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Assessment and Evaluation
What is Assessment?
 an ongoing process
of gathering information to monitor student understanding of knowledge,
concepts, skills, strategies and attitudes
strategies which
determine what is going well in the learning environment and what
needs to be improved
observing, describing,
collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting information for
the purpose of understanding and improving student learning
What is Evaluation?
comparing
information gained from assessment against a standard, in order
to make a judgment or decision which may lead to other decisions
and action by the teacher, student, or parent.
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If there's one thing social science research
has found consistently and unambiguously....it's that people
will do more of whatever they are evaluated on doing. What
is measured will increase and what is not measured will
decrease. That's way assessment is such a powerful activity.
It can not only measure, but change reality.
Linda Darling-Hammond, Rand Corporation, 1988, p.28.
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Main Types of Assessment and
Evaluation
Criterion-Referenced Assessment
and Evaluation
Criterion-referenced assessment and evaluation compares a student's
competencies and achievements to curriculum objectives. The student
performs a task or demonstrates a skill or strategy. In this type
of assessment, it is possible for most or all students to meet
the criterion.
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Assessment Interview
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Teacher Observation
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Norm-Referenced Assessment
and Evaluation
Norm-referenced assessment and evaluation compares a student's
competencies and achievements to a group standard including provincial
scoring scales and exemplars. An example is the Canadian Achievement
Test (CAT). When scored, about 65 % of the students will score
in the average range with smaller percentages scoring above and
below average.
| Canadian Achievement Test |
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School Achievement Indicators Program
- This national test is also curriculum referenced
in all Canadian provinces and territories.
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" The most difficult part of using
norm-referenced tests from a teacher's point of view
is that they are norm-referenced. This means that a
student who learns a year's worth of material stays
in the same place (at the same percentile rank). Teachers
know when students are learning and they know that the
student has improved their skills. However, on the norm-referenced
test, that student will look like they have learned
nothing, because if they were at the 22nd percentile
last year, with a year's growth, they'll still be at
the 22nd percentile again this year. This makes improvement
on norm-referenced testing difficult to sustain."
Sandra Falconer Pace, Teaching to the Test/Testing What
Should Be Taught. June, 2003. |
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Curriculum-Referenced Assessment
Curriculum-referenced tests consist
of questions that have been selected so that the test accurately
assesses learning required in a given curriculum. Levels of questions
in a curriculum-referenced assessment would reflect the levels
of thinking required in the curriculum.
Self-Referenced Assessment
and Evaluation
Self-referenced assessment and evaluation allows a student to
assess his or her individual competencies, achievements, and growth
compared to previous performances.
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It is important to remember that the objective
of assessment is to improve student achievement and that
by improving our instruction, we will improve our achievement.
James Popham advocates for gathering data that is not only
significant, but also teachable. In other words, we must
have tests which show us how students do things we can teach
them.....We want tests that help teachers to teach. Norm-referenced
test are valuable to us in that they allow us to compare
our students with the broader group of students across the
country. However, they are not teachable tests and we should
not be specifically teaching towards their items.
Sandra Falconer Pace, Teaching to the Test/Testing What
Should Be Taught. June, 2003.
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