LECTURE 7

CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT OF WRITING SKILLS

Writing is a collection of separate skills, including letter formation, spelling,
punctuation, grammar and organization.
Types of written performance:
Imitative: at this stage, form is the primary concern to assess learner’s skills in the
fundamental and basic tasks of writing letters, words, punctuation, and very brief sentences.
Intensive: this refers to producing appropriate vocabulary within a
context, collocations and idioms, and correct grammatical features up to the length of a sentence.
Responsive: assessment tasks here require learners to perform at a limited discourse level,
connecting sentences into a paragraph and creating a logically connected sequence of two or
three paragraphs.
It is often assumed that the best way to test writing ability is to get the learners to write.
That may seem obvious but, particularly at lower levels, being asked to write a whole, properly
staged and formed text from scratch is a daunting and challenging task which may demotivate
and depress our learners. The other issue is that reliably evaluating our learners' ability with a
malformed, disorganized and inaccurately written text as the only data source is almost
impossible.
All assessment starts (or should start) from a consideration of the aims of instruction.
For example, if the (or one) aim of a language course is to enable the learners to do well in an
IELTS academic writing examination then this will be very influential in terms of the types of
assessment tasks we use and the way in which we measure performance. The backwash (or
washback, if you prefer) from the examination format will almost inevitably have to be reflected
in the task types we set. If, on the other hand, our aim is to enable the learners to operate
successfully in a work environment then we will set different kinds of assessment tasks and
measure performance against different criteria. In this case, a priority will be to measure how
accurately and with how much communicative success the learners can handle the specific
register and functions required by their work context. Finally, if we are aiming at enabling our
learners to function adequately in an English-speaking environment (perhaps as an immigrant or
temporary resident), then this, too, will fundamentally affect the tasks we set and the benchmarks
against which we measure success. Here, for example, we might be dealing with form filling,
work getting and accessing services.
Three basic tenets
1. We have to use assessment tasks which properly reflect the kinds of writing tasks the
learners will need to be able to do in 'the real world'.
2. We need to design tasks which accurately show the learners' ability.
3. We need to have a reliable way to score the learners' performance.
The first step is to set out exactly what writing skills are the objects of the teaching
program. To do this, we have to answer these 4 questions (which come with a few examples of
the kinds of answers we might get):
What sorts of texts will our learners need to be able to produce? I.e., in which genre(s)
will they need to function?
o Emails / letters (formal or informal, interactional or transactional)
o Blogs
o Notes
o Form filling
o Announcements
o Advertisements
o Academic essays
o Descriptions
2. What are the purposes of the learners' writing?
o For basic communication with colleagues
o For academic purposes
o For social purposes in an English-speaking setting?
o For informal or formal interpersonal communication?
3. What functions do the learners need to be able to perform?
o Expressing needs?
o Stating opinion?
o Apologising?
o Providing information?
o Eliciting information?
o Commenting on opinions?
4. What topics will our learners have to be familiar with?
o Social matters
o Dealing with officialdom
o Service providers
o Entertainment and leisure
o Travel arrangements
o The media
o Medical matters
o Specific study subjects
o Specific occupational areas
Identifying text types
The first step is to find out what sorts of texts the learners will need to be able to
produce. This is by no means an easy undertaking, especially if the course is one in General
English (also known as ENOP [English for No Obvious Purpose]) when it is almost impossible
to predict what sorts of texts, for what purposes the learners may one day need to write.
On courses for more specific purposes, such as in-company teaching or examination
preparation, it is easier to identify the sorts of texts the learners will write and the purposes to
which they will put them. For example, if the writing the learners will need to produce is
confined to occupational purposes, it is less likely that the ability to write a narrative, an
exposition or a discussion but the ability to write a recount (as a report), and information report,
a procedure and an explanation may all be important.
Before we can begin to assess our learners' writing skills, therefore, it is important to define
precisely what genre(s) they need to be able to handle. There is very little point in, for example,
testing the learners' ability to write a narrative if they are never going to be asked to write one.
Designing tasks
Now we know what sorts of thing we want to assess, the purposes of the writing, the
functions the learners need to be able to perform and the topics they need to deal with (i.e., the
register), we can get on and design some assessment procedures. Again, there are some generic
guidelines for all tasks, whatever the answers to the 4 questions above are. If you have followed
the guide to testing, assessment and evaluation (see above), you will know that this is something
of a balancing act because there are three main issues to contend with.
1. Reliability:
A reliable test is one which will produce the same result if it is administered again (and again).
In other words, it is not affected by the learner' mood, level of tiredness, attitude etc.
We can, of course, set a single mega-task and get the learners to write for hours to complete it
but we risk losing reliability. If any or some of the learners find the topic unappealing, the task
too daunting or the content irrelevant to them, they will almost certainly perform below their
potential. To ensure that a writing test is reliable, then, we need to set as many tasks as we can
over a period of days or even weeks. This will mean that even if a particular learner in the test
group is feeling glum and demotivated when presented with one task, the results will even out
over the whole assessment. It also means that if a particular task is unappealing to some of the
learners for whatever reason, other tasks will appeal more and balance the results. The type of
marking that is required also plays a role here: the more subjective the marking is, the less
reliable will be the test. As a general rule, tests which ask the learners to write in full the sorts of
text that form the target of the teaching program will be less reliable and more difficult to
