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Assessing the Impact of the Program on Student Performance
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The ultimate success of the MBE program must be assessed in terms of the impact on students. However student performance is complex, as is its assessment, as it encompasses knowledge and understanding, skills and attitudes. The national school examination (UAN) and half-yearly tests are limited in their nature mainly to factual recall of knowledge and not comparative from year to year or between different geographic areas.
The MBE program has, therefore undertaken its own student performance evaluation in Bahasa Indonesia, Mathematics and Science. The focus of assessment was on the development of students' skills The tests used were based on those developed under the World Bank PEQIP and Basic Education Projects and subsequently also used in the Unesco-Unicef CLCC program.
The tests are in line with the curriculum in each subject and take special account of the aims of the PAKEM component in the MBE program. The tests were done only in primary schools (SD and MI) and consisted of:
a simple reading test for class 1 (administered orally with individual children)
a Bahasa Indonesia test in class 4 including a reading comprehension test and an essay question to assess writing abilities
a mathematics test in class 4, with an emphasis on problem solving skills
a science test in class 5 with an emphasis on the ability to interpret data and apply scientific knowledge
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This chart shows the results of the writing test in 60 primary schools (SD and MI) in the MBE districts. There were big differences between the average scores of students in the schools which varied between 17 (out of 20) down to 5.
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The tests were administered between 17 and 21 May 2004 in sixty schools in the ten MBE districts (six in each district) and they will be given again to the same classes (not the same students) next year to measure the impact of the MBE program on the students' performance.
The writing test was assessed according to five elements: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, length and the quality of the writing. The weighting in the overall score was: handwriting (15%), spelling (15%), punctuation (15%);, length (20%) and the quality of the writing (35%).
Only 19% of children could write neat, joined up writing, while another 64% wrote neatly but without joining their writing. Differences between schools were marked. In some schools most of the children wrote neatly, while in others few or none did. This is almost certainly because teachers in the former schools regularly taught handwriting, while those is the latter did not.
Only 16% of children wrote without spelling mistakes, while in 52% more cases the spelling was good (largely correct. In 30% of cases the children's spelling was considered poor or very poor. 58% of children punctuated their work well (classified as perfect or good), while in 35% of cases children's punctuation was classified as poor.
58% of children wrote more than half a page and In 44% of the children's essays the quality of the content of the children's writing was classified as good, i.e. their ideas were clear and well expressed and in logical order.
The reason many of the children found difficulty in writing a essay of satisfactory quality and length, using adequate punctuation and spelling is because children in many classes rarely write in their own words. They more often copy off the blackboard or from the text book.
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Student Testing in Batang
There were evidently different policies in the MBE districts, especially in Batang district. In the morning all the classrooms were used for the practical part of the class 6 leaving examinations. As a result the MBE testing for the students in classes 1, 4 and 5 was held in the afternoon from 1.00 to 5.00 p.m. All the tests took place at the same time in several schools.
The children appeared really pleased with the arrival of the MBE team, even though some tension apparent in their faces. "Who's good at reading? Come and show me. Who'd like to come into the library and read to me first? Ok…" Pak Masjudi patiently called the class 1 children one by one and held their hands as they went together into the library.
Going into class 4 the children volunteered each other to do the mathematics and Indonesian language tests…..but after the class teacher had spoken to them they eventually sat down quietly and worked through the tests. Going into class 5 those children whose names were not chosen to take part in the science test were very happy. Even though they had to wait outside, the teacher wisely gave them other tasks to do as a group outside the classroom.
The results of the tests showed that most of the class 1 children could already read fluently but had more difficulty understanding what they read. In the class 4 Bahasa Indonesia test the ability of the children to express their thoughts in writing an essay were still limited.
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They were best at answering multiple choice questions., because that's what they have been used to doing for years with the questions set by the central government. In the Mathematics test for class 4 most of the mistakes occurred in adding decimals and in the open-ended ques-ions where the children showed their lack of creativity. In the class 5 science test most of the mistakes occurred in the questions on applied science.
Other conclusions from the testing were that the children who had been to kindergarten (TK) performed better than those who had not been through kindergarten.
The MBE District Coordinator has already informed the schools about the results of the tests and encouraged the teachers to be more creative and hopefully to improve their lesson scenarios. It is clear that teacher need to reflect on their students' performance in their efforts to improve their capabilities. It is also clear that ability cannot only be measured by in terms of figures.
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