Teacher’s Constraints and Challenges in Implementing Student Attitude Assessment in Junior High School

2.1 Affective Assessment

Assessment is defined as the collection of information about student performance to be used as a basis for decision-making (Eger, Egerová, & Pisoňová, 2018). In educational assessment, the information collected is the learning outcomes of students in all educational domains including attitudes, knowledge, and skills. Based on the results of the assessment, educators can make the right decision to determine subsequent improvement. The results of the assessment can also provide motivation for students to perform better in the future.

One of the teacher’s tasks is to assess the student’s competencies. Assessment is an important component to determine the effectiveness of the learning process. A good assessment system encourages educators to determine good teaching strategies and motivate students to learn better (Svoboda, Swigert, Murina, & Motaparthi, 2021). Assessment must be viewed as an effective tool for providing feedback to teachers and students about learning processes and progress (Fred & Bishen Singh, 2021). The teacher may conduct an assessment during the learning process (process assessment) and after learning completion (outcome assessment). The assessment aims to determine the mastery level of knowledge, attitudes, and skills competencies of students during and after the learning process (O’Sullivan & Burce, 2014). Thus, assessment has an important role in determining the success of education.

Teaching usually only relies on cognitive learning strategies, although it is realized that the main function of the educational process emphasizes the importance of components from the affective domain, including values, attitudes, ethics, and self-awareness. This is because some affective domains are poorly conceptualized, highly individualized, and challenging to assess directly. Physical competency assessment is an assessment carried out by the teacher to assess the level of competence of students’ attitudes, which includes aspects of receiving or paying attention, responding or responding, assessing or appreciating, organizing or managing, and character (Karacabey, Ozdere, & Bozkus, 2019). Attitudes are often considered to be at the forefront of controlling behavior (Marttinen, Fredrick III, & Silverman, 2018). Attitude comes from feelings (likes or dislikes) related to a person’s tendency to respond to an object (Supeni & Hakim, 2019). Attitudes can be described as a psychological tendency that manifests as a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of a specific entity. In addition, attitude can be interpreted as a feeling that a person has toward an object based on his knowledge and beliefs about the object (Gezer, 2018).

2.2 The Role of Teachers, Principals, and School Supervisors

Teachers must have knowledge that varies across educational and sociocultural contexts (Gupta & Sukamto, 2020; Guryanov, Rakhimova, & Guzman, 2019). Teachers must prepare themselves from an early age to carry out educational activities in schools in terms of knowledge and attitudes (Bagherzadeh & Tajeddin, 2021). Teachers conducting assessments must be comprehensive to obtain information about all aspects of student development, including cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects. Although the assessment is limited to certain aspects, it cannot be used as the sole basis for making decisions on student development. However, the teacher knows that the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains must be fully developed in learning practice. Unfortunately, the affective and psychomotor domains have received little attention (Imtihan & Ahyar, 2018). So far, teachers often carry out evaluations that only focus on the cognitive and psychomotor domains, and only a small portion of the affective domain assessment is carried out (Ghazali, Nordin, Abdullah, & Ayub, 2020). Furthermore, of the three domains (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor), some teachers often only assess one domain, namely the cognitive domain. Therefore, it is important to examine the various problems faced by teachers in carrying out attitude assessments based on these problems.

The implementation of the education system requires a monitoring and evaluation process. At the secondary school level, this activity takes place in stages, starting from supervision by the school principal to teachers and from supervision by school supervisors to schools including supervision of teachers. Supervision aims to improve the ability of teachers to utilize their knowledge and abilities to provide better services to parents and schools. This can happen if supervision is carried out thoroughly with regard to the substance of the process and the content of education. Conversely, if supervision is only oriented toward achieving administrative completeness, then most teachers will lose their creativity. The supervisory process guarantees that the policies, principles, rules, regulations, and methods stipulated in the context of implementing and achieving educational goals are carried out effectively. Therefore, the knowledge and experience of supervisors to coordinate the process of improving teaching and learning, including the assessment process, are very important for the supervision process (Eya & Chukwu, 2012).