evaluate than those which break down the skill and test discrete parts of it separately.
2. Validity:
3. Three questions here:
1. does the test measure what we say it measures? For example, if we set out to test
someone's ability to construct a discussion text for academic purposes, do the test items we use
actually test that ability or something else? Again, as a general rule, testing the whole skill, rather
than breaking it down will result in greater validity, at the expense of some reliability.
2. does the test contain a relevant and representative sample of what it is testing?
For example, if we are testing someone's ability to write a formal email, does the task we set get
them to deploy the sorts of language they actually need to do that?
3. do we have enough tasks to target all the skills we want to teach?
For example, if we want to test the ability to summarize information, provide information and
elicit information, do we have tasks focused explicitly and discretely on each area?
4. Practicality:
Against the two main factors, we have to balance practicality.
It may be advisable to set as many different tasks as possible to ensure reliability and to try to
measure as many of the skills as possible in the same assessment procedure to ensure validity but
in the real world, time is often limited and concentration spans are not infinite.
Practicality applies to both learners and assessors:
a. for learners, the issue is often one of test fatigue.
Too many tests over too short a time may result in learners losing commitment to the process.
On shorter courses, in particular, testing too much can be perceived as a waste of learning time.
b. for the assessors, too many open-ended test tasks which need careful marking may put an
impractical load on time and resources. This may be compounded by task types which require
subjective judgements in marking. Assessors may become tired and unreliable markers.
Other assessment task types
It may be that your circumstances allow for very simple writing tasks such as those requiring
the learners to write an e-mail explaining a set of given factors, an essay discussing pros and
cons or one advocating a point of view. Those are all legitimate tasks providing the task type
and content suits the purposes of assessment. There are other ways. No list can be complete, but
here are some other ideas for other ways to set writing tasks for assessment purposes. The
content of any task will of course, depend on all the factors discussed so far.
1. Form filling tasks
2. Compare and contrast tasks
3. Charts and tables
4. Simple graphics and picture sequences
5. Free writing tasks
6. Free writing tasks
Measuring outcomes
Unless you have a clear way of measuring outcomes, all the work on assessment task
design is wasted. Ways of getting clean data are discussed in the guide to assessment in general.
For writing in particular, however, there are some conventional approaches which fall into two
broad categories.
Holistic assessment
This involves a simple scale, perhaps from 1 to 10, on which the product from each
learner is placed on an impression of how well they achieved the task(s).
With a small group and with assessors who have a clear idea of what they are looking for, it can
be quick, reasonably accurate and efficient. There are obvious drawbacks in that judgments can
be subjective (so double or even triple marking can be used) and it lacks clear criteria against
which learners' performances are being measured.
Analytic assessment
Involves breaking down the tasks and being specific about the criteria you are using to
judge success. Large-scale examining boards use this approach as a matter of course. For
example, the current assessment criteria for the IELTS examination stretch across 10 bands of
ability and fall into 4 assessment criteria groups. These are:
-Task achievement
-Coherence and cohesion
-Lexical resource
-Grammatical range and accuracy
Here's an example of one level of achievement:
Band Task achievement Grammatical
Coherence and Lexical
range and
cohesion resource
accuracy
●covers the requirements● logically organises
●uses a ● uses a variety of
of the task information and sufficient range complex
● (Academic) presents a ideas; there is of vocabulary structures
clear progression to allow some ● produces frequent
clear overview of main
throughout flexibility and
trends, differences or error-free
● uses a range of precision
stages sentences
cohesive devices ● uses less
● (General Training) ● has good control
appropriately common
presents a clear of grammar and
although there lexical items
7 purpose, with the tone punctuation but
may be some with some
consistent and may make a few
under-/over-use awareness of
appropriate errors
style and
● clearly presents and collocation
highlights key ● may produce
features/bullet points
occasional
but could be more fully
errors in word
extended
choice, spelling
and/or word
formation
 LECTURE 8
CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION SKILLS
Being able to listen well is an important part of communication for everyone. For our
students, guided practice by a teacher is one of the best ways to improve this skill. A student
with good listening comprehension skills will be able to participate more effectively in
communicative situations. What follows is an exploration of areas that language teachers may
find useful in their classroom and when preparing listening materials.
Teaching the skill of listening cannot be emphasized enough in a communicative
classroom. For second language learners, developing the skill of listening comprehension is
extremely important. Students with good listening comprehension skills are better able to
participate effectively in class
Basic stages of Listening. There are four stages:
1) You recognize speech sounds and hold a temporary “imprint” of them in short-term memory.
2) You simultaneously determine the type of speech event (monologue, interpersonal dialogue,
transactional dialogue) that is being processed and attend to its context (who the speaker is,
location, purpose) and the content of the message.
3) You use (bottom-up) linguistic decoding skills and/or (top-down) background schemata to
bring a plausible interpretation to the message, and assign a literal and intended meaning to the
utterance.
4) In most cases (except for repetition tasks, which involve short-term memory only), you delete
the exact linguistic form in which the message was originally received in favor of conceptually
retaining important or relevant information in long-term memory.
Each of these stages represents a potential assessment objective:
Potential Assessment Objectives:
1) comprehending of surface structure elements such as phonemes, words, intonation, or a
grammatical category
2) understanding of pragmatic context
3) determining meaning of auditory input, and
4) developing the gist, a global or comprehensive understanding
Basic types of listening
● Intensive: listening for perception of components of a larger stretch of language

