High school graduation exam: Should it be designed to target two goals?

Many people have convincingly pointed out that the reason the high school graduation exam is 'shocking' is not necessarily because of the assessment innovation according to the new general education program, but mainly because the exam must combine 2 in 1: it must be used to consider high school graduation and it must be the basis for university admission.

The recent 2025 high school graduation exam demonstrated the remarkable efforts of the Ministry of Education and Training and the exam committees in innovating educational assessment according to the new General Education Program (GDPT). This is the first year of organizing the exam according to the new program, so the emergence of some shortcomings, most notably the difficulty of the exam questions in some subjects, is something that can be shared and sympathized with. We need to wait to see the score distribution of the subjects after the end of marking to have a more complete and accurate assessment of the quality of the exam questions.

The whole society accompanies the candidates participating in the high school graduation exam.

PHOTO: NHAT THINH

TWO TYPES OF ASSESSMENT TEST

During the development of the 2018 General Education Program, the Program Development Board discussed and consulted many international consultants of the World Bank, including Professor Eduardo Cascallar, an expert in educational evaluation. Professor Eduardo Cascallar obtained his PhD from the University of Texas-Austin (USA), was a professor at KU Leuven University (Belgium) and a consultant of the World Bank for decades.

Our working program with Professor Eduardo Cascallar lasted for about a week (July 2017) so the content was very rich, related to many different aspects of educational assessment, especially the ability to apply international assessment experience to Vietnam in the context of implementing the new General Education Program.

In light of the heated discussion about the high school graduation exam, I feel the need to share some ideas and information that Professor Eduardo Cascallar discussed for all relevant parties to refer to.

Professor Eduardo Cascallar said: "There are assessments based on the content that has been taught (let's call it "pre-assessment") and there are assessments that predict future learning ability (let's call it "predictive assessment"). The two tests should not be combined into one. Although there is a correlation between the two assessment results, this correlation is not enough to be combined.

Professor Eduardo Cascallar further explained the difference between the two types of tests. Accordingly, "pre-assessment" is based on the educational program. From the core content, build a weighting table, classify the types of questions, difficulty, and coverage of the questions. Meanwhile, the "predictive assessment" test does not focus on the educational program. What needs to be concerned is the needs of the assessor for the candidate (TS), for example, wanting to know what knowledge and abilities the TS needs to have for the future. A good predictive assessment must give assessment results that are compatible with future learning outcomes.

The 2025 high school graduation exam according to the new program is assessed to be difficult in English and math.

Photo: Tuan Minh

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESIGN A QUESTION THAT TEST BOTH READING AND WRITING ABILITIES

A member of the General Education Program Development Board raised the question of whether it is possible to use a "pre-assessment" test to filter candidates for university admission.

Professor Eduardo Cascallar believes that it is possible to combine. However, it is better to use high school academic results combined with an aptitude test like the SAT in the US. With a lot of combined information, the US can assess 90% of a student's learning ability in the first year. Artificial intelligence software with about 200 variables (including personality, family background...) in the US can predict a student's ability quite accurately.

Professor Eduardo Cascallar emphasized: "When designing questions, we should focus on measuring one aspect. Students should not be unable to do a math problem just because of limited reading comprehension because the question is intended to test math ability. Likewise, we should not design a question to test both reading ability and writing ability. If we combine them, it will be difficult to know which aspect students are good at/bad at."

So if the test has 40 questions, how many questions should be in the test bank? Professor Eduardo Cascallar affirmed: "The more the better. If there are about 1,000 - 1,500, it is at a safe level. You need to prepare 13 questions to choose 1 usable question. A good test writer also needs to prepare 10 - 11 questions to choose 1 question, a normal writer needs 13 - 14 questions. It cannot be less than 10 questions to choose 1 question."

According to Professor Eduardo Cascallar, depending on the quality, if the questions are good, 40 questions are considered enough for a national exam. However, the exam in Vietnam still has many bad questions. Therefore, about 60 questions can be considered enough.

Therefore, Professor Eduardo Cascallar asserted that there is no test with general value, only a test with value for a specific goal. If the test aims at 2 goals, it must be very long. For example, an objective test for 1 goal needs about 60 - 80 questions, but for 2 goals, it must be much more. If the quality is good, about 200 questions is enough.

English exam questions for high school graduation exam 2025

Photo: Thuy Hang

THE EXAM CANNOT BE "TOO COMPRESSED"

From the recommendations of Professor Eduardo Cascallar, there are several opinions as follows:

Firstly, in the context of Vietnam, combining two objectives in one test is an idea that should be considered. However, if it is still implemented, the number of questions and the time for doing the test need to be increased.

Designing a test with about 200 questions as Professor Eduardo Cascallar recommends is not practical (perhaps he gave the number of 200 questions with the implication that designing a test with two goals is less feasible) but it is certainly not just 40 questions to be done within 50 minutes like the English test of this year's high school graduation exam. The capacity of what is considered a "question" in Professor Eduardo Cascallar's interpretation and in the English test may be different, but the time to do the test

50 minutes is an objective measure of the length of an exam, which shows that the recent English exam was compressed too tightly.

If we continue with the 2-in-1 policy (exams for both high school graduation and university entrance) and reduce the test time to save on many things, the English test committee (and many other subjects) in the high school graduation exam in the following years will find it difficult to complete their tasks. In this case, reducing the test time actually increases, not reduces, the pressure on the test committees and on the candidates.

Second, regarding the fact that some subjects of the high school graduation exam seem too difficult, many people have suggested abolishing the high school graduation exam. We have discussed this issue many times. International experts, including Professor Eduardo Cascallar, have also given their advice.

Innovations in education at the national level need to be carefully and comprehensively considered. No solution is perfect and no solution is unchangeable. But if a problem arises and policy changes are proposed, Vietnam's education will be caught in endless innovation.

Is there a need for a national high school graduation exam?

Professor Eduardo Cascallar also believes that there should be a national high school graduation exam to have a common assessment standard, but this also leads to teaching and learning tending towards exams. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to teacher training and strengthen inspection to improve the quality of teaching. Large-scale surveys can be used instead of national graduation exams (for example, NAEP in the US). However, designing this type of test is very complicated in terms of sampling (just a small change in sampling will change the results), designing the test is very expensive, especially in the context of Vietnam (many regions, ethnic groups; logistical issues...).

For Vietnam today, it is better to organize an exam for all students, helping to comprehensively evaluate students from different groups and regions.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/de-thi-tot-nghiep-thpt-co-nen-thiet-ke-nham-den-hai-muc-tieu-18525070219492685.htm