Educational supervision includes supervision of teaching and its supporting elements. Supervision is an activity that is directly related to teaching. The scope of supervision can cover many aspects of learning, including instructional aspects. Regular instructional supervision can be carried out using strong supervision strategies such as checking student notebooks, checking lesson plans/teacher notes, class visits/inspections by school administrators, and inspections of teacher record-keeping. Recommendations such as proper alignment of government policies with the educational needs of society, provision of adequate and relevant teaching materials for teaching, regular in-service training for teacher capacity building, depoliticization of free education programs, and proper evaluation of school and education administration procedures delivered results for improvement (Usman, 2015). Interesting things are reported from research in Malaysia. The current status of supervisory practices, teachers’ attitude toward supervision, and teacher’s performance after supervision were found to be at a moderate level in secondary schools in Malaysia. Overall, the form of supervisory practice is not correlated with teacher’s performance or attitude. However, it should be mentioned that, specifically, directive supervision is positively and significantly related to teacher’s performance and attitude (Hoque, Bt Kenayathulla, D/O Subramaniam, & Islam, 2020). Other research shows that most principals pay sufficient attention to monitoring teachers’ attendance, preparation of lesson notes, and adequacy of work diaries, while tasks such as the provision of teaching materials, reference books, feedback, and review of activities with stakeholders are at least carried out by many principals in middle school. The challenges faced by school principals in the tasks of institutional governance, resource input, curriculum delivery, and student learning require effective collaboration and goal-oriented synergistic relationships between schools and related stakeholders in their environment (Ayeni, 2012).

4.1 Obstacles in Student Attitude Assessment

In carrying out the assessment process, however, the teacher felt that there were many difficulties and obstacles. First, during the pandemic era, schools performed the online system. At that time, the teacher merely performed rough observations of student attitudes, which was stated by Teacher 1 as follows:

I continue to assess student attitudes during online learning, but I find this difficult because I am unable to observe student attitudes and behavior directly. With this online learning, I have limits, I only evaluate one aspect, such as discipline. (T1)

Teacher 2 had the same opinion and said as follows:

During online learning, I remain to assess student attitude through general observations, for example, their disciplinary attitude when participating in online learning and when they submit assignments. (T2)

Other informants explained the attitude assessment process during online learning as follows:

Even if learning is done online, the teacher needed to assess student attitudes as completely as possible. Through Zoom meetings, the teacher may assess their students’ activity in participating of the learning process and completing their assignments. In addition to Zoom meetings, I also evaluate student attitudes by observing the students’ speech or manners when sending messages to teachers, as well their activity and discipline in discussing the topic and completing assignments. (T3)

Regarding learning instruments, some teachers said that there was a difference between the classical learning period in class and online learning. This was expressed by Teacher 4 as follows:

Before the pandemic, the teachers implement more diverse assessment techniques including peer assessment, self-assessment and the journal, as its plan. After the pandemic, learning was carried out online and assessment was merely done by observation. (T4)

This is supported by the opinion of Teacher 5, who stated that

In the previous lesson (before the pandemic), I used attitude assessment with observation and self-assessment techniques. During the online system, I lack appropriate instruments, so I conducted an assessment with simple general observations (without instruments). (T5)

The second obstacle perceived by the teacher was time consumption and a large number of students in one class. This was expressed by several teachers, e.g., Teacher 2.

Several factors may hinder teachers from assessing student attitudes as follows. The first factor is the teacher’s limited time. When conducting a teaching process, the teacher must share his/her focus on the delivery of material, giving homework and the assessment process. This creates a dilemma for teachers as they must assess student attitudes thoroughly. As it is known that the assessment of student attitudes must be observed individually and directly. Thus, the time allocation becomes insufficient to cover all of the students. The second factor is a large number of students in one class. The teacher must observe 30 students individually in one lesson. Thus, the teacher must really divide his/her time properly. Third, it is difficult for teachers to lead students who lack the right attitude. During the learning process, these students are less concerned about learning. So, teachers have to work harder in motivating these students. (T2)

This is supported by the opinion of the other informant (Teacher 7) as follows:

