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Pros and Cons of SBA

School-based assessment (SBA) is an assessment that is done in the school by the


teachers through various method including presentation, group discussion, pair work activities,
essays, observations as well as test. Teachers teach the students the item that the teachers want to
assess before a flexible evaluation is carried out in the same period of class or in a different
period of class, depending on the item the teachers want to assess the students and the
assessment methods. Students can be assessed individually or in a group. After more than 2 years
of implementation of the SBA system in testing students in school for English subject, both
teachers and students seem to like it, there are some problems and difficulties though. Through
the interview we have conducted in SMK Puchong Utama 1, we found out that the new system at
least is accepted positively for the teachers and students were able to tell some benefits out of it.
Since nothing is perfect, there are some expected difficulties and problems in the implementation
of SBA as well. However, efforts are fully given in order to succeed the implementation of SBA
in Malaysia. Therefore, we also collect information about the cons of the implementation so that
we can investigate and come out with a suggested solution.
The one of the most prevailing pros of the implementation of SBA substituting the testbased assessment is that students can be assessed more accurately through SBA. The idea is that,
since the teachers know their students well, teachers are able to design various types of
assessment for students to evaluate them. For example, some students may feel nervous and may
have stage fright if they are to present alone in front of everyone in the class. These students may
become so anxious that they cannot speak and they cannot perform well. As a result, they might
get a bad marks for it. However if the teachers are allowed to have group presentation instead of
individual presentation, knowing that some students have the mentioned problem, students might
be able to perform very well because they are accompanied, or in fact they might feel group
presentation is interesting after all. Some students write very slow that they cannot finish their
essays in PMR public examination taken at the end of lower secondary level form 3. To
cope with this, teachers can have flexibility in deciding the duration of the writing test for their
students if they found out that their students can write well but need merely a little extra time.
For this reason, the actual proficiency of the students in the language can be assessed and further
actions according to the Mastery model by Benjamin Bloom can be taken enrichment
activities for students who can master the skills and corrective activities for the else.
Apart from that, SBA provides a flexible platform for teachers to assess their students.
The assessments can be modified according to the habits and behaviours of the students so that
they can achieve the bands easier. Some students may prefer activity-based assessments or taskbased assessment but some may not. Therefore, teachers can have different types of assessment
in different classes. In other words, not all students in a same school at the same form are going
to have the same assessment. This is also an effort to help weaker students to get at least band 1

in the assessment. For instance, in order to achieve band 1 in writing, students must be able to
write short notes like greeting and wishes card or a note of apology. Students in an advance class
may rather write the short notes in a formal examination and they can score well by doing so. On
the other hand, students in a weak class may prefer to write these short notes during an activity
and they cannot score well if it is to be written in a formal examination. That is to say, different
students need different ambiences so that they can perform well despite having the same task.
Flexibility, therefore, is a key for teachers to design various assessments that can encourage the
students to get band 1 at least. Besides, teachers can also slot in an assessment during a class
when the memory of the lesson is still fresh. The assessments in class are not following the order
of the band and students who have already get certain band can still participate in the similar
assessment which is conducted to evaluate other students who has not got their band yet.
In addition, SBA adds more quality to the assessments of the students especially for
language subjects. Unlike the previous test in school, MCQ test is very rare in SBA. Usually in
SBA, students are required to write their own answers and thus chance factor can be reduced. As
a consequence, students' assessment results are more reliable because they must have the
knowledge of the topics or must master particular skills and then think critically in order to
answer the questions in a test or in an assessment activity, not through luck. Furthermore, the
quality of assessments in school for language paper is improved through the new grading system.
In the old grading system, students are graded by marks they have scored in examination. From
the marks or grade they get, it is hard to tell how good or how bad the students are. As an
illustration, if a student scores only 10 marks out of 100 in an examination for English paper, we
could identify the proficiency of the students in the language. We can quite understand scoring
10% is not good at all but how teachers can help the students? Therefore, we need a grading
system to help teachers to identify what students can do or can understand and what they cannot.
SBA was implemented with new grading system. Students are graded by band. All the test
elements has a band and if a student can show that he can master the skills required by the band
descriptor, he can be awarded the respective band. With the new grading system, teachers,
parents and students can understand the proficiency of the students in the language because the
reports and bands are given according to their ability to communicate in the language. For
example, if a student only gets band 1 in speaking test, we at least know that he can describe
himself in public occasions using suggested sentence patterns that have been taught in the class
and this is the level he can merely reach. So teachers and parents can drill the students more, or
can give the student more enrichment activities in speaking skill so that the students can do more
using the language such as listening and discriminating between initial and final consonants, long
and short vowel, plural form and contraction. Perhaps in future, if the student can master this
new skill, he could be awarded with band 2 in speaking. The process goes so on and so forth
until the students are able the get band 6, which is the highest proficiency level in a language set
by the Ministry of Education in Malaysia under SBA. In the previous assessment method
PMR a public examination, teachers can drill their students without teaching the students
according to the syllabus because teachers are familiar with the types of questions that will be

