Improving Students’ Reading Literacy Based On AKM: Teachers’ Perceptions, Teaching And Assessing Practices, And Assessment Literacy Needs

metcalf, kim k; siti zulaiha, ma., ph.d.; herri mulyono, ph.d.;

Since the abolition of the National Examination (UN) in 2020, the Indonesian government has implemented a Minimum Competency Assessment (AKM) that is used as a tool to measure the basic abilities that students must have. Seeing this, teachers have an important role to play in implementing and integrating AKM component-based reading literacy questions that can train students' reading literacy skills in the classroom. Therefore, teachers must improve their assessment literacy so they can develop appropriate assessment instruments which follow the AKM rules. This study aims to (1) find out the English teacher's perception of AKM, (2) find out how the English teacher
practices teaching and assessing reading literacy in class, and (3) find out what language assessment literacy components are needed by the English teacher in order to improve the teaching and assessment of students' reading literacy in accordance with the AKM in the classroom. To achieve these objectives, the study applied qualitative methods with interviews and observations. 10 English teachers who teach in Jabodetabek at the junior
high school level were the respondents in this study. Interviews were conducted with 10 teachers who were randomly selected while observations were carried out in a class with 2 teachers who agreed to be observed after the interviews. The result indicated that teachers have different perceptions of AKM. Some teachers agreed with this new policy since it has positive impacts on students and learning process. However, some teachers believe that this assessment is less effective due to some reasons. For the teaching and assessing practices, the majority of the teachers have integrated the three components of reading literacy of AKM in their classrooms, although not as fully as what is in AKM. The teacher has also used several stimuli and types of questions as tested in AKM. However, there are still many teachers who do not use complex multiple choice in their class assessments. Lastly, for the assessment literacy needs, ten respondents have various assessment literacy needs, such as the strategy in teaching reading, designing critical reading literacy questions, creating the stimulus material, training to gain insight on
AKM, strategy to increase students’ reading interest, and identifying the intended learning outcomes to improve their competence in teaching and assessing students’ reading literacy.