The teacher’s difficulty in providing an assessment of students’ attitudes in the learning process based on the national curriculum is due to time limitation. This is due to a large number of students in one class. I find it difficult to direct students in instilling good attitudes in accordance with learning objectives. (T7)

The third obstacle felt by the teacher is the absence of an instrument for assessing attitudes. According to the national curriculum, teachers are required to develop instruments for assessing students’ attitudes. But in practice, not all teachers arrange it. Some teachers admit difficulties in compiling instruments because they lack the knowledge and experience to arrange them. This was revealed by Teacher 4 as follows:

Our obstacle to assess attitudes is a lack of knowledge in constructing guidelines for conducting assessments because there are no assessment guidelines from the school or District Education Office. Teachers should design and construct the instrument by themselves. (T4)

The statement is supported by another teacher, who stated the opinion as follows:

The main obstacle in assessing student attitudes is in compiling the instrument. This is because the teacher has not mastered well how to construct the instrument, especially in assessing student attitudes. The national curriculum places more emphasis on activeness and field materials, so teachers are required to this have high skills in assessing student attitudes. I find it difficult to develop instruments and implement a scoring system. (T9)

Another teacher (T10) explained the difficulties as follows:

The main obstacle in carrying out an attitude assessment is the arranging of the instrument and the process of assessing the student one by one. To cover all students, the teacher has to copy the instrument dan assess the student individually. This work is a little bit stiff and complicated. Actually, I assess the student affective domain in the form of politeness, manners, morals, honesty, and discipline, these attitudes can be assessed through observation. (T10)

In contrast to the answers from the previous sources, another informant informed that he did not use any special instruments. He just followed the provisions in the student report transcript. That meant the teacher gave the same score for cognitive and affective domains.

I have no any special instruments. I only refer to the provisions in the student report transcript. In the report card there is an assessment of religious attitudes, such as religious activities for example recites the Koran at school, because the school also holds recitation activities every morning, and prayer schedules. Then for discipline attitude, it can be observed from student activity in cleaning and managing the class when conducting the picket schedule. (T3)

The same opinion was also expressed by another informant as follows:

In conducting the attitude assessment without an instrument. I assess them merely through general observation based on their daily activities. (T5)

Based on regulation in Indonesia, the measurement of the domain education process is done through teacher observation, student self-assessment, and peer assessment. However, this study indicated that most teachers use observation as the sole method for student attitude assessment.

Teachers find difficulty to apply peer assessments because the results of peer assessment are often different from the teacher’s side. This is probably due to students having difficulty assessing their friends objectively or probably feeling uncomfortable. (T5)

As an effort to follow up on the results of the assessment, a teacher said that the results of the assessment evaluation were used to improve the learning processin the future (T6).

I use the results of the attitude assessment as input for the next coaching and as material for reports to parents of students. (T6)

The same opinion was also expressed by resource person T7 as follows:

Attitude assessment is an activity carried out to find out how the character or behavior of students in class or outside the classroom, socially and spiritually. The results of the attitude assessment become a reference material for controlling and guiding the development of students’ attitudes in a better direction. (T7)

Another informant said that the results of the assessment were submitted to the homeroom, religion, and counseling guidance teachers for input during the grade promotion meeting.

Attitude assessment is carried out continuously, and the results of the assessment are conveyed to the homeroom and guidance counsellor teacher for input material during grade promotion meetings or as evaluation material for character development. (T8)

I discuss it with my colleagues, especially religion and counselling teachers because I think they also have a big role in shaping students’ attitudes. The final assessment of student attitudes is used as material for consideration for grade promotion. (T6)

4.2 The Role of the Principal and School Supervisor

The supervision process by the school principal and school supervisor is carried out thoroughly in the aspect of assessing student attitudes. This was conveyed by Principal 1 who stated,

As a school principal, I carry out overall supervision, specifically related to assessing student attitudes, all teachers have carried out attitude assessments because that is a requirement of the national curriculum. (P1)

The same opinion was expressed by Principal 2 as follows:

