Education prepares children for the future – building their lives and careers. Performance Assessment (PA) is a part of the education system requiring students to demonstrate their knowledge, abilities, and skills. PA should act as a teaching tool that helps support the students’ learning and achievements (Svihla et al., 2019). Despite the significance of the assessment, several factors can influence it and make it biased.
Biases and stereotypes are common in society and affect education too. The article by Bonefeld and Dickhäuser (2018) draws attention to the fact that the PA may be biased due to teachers’ non-objective attitudes, particularly toward migrant children. The bias remains significant even considering the impact of children’s previous learning experiences. At the same time, many studies note the importance of the effect of sociocultural context on students (Liem, 2019). Teacher expectations significantly affect students and their performance – higher expectations and fair relations can motivate children and improve their academic performance. For this reason, Bonefeld and Dickhäuser’s (2018) research is relevant and crucial for study. It is necessary to track the process of bias emergence in PA to prevent them.
Bias can de-motivate students, and teachers may sometimes be unaware of their presence. Stereotypes are associated with implicit attitudes and unconsciously influence teacher actions (Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018). Their experimental study also revealed that a child’s overall performance becomes an influencing factor for teachers (Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018). According to their results, the students’ origin influenced the assessment, but not the identification of errors (Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018). These factors interact with each other and affect children’s grades and performance.
Thus, given the importance of education for children’s future and the influence of the relationship between students and teachers, educators must strive for objectivity and impartiality. The reviewed paper revealed that migrant children often face bias in PA. Thoughts about their origin, social status, and overall academic performance affect the grading. Teacher fairness can influence children’s motivation, learning, and grades, and therefore the issue needs attention.
References
Bonefeld, M., & Dickhäuser, O. (2018). (Biased) grading of students’ performance: Students’ names, performance level, and implicit attitudes.Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1-13. Web.
Liem, G. A. D. (2019). Academic performance and assessment.Educational Psychology, 39(6), 705-708. Web.
Svihla, V., Kubik, T., & Stevens-Shauger, T. (2019). Performance assessment practice as professional learning. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 13(2), 1-14. Web.