Assessing and Evaluating for Learning/Introduction to Assessment and Evaluation module

Setting the scene
Assessment - defined

as·sess·ment n. 1. The act of assessing; appraisal.


 * The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

assess verb [T] to judge or decide the amount, value, quality or importance of something


 * (from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

Assessment = Any systematic method of obtaining information from tests and other sources, used to draw inferences about characteristics of people, objects, or programs; the process of gathering, describing, or quantifying information about performance; an exercise-such as a written test, portfolio, or experiment-that seeks to measure a student's skills or knowledge in a subject area.


 * (from SABES glossary of useful terms)

Evaluation - defined

e·val·u·ate tr.v. e·val·u·at·ed, e·val·u·at·ing, e·val·u·ates e·valu·ation n.
 * 1. To ascertain or fix the value or worth of.
 * 2. To examine and judge carefully; appraise. See Synonyms at estimate.
 * 3. Mathematics To calculate the numerical value of; express numerically.


 * The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

evaluate verb [T] to judge or calculate the quality, importance, amount or value of something evaluation noun [C or U]


 * (from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

Evaluation = When used for most educational settings, evaluation means to measure, compare, and judge the quality of student work, schools, or a specific educational program.


 * (from SABES glossary of useful terms)

Types of assessment
Assessment is a huge and varied area of teaching and learning. Assessment possibilities are only limited by imagination as they can occur in many varied forms.

An A&E workshop group identified the many forms of assessment that they use. It was quite a list.

∗	Practical – video evidence of skills ∗	Completion based assessment – tick off list – log book ∗	Portfolios ∗	Collections of evidence ∗	Show case ∗	Project report/package ∗	Visual diary ∗	Workbook ∗	Replica of tools used in industry - workbook ∗	reflective diary ∗	question and answer books ∗	multichoice tests ∗	report writing assignments ∗	observation ∗	case studies ∗	making artifacts ∗	peer assessment ∗	self assessment ∗	industry assessment – panels of assessors from industry ∗	consumer assessment ∗	workplace assessment ∗	essays ∗	learning contracts ∗	literature reviews ∗	blogs ∗	discussion boards ∗	written exams ∗	gap fill and short answer ∗	open book exams ∗	commitment assessment ∗	comparison – self marking ∗	presentations ∗	create a community resource ∗	exit test ∗	debate ∗	resubmit opportunities to increase marks ∗	opinion pieces ∗	role play ∗	external marking ∗	taped conversations ∗	ethnographic essays ∗	critique ∗	vivas

Why do we assess?
Given that we have identified so many tools and methods that can be used, it is useful to take a step back and ask the questions -

The workshop group had a wealth of ideas around these questions. Compare your answers with their responses.


 * To maintain competence for practice
 * To reach competency (industry standards)
 * To check at right level
 * Find out what they know/have learnt
 * Identify potential changes to teaching
 * Identify ongoing learning needs where extra work is needed
 * Formative - ongoing development
 * Getting feedback on whether teaching and assessment is getting outcomes required
 * To prepare for other assessments – building blocks/scaffolding
 * Assessment identifies key learning requirements of a course
 * Guide through the learning
 * To link together all components of information
 * Summative – creates end/completion to work undertaken
 * Provide something they can use in the future – identified qualification
 * Creation of toolkit to use in future
 * Develop skills that are transferable for future use
 * Reason to research and take in knowledge – incentive
 * Helps the students to identify their own progress within a course
 * Creates milestones within course
 * Link learning from other papers/courses to create holistic approach – integrating learning
 * Create self critique / self assessment skills (own quality control)
 * ‘bang for bucks’ for stakeholders

Key values of assessment
This module is leading you through lots of exploration of your own thinking around assessment.

You can also compare your own thoughts and the suggestions above with the responses from a workshop group
 * Asks the questions that show they know what we need them to know
 * Matches the learning outcomes for the course
 * Opportunity to show what they know
 * Current
 * Timely
 * Relevant
 * Transparent
 * Repeatable
 * Valid
 * Reliable
 * Consistent
 * Clear
 * Language

Policy
In situations where formal assessment is undertaken and results are recorded in adult education especially where this occurs within institutions or organisations then there is likely to be policy to support that process.

Principles
There are two main functions of assessment - Formal and Informal assessment Formal assessment – assessment that is given a mark or grade contributing to a final recorded result

Informal assessment – unmarked assessment that provides feedback to support student learning


 * (Heather Day, personal definition - 2006)

These functions are also commonly defined as Formative and Summative assessment

"Formative assessment - Assessments undertaken during the learning and teaching process to provide feedback to both learner and assessor on progress made." “Summative assessment - Assessment which measures a level of performance and is used in determining final outcome/result.”


 * (Otago Polytechnic Academic Policy: Assessment, AP900.03, 2007, pp 5-6)

Often the above definitions are paired together.

Formal with Summative and  Informal with Formative. This generally works although the exception is Formative assessment is often used with a dual purpose and a summative mark is given alongside the provision of feedback to support student learning. This often occurs in response to students valuing marked work more highly than unmarked work.

This links well to the fundamentals of effective assessment which provide insight into 12 valuable principles of assessment; from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at Melbourne University.

The first principle is: Assessment should help students to learn. in which they identify that formative assessment is crucial to effective learning.

Process
Key features of the assessment process include:
 * careful design of assessment tools
 * appropriate delivery of assessment
 * clear and constructive feedback
 * fair marking

These aspects of the process will be be explored in relation to a variety of assessment tools and methods throughout this course.

Link to Assessment Stories