In general, teachers have carried out an attitude assessment, because schools implementing the national curriculum with requirement to provide assessment of the three domains include knowledge, skills and attitudes. (P2)

The supervision process by the school principal and school supervisor is carried out routinely and continuously. In the process of supervising, both the principal and school supervisor have provided guidance to teachers. This was conveyed by Supervisor 1 as follows:

Conducting teacher supervision is one of our main duties as supervisors. Coaching for teachers can go through the school principal and can also go directly to the teacher. However, I usually do it in stages, meaning I ask the principal about various problems faced by the teacher. Regarding the assessment system based on the national curriculum, it requires teachers to also assess attitudes, both spiritual and social attitudes, I have also done coaching for that. From the class learning plan that they showed, in the assessment component, they generally included an assessment of the attitude aspect, and it was usually done using an observation technique with an observation sheet instrument. (S1)

This is supported by the opinion of Supervisor 2.

All this time in coaching teachers, I programmatically come to the schools. Prior to my visit, I contacted the school principal and inform my planned activity. Usually, I first have discussions with the school principal, for example about various things or problems encountered the school. (S2)

The same thing was conveyed by Supervisor 3 who said that I carry out the supervision process regularly and continuously related to attitude assessment, when I first became a supervisor it seemed that many teachers had difficulty carrying out attitude assessments. Along with the coaching process, teachers become more skilled at carrying out the assessment process, but are actually still far below the target.

In fostering teachers, supervisors are usually active in subject–teacher discussion forums as presenters, with different material for each program. One of the informants said that he had never given special material about the assessment of attitudes. This was conveyed by Supervisor 1 as follows:

All this time I have done coaching, one of which is being a resource person for activities in discussion forums for minimum subject teachers once a year with different materials. The forum activities are usually organized ten times a year. I have never specifically talked a topic about attitude assessment. I will do it in the future so that teachers can really understand it and can implement it according to the provisions. (S1)

Another informant explained that special training was generally provided through workshops conducted by the relevant agencies.

To improve teachers’ skills, including assessment, teachers generally have the opportunity to take part in various types of training and education. In addition, through the Subject Teacher Discussion Forums of each field of study, various kinds of material are usually provided, including assessment. (S2)

The existence of barriers and deficiencies in the conduct of attitude assessment measures was identified by school principals and supervisors. However, they lack the reward and punishment scheme to encourage the teacher to conduct the evaluation. This was conveyed by Principal 1 as follows:

Most teachers do attitudinal assessments, but some of them ignore it, though there is a column for the results of the attitude assessment in the reported transcript. (P1)

Another school principal (P2) also said the same thing as follows:

In evaluating attitudes, most teachers usually only evaluate it during learning without using specific instruments. (P2)

From the supervisor’s point of view, an informant said that sometimes the teacher did sober for the attitudes evaluation, as conveyed by Supervisor 1.

So far, there have been no sanctions against teachers, because they did carry out attitude assessments with minimum requirement. Yet the attitude competencies included in the report academic transcripts sometimes did not reflect the true attitudes of students. Sometimes cognitive competence is used as a measure to assess attitudes. If the cognitive score is good, then the attitude value is also considered as well, and vice versa. This is quite peculiar, indeed. (S1)

This was supported by the opinion of Supervisor 2 who said that the assessment instrument was left to the discretion of each teacher.

There are no sanctions against teachers related to not carrying out an attitude assessment in accordance with the provisions. The attitude assessment is indeed carried out by the teacher, and I can see that from the lesson plan document that they show. The assessment instrument is left to each teacher. Whether they carry it out according to what is stated in the lesson plan is of course back to their respective teachers. (S2)

The omission of the school supervisor is inseparable from the perception of those who believe that the evaluation is sufficient to be conducted administratively. The supervisor ignores the assessment system, which is holistic and includes all components of the assessment. This information was conveyed by Supervisor 2 who remarked,

However, so far the teachers have had no problems in conducting the assessment. From the class learning plan, I sometimes see that they have designed the appropriate assessments. This means that according to the demands of the National Curriculum, the assessment has included cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects. (S2)