Views on the Adoption and Implementation of the SOLO Taxonomy
Introduction
Currently, two different approaches to assessment are adopted in universities worldwide. One is norm referenced in which learners' performances within a group are compared and ranked according to an assumed normal-distribution (i.e. a bell curve). The other is criterion-referenced where performance is judged on the basis of a set of explicitly stated criteria that are expected of the learners.
This subject reports on the implementation of a criterion-referenced model on assessment in an academic department of a university in Hong Kong.
The assessment practice of the Department of English in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University before the academic year 2002/03 was a mix of the two approaches mentioned above: norm-referenced and criterion-referenced. Some teachers followed the norm-referenced criteria and grades of the learners' performance were distributed according to a bell curve, regardless of the class size or assessment tasks. Some teachers used "band descriptors" or other criteria specifically designed for some assessment tasks for grading. Others used both.
Such a "laissez-faire" practice was not satisfactory. Most teachers felt that a more consistent and explicit policy should be established. After the Departmental Learning and Teaching Committee had organized a series of workshops and seminars on assessment, a change took place in the academic year 2002/03. Staff members expressed the views that the norm-referenced model had ranked learners artificially, especially for small classes, without due considerations of what learners had actually learned. They were convinced that in order to attain better learning outcomes, the norm-referenced model had to be abandoned. It was therefore agreed that the department should adopt a criterion-referenced assessment approach and all staff members should comply. Since two types of subjects were offered by the English Department, two sets of criteria were adopted: the "SOLO Taxonomy" (Biggs & Collis, 1982; Biggs, 1995, 1999a, 1999b) was used for the content subjects and a set of "Band Descriptors" was used for proficiency subjects.
Carlson, MacDonald, Gorely, Hanrahan and Burgess-Limerick (2000) illustrate how a department in an Australian university, through reviewing its implementation of criterion-referenced assessment, learned more about the process, problems and solutions of the newly adopted policy. Similarly, Price and Rust (1999) reports on the experience of an academic unit of a UK university in its attempt to establish a common assessment practice. Both studies demonstrate how important it is to understand the process of implementing a new assessment policy. Therefore, a review of the implementation of the SOLO taxonomy was deemed necessary for the Department of English of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
After this policy had been adopted for about a year, a study was conducted in the academic year 2003/04 to review it. We serve the purpose of reporting on this review as well as making useful suggestions for improvement.
