The Practice of Classroom Assessments during Curriculum Change: A Study of Inservice Teachers

Abstract

The education ministry has refreshed the past school curriculum to the Freedom Curriculum or Kurikulum Merdeka. Ideally, the change of curriculum is alignment with the methods of assessment. In terms of assessments, there are three types highlighted in the new curriculum: diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. The question arises whether the teachers can really cope with the current issues in assessment. This research aimed to survey the teachers’ perceived skills in assessment and to examine the practices of classroom assessments dealing with the latest issues, including the assessment they used most. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. The respondents were 276 teachers from various backgrounds. They were in-service teachers who joined the Teacher Certification Program managed by Universitas PGRI Semarang in the year 2022. Descriptive statistics was used to calculate the data. The results revealed that teachers reported being fairly skilled in doing assessments. However, several subskills in assessment need improvement. Among the three types of assessment, summative was mostly practised by teachers while teachers least frequently conducted the diagnostic. Based on the function, assessment of learning was mostly practised by teachers, while assessment as learning was the least frequently used. The in-service teacher training program curriculum must cover course materials in assessment to better equip teachers with the ability to execute various assessments.
 Keywords: Kurikulum Merdeka; classroom assessment; diagnostic; formative; summative