Assessment in

Music Education
Martin Fautley
December 2009
 Assessment should not be confused with
testing!
 Historical Perspective

INSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT

Assessment and instruction conceived as curiously separate

in both time and purpose.
(Graue 1993)
Changing Conceptions

Shepard 2002 p230

Assessment for learning involves:
gathering and interpreting evidence about students
learning;
and
learners and their teachers using that evidence to decide
where students are in their learning, where they are
going and how to take the next steps.
QCA and the Assessment Reform Group (2001)
Zen and the art of Motorcycle
Maintenance
"Grades really cover up failure to teach. A bad
instructor can go through an entire quarter
leaving absolutely nothing memorable in the
minds of his class, curve out the scores on an
irrelevant test, and leave the impression that
some have learned and some have not. But if
the grades are removed the class is forced to
wonder each day what its really learning. The
questions, Whats being taught? Whats the
goal? How do the lectures and assignments
accomplish the goal? become ominous. The
removal of grades exposes a huge and
frightening vacuum."p204
Pirsig, Robert 1974. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. London: Vintage Paperback edition 1989
Planning for Learning and
Assessment

Fautley & Savage 2008, p49

Assessment Modalities

Fautley and Savage 2008 (cited in NAME Bulletin)

Uses and Purposes of Assessment
Formative and Summative are purposes of
assessment.
It is sometimes difficult to avoid referring to these as if
they were different forms or types of assessment. They
are not. They are discussed separately only because
they have different purposes; indeed the same
information, gathered in the same way, would be called
formative if it were used to help learning and teaching, or
summative if it were not so utilized but only employed for
recording and reporting. While there is a single clear use
if assessment is to serve a formative purpose, in the
case of summative assessment there are various ways
in which the information about student achievement at a
certain time is used. (Harlen, 2005 p.208)
because formative assessment has to be
carried out by teachers, there is an assumption
that all assessment by teachers is formative,
adding to the blurring of the distinction between
formative and summative purposes and to
teachers changing their own on-going
assessment into a series of mini assessments
each of which is essentially summative in
character (Harlen & James, 1997) p2)
Assessment Information needed at
the start of a UoW:
What can the pupils already do?
Can they all do this?
If so, how well can they do it?
What about those who struggle?
What about those who find it easy?
How should I introduce this topic?
Have they enough prior knowledge already to do it?
Is the proposed learning sufficiently challenging?
Why is this topic worth doing, and not that one?
What resources will we need, and do we have them?
 Previous Slide rewritten in
evidentiary terms
What evidence is there to show what the can pupils already do?
What evidence is there to say whether they can all do this?
If so, what evidence is there to show how well can they do it?
What evidence is there to tell me which (named) pupils will struggle?
What evidence is there to tell me which (named) pupils will find it
easy?
What evidence do I already have to tell me how I should introduce
this topic?
What evidence is there to show whether or not they have enough
prior knowledge already to do it?
What evidence is there to tell me if the proposed learning is
sufficiently challenging?
What evidence do I have as to why this topic is worth doing, and not
that one?
What resources will we need, and do we have them? (Hopefully this
is evidenced from the daily practice of the teacher, although for
peripatetic teachers and visiting artists it is worth asking.)
... we may all too easily allow ourselves to
be trapped by compromise, making
important what can most easily be
evaluated rather than valuing what is
important. In which case, why do we
bother with ... anything that relies upon the
exercise of imagination, creative response,
and the expression of independent views.
(Paynter, 2002) p. 216)
Different modes of
Assessment and learning
in music
 Evidence in Music
Musical evidence: This will take the form of
sounds (Dont forget audio recording!)
Written evidence: This can either be
expressed in written text, or some form of
musical notation
Oral evidence: Things which the pupils
talk about
Pictorial evidence:Where the pupils have
drawn illustrations
 Ofsted say
Across all the schools visited, audio
recording was not used enough as a
means of ongoing assessment but tended
to be used only at the end of a unit of
work. As one pupil said, It is good we
record our work, but it would be better if
we could listen to it more and find out how
we could improve it (Ofsted 2009: 18)
 Gardner said:
a reasonably competent 7-year old
should understand the basic metrical
properties of his musical system and the
appropriate scales, harmonies, cadences
and groupings, even as he should be able,
give some motifs, to combine them into a
musical unit that is appropriate to his
culture, but is not a complete copy of a
work already known. (Gardner, 1973)
p.197)
Modes of Assessment
whereas the traditional syllabus
demanded that children should be
knowledgeable about music, more recent
assessment schemes have encouraged
children to be actively engaged with
music, with knowledge seen as a by-
product of performing, composing and
listening. (Pitts, 2000 p147) (Authors
Italics)
It is important to recognise the twin
aspects of acquire and apply
acquiring information about music aids
understanding, but musical understanding
can only be firmly embedded in pupils
learning when it is explored, applied and
demonstrated through practical musical
making (DfES, 2006 p4)
 Identifying musical learning

