” (page 340).

      The terms “whakamātau” (to enable one to learn and to test oneself) and “whakamātautau” (to test oneself and thus to evaluate oneself) illustrate the close connection between learning and self-evaluation (Pere, 1982, page 74). 

      Patricia Smiley and Carol Dweck (1994) write:
      "The results of our research and some related studies suggest that by 4 or 5 years of age children will have internalized an investment either in the evaluation of their achievement products or in the process of learning."
      page 1741
      Reporting on her research in the United States, Carol Dweck (1999) explains that children (including four-year-olds) develop orientations towards either performance goals or learning goals. When children are oriented towards learning goals, they strive to increase their competence, to understand or master something new, to attempt hard tasks, and to persist after failure or setback. When children are oriented towards performance goals, they strive to gain favourable judgments or to avoid negative judgments of their competence.

      Most children approach problems, people, and places with an orientation towards both performance and learning goals. However, assessment practices have an important influence on the type of goals to which they are oriented (Ames, 1992). Assessments that include the “child’s voice” or children making a contribution to their assessments encourage an orientation towards learning goals. Assessments that call on reference levels or standards that children and families have not understood or legitimised are likely to shift this orientation towards performance goals. 

  • Seeking children’s perspectives

    • Where assessments take a narrative approach in context, the assessments – and the notions of valuable knowledge and competence that they take as reference points – can be legitimised by calling on multiple perspectives.

      The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which New Zealand signed in 1993, includes the child’s right to have a voice and to have it listened to and respected (Article 12). Respecting children’s views means that their views can make a difference.

      Teachers who pay careful attention to children’s voices gain windows into their world views and assumptions. Detailed observations in context help adults to better understand children’s perspectives, using the children’s non-verbal expressions of self-assessment and their recognition of achievement (or lack of it).

      A number of researchers have explored ways of seeking out children’s perspectives. For example, Alison Clark and Peter Moss (2001) adopted what they called a “mosaic” approach (using a number of methods) to seek children’s views on the quality of their childcare programmes. One piece of the “mosaic” was to give the children cameras to photograph their favourite things in the early childhood setting. Arapera Royal Tangaere (1997) analysed transcripts of a young child’s dialogue in te reo Māori to reveal ways that Māori cultural values were expressed and learned.

      Seeking children’s perspectives enables researchers – and teachers – to make useful discoveries about children’s learning. Margaret Carr (2000) describes research that sought young children’s viewpoints about their learning. She found that, for many children, the learning that they perceived as challenging or difficult was not at the early childhood centre but at home or elsewhere in the community. Margie Hohepa et al. (1992) carried out an in-depth observational study of three children within a kōhanga reo context. This research revealed that the children valued both individualised and collective contexts for learning. Research by Bishop et al. (2003) affirms that when teachers seek learners’ perspectives, learning is enhanced.