Sed Prof 222: Assessment in Learning 2

Chapter I
ASSESSMENT AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF TEACHING

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the Chapter, the student should be able to:

1. differentiate among diagnostic, formative and summative assessment;
2. cite ways to do traditional and authentic assessment;
3. distinguish between traditional and authentic assessment, norm-referenced and criterion-
referenced assessment, contextualized and decontextualized assessment;
4. explain marks of quality assessment and
5. discuss current trends in assessment.

INTRODUCTION

As a student, you have been through a lot of assessments, most of which if not all, you did not
welcome. If you only had a choice, you would not subject yourself to the assessment process. Right?
One popular bargain that students ask of their teachers is "no more test, Ma'am". This writer had
students who would bargain "no more test "or if it was not possible to forego the test, the request
would go this way, "please give a test which we can answer even without studying". These just prove
that several students have a negative attitude toward assessment.

This Chapter dwells on assessment as an integral part of teaching-learning.

Hopefully it will change your view and attitude of assessment.

ASSESSMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF TEACHING-LEARNING

In the context of teaching-learning, we can talk about diagnostic formative and summative
assessment.

Diagnostic assessment. This is a form of pre-assessment that allows a teacher to determine

individual student's prior knowledge including misconceptions before instruction. In short, it is
primarily used to diagnose what students already know and don't yet know in order to guide
instruction. The results of diagnostic assessment also provide a basis for comparison to determine
how much learning has taken place after the learning activity is completed. This is usually done by
giving diagnostic pretests.

Formative assessment. Formative assessment takes place during instruction (during the formative
process) to provide the teacher with information regarding how well the learning objectives of a given

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learning activity are being met. In formative assessment, teachers monitor student learning to get
ongoing feedback to improve their teaching and for students to improve their learning. In formative
assessment, students are helped to identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that
need work. Likewise, teachers are also helped to recognize where students are struggling and so
address problems immediately. It is evidence-based improvement of on-going teaching-learning.

It is not sound to assess learning only at the end of a unit. Many teacher has presumed everything is
clear to students only to get frustrated at the end of the unit that a lot of things were not understood.
It is like proceeding to "XYZ" when "ABC" were not yet mastered. It is not only frustrating but also a
waste of teaching-learning time and effort.

Formative assessment is referred to as assessment for learning because it is meant to ensure that
learning takes place. In the process of instruction, the teacher checks on students' learning. If he/she
discovers that concepts and skills are not yet mastered, right there and then, the teacher re-teaches
to ensure learning. Thus, the phrase "assessment for learning".

How do teachers do formative assessment? Teacher can determine students' level of understanding
while teaching by asking students questions. A usual question that teachers ask to find out if their
students can follow the lesson is "Did you understand?". Class usually responds in chorus "Yes,
Ma'am" or "Yes, Sir". A better way to check on students' level of understanding, however, is to find
out if indeed they understood the lesson by asking them questions or using other ways of formative
assessment.

Summative assessment. This is used to evaluate student learning at the end of a defined
instructional period. While formative assessment is referred to as assessment for learning,
summative assessment is referred to as assessment of learning.

It is assessment of learning typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or
school year, after diagnostic assessment, teaching and formative assessment are done. It is a
picture of how much learning took place and to what extent the learning, chapter, unit or course
outcomes were attained. The results of summative assessments are the bases for grades and report
to parents.

Summative assessments are done through paper-and-pencil tests and non-paper-and-pencil tests.
You have learned how to construct paper-and-pencil tests for one semester in the first course on
Assessment. In this second course on Assessment, you will learn how to construct non-paper-and
pencil tests.

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TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT AND AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Traditional assessment. Traditional assessment includes the paper-and-pencil tests. Paper-and

pencil tests are either the selected-response type or constructed-response.

Figure 1: Paper-and-pencil test

Authentic assessment. The term authentic assessment was coined by Grant Wiggins (1993) a
leading proponent of reform in testing. Assessment is termed authentic because students'
knowledge and skill are assessed in a context that approximates the real world or real life as closely
as possible. The assessment requires student performance that models realistic encounters in life
in contrast to taking a written test or writing an essay. That is why authentic assessment is likewise
called performance assessment. Authentic assessment is also known as non-traditional
assessment and alternative assessment. It is referred to as alternative assessment because it offers
students more choices than just taking a paper-and-pencil test like multiple choice or an essay. The
word alternative implies that there is another way of assessing learning other than the traditional or
paper-pencil test that we have been used to.

