<研究論文>Development of Formative Assessment in Japan

Abstract

This paper examines how the understanding of formative assessment in Japan has developed as well as how it has been implemented in the past and present, and explores future challenges that may arise. The formative assessment approach, advocated by Bloom, B.S. 1913–1999, was introduced in Japan during the mid-1970s. According to contemporary accounts, formative assessment was a strategy that can achieve a desired level of objectives through evaluations conducted during a class period. Formative assessment gained significance since relative assessment was the dominant method; it was a new and effective approach to shaping academic achievement. However, there was a certain opposition to the rise of formative assessment. This critique argued that formative assessment might be nothing more than an efficient checking of children's goals for academic achievement. In other words, views on formative assessment remained shaped by vestiges of behaviorism, typical of programmed instruction. The basis for these complaints was founded in "Lesson study (Jugyo kenkyu), " which Japanese teachers worked hard to establish. It featured the "Idea that missteps (tsumazuki) can be utilized, " the origins of which were apparent in the practices of Yoshio Toui, 1912–1991, and Kihaku Saito, 1911–1981. The most distinctive feature of this theory was the "reversal idea." In the past, teachers and students, alike, had an aversion to missteps made during lessons. As a response to reversal ideology, teachers tenaciously pursued children's "missteps" and identified the cause, giving insight into the abundant "logic" behind them. Moreover, the teachers that discovered this did not consider these "missteps" as negative, but learned from them, creating lessons that capitalized on these "missteps." Formative assessment, which emanated from educational assessment research, gained importance as a compass for improving "teaching" and "learning" by supporting the ideology of utilizing "missteps." However, in the mid-1990s, there was a further shift in the main subject of this "utilization, " which was influenced by constructivist learning theories. This new way of thinking emphasized the idea that children's cognitive abilities were not merely structured by what they had been taught, but were instead actively and independently gaining new knowledge from the relationship to their existing knowledge. In doing so, the role of self-assessment became all the more critical in demonstrating how well the students themselves grasped this active and independent cognitive activity. It was deemed essential that formative assessment must merge with self-assessment. Life-experience writing or the life-experience composition (seikatsu tsuzurikata) approach emphasized the importance of self-assessment in Japan's educational practices. This life-experience writing approach was unique to Japan. It encouraged students to self-assess by writing down facts about situations they confront during their daily lives or their actual thoughts at the time. Kazuaki-Shougi, who practiced the Hypothesis-Verification-Through-Experimentation Learning System (Kasetsu Jikkenn-Jugyo), affirmed the importance of self-assessment early on. These were the seeds for constructivist learning theories in Japan and the educational legacy that needed to be learned to bring formative assessments to a new stage of development. In the 2000s, amidst globalization, a large scale Academic Achievement Survey is being implemented in Japan and academic competition has become more intense in educational institutions . Given this situation, there is certain concern that academic aptitude will lose substance. A strong demand exists for the combined practice of formative assessment and self-assessment.