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The Concept of Educational Assessment
The Concept of Educational Assessment
EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT
EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT
BEFORE LEARNING
Pre-Assessment
What it is: Pre-assessment provides a way for teachers to gather
key information about what students know and are able to do
prior to instruction, as well as what student interests and learning
styles are. Pre-assessments can be paper and pencil tasks or
performance-based. They provide evidence to help teachers
effectively match instruction with the needs of students. This
includes decisions about content, pacing, materials, grouping,
and specific learning activities.
ASSESSMENT DURING LEARNING
Diagnostic Tests
These tests are used to diagnose how much you know and what you know.
They can help a teacher know what needs to be reviewed or reinforced in
class. They also enable the student to identify areas of weakness.
Placement Tests
These tests are used to place students in the appropriate class or level.
For example, in language schools, placement tests are used to check a
student’s language level through grammar, vocabulary, reading
comprehension, writing, and speaking questions. After establishing the
student’s level, the student is placed in the appropriate class to suit his/her
needs.
TYPES OF TESTS
Norm-referenced assessment
Norm-referenced assessment, also called NRT tests, is a type of
assessment that significantly compares a learner’s knowledge and
performance to another.
Criterion-referenced assessment
Criterion-referenced assessment is a type of assessment that measures
a learner’s progress or performance based on pre-determined and
agreed-upon criteria and standards.
Unlike the NRT tests, this evaluation doesn’t compare an individual
against their peers. A criterion-referenced assessment directly
measures up a person’s skills and abilities to the criterion, regardless of
how the other test takers perform on the assessment. This, in turn, will
help trainers and managers gather insights about an employee’s
strengths and areas for improvement.
TYPES OF TESTS
Summative assessment
Summative assessment serves as a summary test provided at the end
of a learning course or training activity. This type of assessment helps
trainers and instructors define how much a learner has grown and
improved over time and record their overall achievement. In contrast to
the first two assessments, formative and summative assessments are
formal and highly evaluative. Plus, it usually involves clear instructions,
expectations, and grading rubrics. Frequently high stakes, both
instructors and students work extra harder to prepare for these
assessments.
TYPES OF TESTS
APTITUDE TESTS
An aptitude test is an exam used to determine an individual's skill or propensity
to succeed in a given activity. Aptitude tests assume that individuals have
inherent strengths and weaknesses and have a natural inclination toward
success or failure in specific areas based on their innate characteristics.
Aptitude tests are generally used for job placement, college program entry, and
to help people to get an idea of where their interests and aptitudes can take
them regarding careers.
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
The reliability of an assessment tool is the extent to which it consistently and
accurately measures learning.
The validity of an assessment tool is the extent by which it measures what it
was designed to measure.
Validity
Educational assessment should always have a clear purpose,
making validity the most important attribute of a good test.
The validity of an assessment tool is the extent to which it measures what it
was designed to measure, without contamination from other characteristics.
For example, a test of reading comprehension should not require
mathematical ability.
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
There are several different types of validity:
Face validity - do the assessment items appear to be appropriate?
Content validity - does the assessment content cover what you want to assess?
Criterion-related validity - how well does the test measure what you want it to?
Construct validity: are you measuring what you think you're measuring?
Discriminant validity is a subtype of construct validity. In other words, it shows you
how well a test measures the concept it was designed to measure. Discriminant validity
specifically measures whether constructs that theoretically should not be related to each
other are, in fact, unrelated.
A valid assessment should have good coverage of the criteria (concepts, skills
and knowledge) relevant to the purpose of the examination.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Reliability
Reliable assessment results will give you confidence that repeated or
equivalent assessments will provide consistent results. This puts you in a
better position to make generalized statements about a student’s level of
achievement, especially when you are using the results of an assessment
to make decisions about teaching and learning or reporting back to students
and their parents or caregivers. No results, however, can be completely
reliable. There is always some random variation that may affect the
assessment, so you should always be prepared to question results.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Test-retest reliability
Test-retest reliability measures the consistency of results when
you repeat the same test on the same sample at a different point in
time. You use it when you are measuring something that you
expect to stay constant in your sample.
A test of color blindness for trainee pilot applicants should have
high test-retest reliability, because color blindness is a trait that
does not change over time.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
How to measure it
To measure test-retest reliability, you conduct the same test on the same group of
people at two different points in time. Then you calculate the correlation between
the two sets of results.
Test-retest reliability example
You devise a questionnaire to measure the IQ of a group of participants (a property
that is unlikely to change significantly over time).You administer the test two
months apart to the same group of people, but the results are significantly different,
so the test-retest reliability of the IQ questionnaire is low.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Interrater reliability
Interrater reliability (also called interobserver
reliability) measures the degree of agreement
between different people observing or assessing
the same thing. You use it when data is collected
by researchers assigning ratings, scores or
categories to one or more variables, and it can help
mitigate observer bias.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
How to measure it
To measure interrater reliability, different researchers conduct the same
measurement or observation on the same sample. Then you calculate the correlation
between their different sets of results. If all the researchers give similar ratings, the
test has high interrater reliability.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Internal consistency
Internal consistency assesses the correlation between multiple items in a test that
are intended to measure the same construct.
You can calculate internal consistency without repeating the test or involving other
researchers, so it’s a good way of assessing reliability when you only have one data
set.
Why it’s important
When you devise a set of questions or ratings that will be combined into an overall
score, you have to make sure that all of the items really do reflect the same thing. If
responses to different items contradict one another, the test might be unreliable.
TYPES OF RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
How to measure it
Two common methods are used to measure internal consistency.
• Average inter-item correlation: For a set of measures designed to assess the same
construct, you calculate the correlation between the results of all possible pairs of
items and then calculate the average.
• Split-half reliability: You randomly split a set of measures into two sets. After
testing the entire set on the respondents, you calculate the correlation between the
two sets of responses.
LANGUAGE TESTS OF LANGUAGE SKILLS
Diagnostic Test
Diagnostic tests identify specific strengths and weaknesses within that skillset. Use
this type of test to identify specific ways to improve.
Achievement Test
These tests are used exclusively in language learning environments. A placement
test measures skill in order to group similarly skilled learners together. An
achievement test measures a learner’s progress over a period of time.
SUMMATIVE TEST