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Figure 2: Examples of selected-response and constructed response types of tests

Authentic assessment can be in the form of students' performance to display skills learned,
mastery of a process or procedure or in the form of a product or concrete output. Some examples of
performance are: a student is able to dance tango, to dribble the ball, to send an email, to give a
report in class using Powerpoint, to set up an experiment, to lobby at the Municipal Council.
Authentic assessment can be done also by assessing the product of students' learning such as a
haiku composed, a pair of pants sewn, journal entries, writing samples, art work, a research paper
written, a videotaped interview; a capstone project. Through capstone projects students explore
issues they are passionate about and work toward finding solutions to problems.

Watch the video: https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/power-performance-assessments-

video

NORM AND CRITERION-REFERENCED ASSESSMENT

Criterion-referenced assessment. In criterion-referenced assessment we compare a student's

performance against a criterion of success which is the predetermined standard. With criterion-
referenced tests, each student's performance is compared directly to the standard, without
considering how other students performed in the assessment. Criterion-referenced assessment
often use "cut scores" to place students into categories such as "basic," "proficient," and "advanced."
Here is an example: The teacher's intended learning outcome is "to spell at least eighteen out of
twenty words correctly". Student A is able to spell twenty (20) words correctly, Student B, eighteen

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(18) words and Student C, ten words (10). It is obvious that only Students A and B were able to realize
the predetermined standard as stated in the intended learning outcome, "spell at least 18 out of 20
words correctly." The performance (score) of each student is compared against a standard set by the
teacher. It is not compared against the performance of the other students.

Norm-referenced assessment. In norm-referenced assessment we compare a student's

performance with the performance of other students, the norm group, not against a predetermined
standard. The composition of the norm group depends on the assessment. An example is comparing
the performance of seventh graders in Reading in a particular school system to the performance of
nation-wide group of seventh graders in Reading.

Norm-referenced scores are generally reported as percentile ranking. There used to be a National
College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) in the Philippines from 1973 until its abolition in 1994 where
students were given percentile ranks. A student who got a 99th percentile rank in the NCEE means
that he belonged to the upper 1% and surpassed 99% of the NCEE examinees. A high school
graduate who got a 75th percentile rank means he belonged to the upper 25% and was above 75%
of the examinees.

The meaning of a norm-referenced score is derived from comparison of students scores against
other students' scores (as stated in the scores of the norm group) while the meaning of a criterion-
referenced score is derived from comparing students' scores with established criterion of success.
The norm-referenced score will not tell you whether a student met, exceeded, or fell short of the
standard of proficiency. It is the criterion-referenced score that will tell you whether or not a student
met the established standard of success or proficiency.

CONTEXTUALIZED AND DECONTEXTUALIZED ASSESSMENT

Contextualized assessment. In contextualized assessment, the focus is on the students'

construction of functioning knowledge. It is the students' performance in their application of
knowledge and skills in the real work context of the discipline area. Contextualized assessment
makes use of performance-based tasks which are authentic in nature. They reflect "real-life" (i.e.,
outside of the classroom) tasks and require students to utilize higher order thinking skills (Crotty,
1994; Leon & fulfill on demand duties and tasks. Elias, 1998) to

A student may have mastered the rules of subject-verb agreement, gets a perfect score in a multiple
choice test on subject-verb agreement but when he/she delivers a speech in real life, fails to observe
subject-verb agreement rules.

Decontextualized assessment. On the other hand, decontextualized assessment includes written

exams which are suitable for assessing declarative knowledge, and do not necessarily have a direct
connection to a real-life context (Biggs, 2011). It focuses on declarative knowledge and/or

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procedural knowledge in situations detached from the real artificial work context. Both
contextualized and decontextualized learning and assessment have their role in evaluating learning
outcomes. In practice, Biggs and Tang claim (2011) decontextualized assessment has been
overemphasized compared to the place declarative knowledge has in the curriculum. Both
declarative knowledge and real-life application of that knowledge must be assessed appropriately.
A common mistake is to assess only the lead-in declarative knowledge, not the functional knowledge
that emerges from it (Biggs and Tang, 2011).

