Hong Kong is famous for its examination-dominated culture, which heavily relies on the public examinations. So ingrained has it become that the whole society is sensitive to any change in such an assessment mechanism. In recent years, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority has used both external and school-based assessment as part of high stakes end of schooling assessment. Recent reforms have increased this reliance on school based assessment. The objectivity of external assessment is easily accepted by the society and the addition of school-based assessment components is often supported by tertiary institutions. Yet the practice of including school-based assessment results in addition to public examinations has been challenged by practitioners such as teachers in secondary schools as well as by the public. This paper focuses on understanding the views of teachers concerning school based assessment since such views are likely to add pressure to its implementation. In particular it will examine why teachers and the public appear to have more faith in external assessment rather than the professional judgment of teachers.

One major endeavour of the educational assessment reform in Hong Kong is to translate the idea of assessment for learning into the school teacher's everyday practice. The idea,assessment for learning, emphasizes that classroom assessment should enable the teacher to give feedback about a student's learning and to obtain feedback which inform his or her own teaching. Both groups of school teachers and teacher educators are concerned with the issue about how to make sense of assessment data and to transform them into feedback useful to learning and teaching. This research seeks to understand the kinds of protocols of assessment data school teachers perceived as practical information to become useful feedback to learning and teaching. We conducted 2 types of protocols using different analysis methods of assessment data (that is, basic item analysis and Rasch model) to represent primary and secondary students' responses to objective test items assessing the competency of reading comprehension of Chinese literatures. We presented the protocols to primary and secondary school teachers who are currently teaching Chinese language subject in Hong Kong. After our demonstrations of the protocols, we interviewed the participant teachers to obtain their perceptions on each type of protocols. Results of the teachers' perceptions are discussed in this paper.

Learning is the focus of attention for any educational enterprise. Consequently, the quality of assessment of the extent to which learning has occurred is of crucial importance. Assessment plays an important role in education in Hong Kong as in other places. Nevertheless, how to design an assessment that is of high quality, or how to fully utilize the results of the assessment to understand more deeply about the ability of our students is a demanding task for most teachers. It is not uncommon for teachers to assume that those students who cannot get good assessment results are weak students or that they have learning problems. Teachers rarely question the quality of assessment items to be the source of problems. In other words, teachers seldom consider the possibilities that the items may be too difficult, or unsuitable for the students' levels. In fact, it is worth investigating both the students' and items' performances for the assessments in order to understand more about the ability of our students. Under such circumstances, Rasch Measurement Model is a tool that teachers may consider to assist them for interpreting and analyzing the alignment between student ability and assessment item difficulty. In Rasch modelling, the data are checked, using a set of procedures and criteria, for the extent to which they match with the theoretical model. In particular, the point-measure correlations, and the INFIT and OUTFIT statistics are used to assess the goodness of fit between model and data. This study aims to illustrate how teachers can make use of these statistics from Rasch modelling to support them in the implementation of learning oriented assessment. The study will be based on assessment data obtained from two classes of Primary Three Students in a local school in July 2006. In the study, we will focus on the implication of misfit persons and items by using Rasch Measurement Model so as to discuss ways for understanding our students and improving the items and setting

近年來，本港教育界積極進行教育改革，「促進學習評估」是重點之一。跟過去相比，本港語文新課程無論在評估的理念上和行動上都有了新的突破、新的舉措。但是，新課改要取得預期的成功，委實離不開教師對既有教學和評估信念的轉變和對新課改的實踐。究竟，本港語文教師對「促進學習評估」有多深刻認識？教師對評估的認識和「促進學習」的目標是否配合？具體的實踐情況又是怎樣的？以上問題是本研究的主要探討項目。本研究通過定量 (問卷) 和定性 (訪問，文件分析) 的調查方法，旨在探討語文教師對語文學習評估的識見以及現時小學生語文學習評估的實施情況，從而反映出教師需要在哪些方面作出改善和提高。

School-based assessment (SBA) can bring about many educational benefits. Ideally, it helps reduce examination pressure and helps improve teaching and learning. In Hong Kong, a much wider use of SBA has recently been added to the assessment system as one important aspect of the assessment reform. This paper will first give an overview of different SBA practices. It will then look at SBA in Hong Kong at policy level and discuss the challenges for its successful implementation.

Large-scale curriculum reform initiated 2001 in Hong Kong has set the stage for change in the school curriculum as well as assessment. In the past, Hong Kong education was characterized by its elitist system with highly selective examinations at different levels of learning. The selective examination oriented policy had its influential impact on the schooling of Hong Kong where teaching and learning were inclined towards examinations. Since 1990, there have been changes in the assessment policy in the school curriculum with more emphasis on formative assessment, e.g. Target Oriented Curriculum. The new forms of assessment have therefore posed a different teaching and learning environment for the schools, teachers and students. By looking at the previous experiences regarding implementation in the local context, this paper will analyze various aspects of implementation of assessment policies adopted by the schools in Hong Kong. Implications will also be drawn to address the possibilities of implementation for the current policy.

Formative assessment is regarded as a means to provide teachers and students with information about the strengths and weaknesses of student learning with the ultimate goal of making responsive changes in teaching and learning. In Hong Kong, formative assessment has recently been promoted in schools. Through analyzing a case study, this paper aims to explore: (1) the key strategies employed by the school in assessing and improving students’ performance, (2) the effects of these strategies in student learning and (3) the challenges the teachers have encountered in practising formative assessment. The intention is to provide a living example for those teachers and policy makers who favour the use of formative assessment as the major approach to improving students’ learning.