Knowing of

Knowing about Knowing how

Secondary Strategy
Three dimensions of music
making, learning, and
assessment
Music teachers often talk of having an assessment
lesson as a discrete event, and as though assessment
does not happen at any other time. The assessment
lesson in music has evolved in a way which Bruner might
describe as a sort of folk pedagogy, and typically
involves one group of pupils performing their piece at a
time to the rest of the class, and the teacher. In some
cases the non-performing groups are given a type of
peer-assessment sheet to complete as each other group
performs. Managed well, these lessons can be a useful
source of peer commentary and open and frank
exchange of views regarding the music. Managed not so
well, they can become pointless form-filling exercises:
Both self-appraisal and pupil appraisal
of music of their peers can become
mundane and pointless exercises if the
teacher does not have clear ideas about
the ways in which these methods can
enhance learning. (Adams, 2000, p174)
 A teacher said
It's actually a very difficult lesson and for a lot of kids it's
a waste of time, because theyll play their piece, and
that's two minutes. So they're going to spend another
forty eight minutes potentially sat around listening to
other people's, and even if you give them a little form,
and say okay here's the theme, smiley face, sad face,
ambivalent face and I want a reason why for each
performance, it's still an inherently, quite a dull lesson,
even though you're listening to other people's
performances and it's enjoyable and everything, I feel
that for me and the way our students are here it's not the
best use of time.
 Research Findings
level descriptions are not
designed to be used to level To give a level only at the
end of a key stage
individual pieces of work (NC
Action website) 25% teachers
responded that they use the To give a level to each child
at least once per year
levels to assess individual
pieces of work. Only about 9%
of teachers use the levels in
To give a level to each child
the way which they were at least once per term

originally intended, to report at

the end of the Key Stage, with
50% of teachers giving levels To give each piece of work
a level
to all pupils at least once per
term, whereas only about 16% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
are using them on a annual
basis. Fautley & Savage 2008
NC levels
 Text for previous
NC levels were the main modality for teacher
assessment at KS3, with 49% of respondents
mentioning them directly. The text from which this
analysis is derived reveals that for some teachers, use of
the NC levels was felt to be sufficient in and of itself, with
short answers such as these being not untypical: Use
NC Level descriptors; National Curriculum criteria;
KS3 levels; NC orders. This seems to show that in
teacher thinking there exists an unproblematic
connection between NC levels and assessment of
composing.
 NC sub-levels (Ofsted)
In one lesson seen, for example, students
were told: 'Level 3: clap a 3 beat ostinato;
Level 4: maintain a 4 bar ostinato; Level 5:
compose an ostinato.' This demonstrated
a significant misunderstanding of the
expectations inherent in the level
descriptions (Ofsted 2009: 31)
Developing Assessment Criteria
In the hurly-burly of contemporary
teaching we need clear criteria that help
us to say yes, that is effective music-
making, or this is astute appraisal.
(Swanwick, 1997) p.209)

.sadly we havent got these!

 But
One of the key elements of AfL is the emphasis
on making explicit both what is being learned
and what successful learning would look like
However, achieving clarity in this process is like
walking a tightrope, if [it] is not clear what is
being learned (and why) and what success
would look like, then learners will remain
bemused, if it becomes too tightly specified then
it becomes an exercise in compliance. (Stobart,
2008)
Here are five examples, all of which have the same assessment criterion:
1. Tick the box[1]

Assessment Criterion: Can play keyboard melody with more than one finger
Always Nearly Usually Sometimes Never
Always

2. Tick the box

Assessment Criterion: Can play keyboard melody with more than one finger
Yes: No:

3. Assessment Criterion: Can play keyboard melody with more than one finger
Mark out of 10:

4: Assessment Criterion: Can play keyboard melody with more than one finger
Mark out of 100: %

5. (National Curriculum linked):

Assessment Criterion: Can play keyboard melody with more than one finger
N.C. Level (3-5) Sublevel (a-c)

[1] This can also be done using smiley faces instead of descriptors to make it more pupil-friendly.
 Other Grading Criteria
Three levels of Or:
attainment:
Can achieve with
Working Towards some help
Working At Can achieve
Working Beyond Can achieve well

Or other variants!
 Questions for previous slides:
If the aim is to help the learner, what is the most helpful
way of doing this?
If the aim is to compare the learners one with another,
and let them know how they are doing relative to each
other, what is the most helpful way of doing this?
If the aim is to produce statistics, because I, the teacher
have been asked to, what is going to happen to this
information?
If the aim is to report to parents, what do they need to
know?
Why am I assessing fingering in this way?
Does a musical performance matter (or not)?
Is a musical performance with wrong fingering better
than a non-musical performance with the correct
fingering?
Planning - Questions to ask
yourself

(Fautley & Savage 2008 p59)

Planning for Learning and
Assessment

Fautley & Savage 2008, p49

 SUCCESS CRITERIA
Think about a practical music lesson you will be teaching
soon.
What will a good musical outcome be?
What will it sound like?
Have you modelled it with the pupils?
Do they know what a high quality musical outcome
will be?
What do you want the pupils to do?
What will they learn?
What do they need to know and be able to do before
they can undertake this task?
Fautley 2009
 Then
How can you turn your Success Criteria
into assessment criteria?
What are the stages of quality you will be
looking for?
What will you do with your assessment
data?
 Parting Thought
formative assessment is a central part
of pedagogy. This explains why many
teachers find it hard to implement; it may
challenge them to change what they do,
how they think about learning and
teaching, and the way in which they relate
to their pupils.
Mansell et al (2009) p9
 References
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teach music in the Secondary School (1st Edition), London, RoutledgeFalmer.
Axtell, I. (2009) Session notes. Birmingham City University.
DfES (2006) 'Secondary National Strategy: Foundation subjects: KS3 music. Unit 1:
Structuring learning for musical understanding'. In DfES (Ed), Department for
Education and Skills.
Fautley, M. (2008) 'Assessment in Music Education - Questions and Answers'. Matlock,
Derbyshire., NAME (National Association of Music Educators).
Fautley, M. & Savage, J. (2008) 'Assessment of Composing at Key Stages 3 and 4 in
English Secondary Schools'. Birmingham, Birmingham City University.
Fautley, M (2009) Assessment for learning in music IN Evans, J. & Philpott, C. (Eds) A
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between formative and summative assessments. Assessment in Education, 4, 3,
365-79.
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Education, 19, 3, 215-26.
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