Problems and possible solutions
المؤلف:
Cathy S.P. Wong
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P13-C1
2025-05-24
513
Problems and possible solutions
One of the concerns shared by a number of staff members in using the SOLO taxonomy is the problem of reliability and consistency. There is some conceptual ambiguity inherent in SOLO's structure which "makes categorization unstable along with the problem of low inter-rater reliability" (Chan et al., 2002, p.512). In fact, when the SOLO taxonomy was first adopted by the English Department, staff members were already aware of this issue of inter-rater reliability. Attempts have been taken to tackle this problem. It has been agreed that parity meetings would be held among teachers periodically during the semester. The purpose of these meetings would be to discuss sample scripts of students' work so as to achieve a fair application of the criteria. Comments from colleagues about this procedural measure indicate that in addition to the parity meetings stipulated for individual subjects, such meetings should also be held at a departmental level because parity across subjects is also needed.
A related problem is the mapping of the criteria onto the specific assessment tasks of the different subjects. Some staff members felt that the criteria should be more refined or more elaborate in order to suit different subjects and different tasks. This is similar to the findings reported in Chan, Tsui, Chan and Hong (2002). They also criticize the assessment criteria of the SOLO taxonomy as being vague. However, if the SOLO taxonomy is meant to be applicable across a wide variety of disciplines, it is bound to be general and hence "vague". Lake (1999) has demonstrated how the structure of the complexity of understanding can be effectively transformed into a template to be applied to the teaching of interpreting graphs and tables in biological sciences. There is no reason why this cannot be accomplished for other subjects.
This problem can only be solved by candid sharing among staff members of their experience in adapting the taxonomy to their respective subjects and to specific assignment tasks. The accumulation of good practices and examples of the application of the SOLO taxonomy thus becomes crucial. This should be administered at the departmental level so as to build a resource base available for staff.
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