coming out in different sections of English papers in PMR. Nevertheless, teachers are not able to
do so under SBA system because they have to design an assessment method to assess their
students according to the syllabus which has been taught in the class before testing them.
Students must be able to complete all the tasks in the descriptors in the respective band and show
required evidences in order to be awarded the band. No doubt that the probability of teachers
being bias may exist or cannot be avoided, but teachers are trusted to have integrity when
awarding band to their students. Moreover, the implementation of SBA is ensured by a constant
checking and supervising of "nazir" (a supervisor sent by the ministry to inspect school teachers)
from school to school and teachers must prepare reports on the SBA carried out in school.
Teachers cannot always lower down the level of a test or an assessment for weak students
because teachers still need to follow the descriptors. Furthermore, if the students cannot get band
1, there is no such thing as lower level because band 1 is the lowest band in the grading system.
Teachers however can give more guidance and descriptions or more explanations to the students
so that they are clear with the assessment and thus perform accordingly.
The implementation of SBA also faces some difficulties and the system has some cons.
Both teachers we have interviewed tell us that SBA system is very time consuming for teachers
together with the students. This is because teachers have to teach all the test elements, followed
by showing the students the requirement to get the band in all assessment, and then the
assessment activity will be carried out. Teachers then have to observe all the students and grade
them if they show evidences that they can get the band. If some students cannot get the band,
teachers have to repeat another similar assessment activity to assess the students again and again
until the all the students get band 1 at least, not to mention band 2 till band 6. It is difficult for
teachers to exclude the other students who have already got certain band in certain assessment.
This means that the other students also have to spend extra time to participate in the assessment
activity just to accompany their weaker classmates. However, if teachers are to focus on
assessment activities of higher band for the sake of advanced students, the poor students might
not manage to catch up and not have a chance to get the lower band. As a result, teachers have to
spend a huge amount of time to take care students of all level, that is, to create, design and to
repeat the similar assessment activities throughout the year while conducting lessons to teach the
students the skills and the elements in the syllabus.
There are also some petty problems occur when SBA is put into operation. One of them
is that students are confused with their achievement in the subject. Because SBA system seldom
assesses students through formal test and students are not given marks any more, students do not
understand the importance of the subject and thus neglect their study on the subject or subjects.
For instance, students stop attending English tuition, do not pay attention in class, doing
homework of other subject in English class and so on. Teachers are also troubled with students'
reaction toward SBA because they cannot get students to participate seriously in assessing
activities. The seriousness of students is not there when there are no public examination.
However, the response is expected as the students were drilled to become examination oriented.

Therefore, it is normal see students score high marks in examinations but cannot master speaking
and listening skills. Since the assessments are carried out in different occasions and students get
their band in different activities, the achievement of the students will not released to them or
their parents until the end of the semester. As a result, students do not know what is their level
and they can be quite frustrated because they are not sure how good they have achieved or how
bad they have done in the previous assessment. Also, SBA adds workload for teachers. Teachers
have to attend seminars and trainings to be briefed on the new systems so that teachers know
how to create their unique assessment activities, worksheets and test as well as know how to
grade students accordingly. The worksheets for different classes may differ. Teachers may get
the worksheets from different sources even though they are suggested to come out with their own.
However, since teachers are too much burdened with the workload of SBA system, some
teachers just buy exercise books or worksheets from publishers and give them to students.
Students therefore have chance to get the answer by buying extra copy of the same worksheet in
the book store. Parents are also not clear about the new system. For them, "no examination is
what SBA about" is what they pick up from the explanation given during the school opening
days when parents come to school to ask for more details on SBA. In general, SBA is
troublesome and confusing.

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