2 - Cultural Issues
Avoiding cultural bias in assessment
Ensuring that assessments are culturally appropriate and responsive is of concern to many students and tertiary teachers, both with respect to Māori and also for other cultural groups including the high proportion of international students studying in New Zealand educational institutions. Indigenous educators note that most
standardised measures reflect Western/Anglo/Euro epistemologies that may be invalid for students of non-dominant cultures (Slee & Keenan).
Despite New Zealand’s bicultural nature and with the exception of wānanga, tertiary teaching and measures to assess student learning generally draw on the dominant culture for concepts, examples and issues, thus disadvantaging those who do not share and cannot draw on that cultural background and knowledge and privileging those who are from the dominant culture. Similarly, an insistence on assessment of individual work to the exclusion of contributions of group projects to grading marginalises collectivist cultures. This continues to occur despite the fact that in various professions the criterion for mastery involves working well in groups, not by oneself.
Case Studies from the Symposium:
The issue of cultural competence in assessment (Afrin), culturally responsive practices in Australia (Slee & Keenan), and Chinese students’ perceptions of New Zealand assessment practices (Tait) were presented at the Symposium. Assessment issues were also covered from a wānanga perspective (Faleolo et al.; Hoani & Malcolm).