ESTABLISHING HIGH QUALITY ASSESSMENTS

1. Quality assessments are in accordance with contemporary view of active learning and
motivation. This means that learners discover and construct meaning; set, plan and work to realize
their goals; associate and link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways; think
critically and creatively; develop self-monitoring skills; have positive expectations for learning and
confidence in their skills: are enthusiastically and internally motivated to learn; apply what they learn
to real-world situations; and communicate effectively." (Santrock, 2009)

The message is clear. High quality assessments involve learners in the assessment process
beginning with the setting of goals, monitoring of their own learning and in building self-confidence
because learners are intrinsically motivated to learn. High quality assessments are not just a
meaningless reproduction of knowledge learned but linking information to other bits of information
meaningfully while thinking critically and creatively to apply what they learn to real-world situations.
In short, high quality assessments are contextualized, not decontextualized.

2. Assessment of high quality is valid. Assessment is valid if it measures what it is supposed to

measure, i.e., how well the learning outcomes have been attained. A teacher must be true to his/her
intended learning outcome/s. The idea of the alignment of intended learning outcomes, teaching-
learning activities and assessment is what John Biggs (2003) called constructive alignment, the
essence of outcome-based education.

3. Assessment of high quality is reliable. Assessment is reliable when the test produces consistent
scores. If you give a test-retest in Math and find out that those who got high scores in the first take
also got high scores in the second take of the same test and those who got low scores in the first take
also
got low in the re-test of the same test, then the assessment is reliable. If the opposite happens such
that those who high in the first take got low scores in the re-test and that those who got low in the
first take scored high in the re-take, then the assessment is not reliable.

4. Assessment of high quality is fair. It is fur if it assesses what it is supposed to be assessed as

stated in the learning outcome which is expected to have been taught. This is the principle of

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constructive alignment in action. Obviously, assessing learners on something they have not been
taught is unfair.

Assessment is also unfair if it is biased against subgroups of students. Examples are: 1) when
negative stereotypes of particular subgroups are included in the test. An example is when the test
item portrays males in high-paying and prestigious jobs and females in low-paying and less
prestigious jobs; 2) when assessment unfairly penalizes a student based on the students' ethnicity,
socio-economic status, gender, religion and disability (Hargis, 2006). For example, when a teacher
decides to see how well students can collaboratively solve problems which requires students to
work together synchronously online where only affluent students who can afford to have laptops and
internet connectivity can participate while students from the lower economic status will be deprived
of the collaborative problem solving.

CURRENT TRENDS IN ASSESSMENT

Here are current trends in assessment cited by Santrock (2009):

1. Using at least some performance-based assessment - This means that the use of objective tests
such as alternate response, multiple choice and matching type is no longer adequate. According to
Carol Schneider, President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, employers say
our world "is not a multiple-choice world... Don't send us graduates who only know how to solve
multiple-choice problems." "Instead," Schneider continues, "employers are asking for what
educators call a modern liberal education, more big-picture thinking,.... but with more real-world
applications."

This does not mean that we have to set aside the use of objective tests in assessment. Not at all.
Objective tests (traditional assessment) complement performance-based assessment. But the use
of objectives alone won't suffice.

2. Examining higher-level cognitive skills and emphasizing integrated rather than isolated skills
- These higher-level cognitive skills include problem-solving, critical thinking. decision-making,
drawing of inferences, strategic thinking. That is why it is not enough to make use of objective tests
that assess simple recall.

3. Using multiple assessment methods - To assess students, a current trend is to use multiple
methods - from multiple choice test to essay, an interview, a project, a portfolio to self-evaluation.
Again, it is emphasized that we have not to do away with objective tests that measure simple recall.
These tests that require simple recall complement authentic assessment tools.

4. Having high performance standards including world-class standards for interpreting

assessment results. Let us set standards high. Research says "one's level of performance is lower

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than one's level of aspiration." It is therefore sound to challenge students to meet high performance
standards.

5. Involving students in all aspects of assessment - It works if the students are involved from the
setting of expected targets to be demonstrated after instruction to checking on their progress in the
course of the teaching-learning process and to finally determine the extent to which they realize
expected targets.

6. Making standards and criteria public rather than private and secretive (Santrock, 2009) Mc
Tighe (2013) says "the evaluative criteria (such as rubrics) are presented and explained at the
beginning. Models of excellence, aligned to the criteria, are shown to provide a clear 'picture 'of
desired performance. This may eliminate students' fear or unwelcoming attitude toward
assessment.

7. Using computers as part of assessment - With computers, a bank of questions can be created
which makes it possible for each student to be presented with different questions but are of
equivalent standard. With computerized marking, immediate feedback may be given to students.
Recording of assessment results and their statistical analysis are likewise facilitated with
computers.

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