● Responsive: listening to relatively short stretch of language in order to make an equally

short response.
● Selective: Processing stretches of discourse such as short monologues for several minutes
in order to "scan" for certain information.
Extensive: listening to develop a top-down, global understanding of spoken language.
Listening for the gist, or the main idea, and making inferences are all part of extensive
listening.

Assessment Tasks and Procedures

Types of Listening Performances. There are four types:
1) Listening for perception of the components (phonemes, words, intonation, discourse markers,
etc.) of a larger stretch of language.
2) Listening to a relatively short stretch of language (a greeting, question, command,
comprehension check, etc.) in order to make an equally short response.
3) Processing stretches of discourse (such as short monologues for several minutes in order to
“scan” for certain information). The purpose of such performance is not necessarily to look for
global or general meanings, but to be able to comprehend designated information in a context of
longer stretches of spoken language (such as classroom directions from a teacher, TV or radio
news items, or stories). Assessment tasks in this type of listening could ask students, for
example, to listen for names, numbers, a grammatical category, directions (in a map exercise), or
certain facts and events.
4) Listening to develop a top-down, global understanding of spoken language. This kind of
listening performance ranges from listening to lengthy lectures to listening to a conversation and
deriving a comprehensive message or purpose.
Validity in listening assessment.
● measure comprehension (not hearing, spelling, prior knowledge of a topic or reading long
multiple choice questions)
● Base assessment on the learning objectives and listening tasks of the unit/course
Reliability in listening assessment
● Minimize anxiety
● Ensure all learners can hear/see the text/video equally and that there are no distracting
noises
● Avoid ambiguous or ‘trick’ test items Ensure more than one scorer for correcting open-
ended test items
Authenticity in listening assessment
● Use texts with authentic, real-life speech
● Avoid using texts that are dense and cognitively demanding (meant to be read and not
listened to)
● Choose comprehension tasks that reflect real-life purposes for listening
● Avoid difficult accents and dialects
Steps in designing listening tests
● Identify the purpose of the listening test, keeping in mind learner goals. The listening test
should reflect what students are learning and what they need.
● Decide on the format for test items and create the test form.
● Create or secure listening passages to be used in the test. Many commercial programs
come with audio files. For authentic materials, you could record a radio segment or take
advantage of listening materials available on the Internet. Universities and professional language
organizations often have recorded language samples on their websites.
Steps in designing listening tests
● Be sure that instructions are clear. Do not risk letting students' misunderstanding of test
directions get in the way of assessing listening skill.
Ensure optimal listening comprehension by framing the task to activate background information
that will aid in comprehension. For example, you could introduce a listening segment by saying,
"In the passage you will hear, two friends are having a conversation in a train station." Give step-
by-step instructions for more complex listening tasks
Steps in designing listening tests
Determine scoring criteria. Scoring true/false or multiple choice items is uncomplicated, but
asking students to take notes on a passage or write a summary presents challenges.
Activity types for testing listening comprehension
Information transfer (drawing a route on a sketch/map, labeling diagrams/pictures, completing a
form/a table)
“Picture dictation”
An incomplete picture or a blank page (students listen to the description and draw the picture)
 Example:
a. The listeners listen and fill in details on the picture.
b. The learners listen and label parts of a picture or diagram.
Types of listening test items
● Oral cloze

● Picture ordering
● What is it?
Example: I forgot it when I left home this morning. This made me angry because it is useful. I
don’t like it very much but I need it. Not every person has one, but I think most people do. Some
people like to look at it and now many people play with it. Mine is quite heavy….

LECTURE 9
Assessment and Error correction.
Mistakes are often categorized into errors and slips. Errors occur when learners try to
say something that is beyond their current level of knowledge or language processing (working
on the language unconsciously to try to understand and learn it). Usually, because they are still
processing or don’t know this part of the language, learners cannot correct errors themselves
because they don’t understand what is wrong. Slips are the result of tiredness, worry or other
temporary emotions or circumstances. We make them because we are not concentrating on what
we are saying or writing. They are not a result of incomplete language processing or a lack of
knowledge. They happen simply because our attention is somewhere else at that moment. These
kinds of mistakes can be corrected by learners themselves, once they realize they have made
them. There are two main reasons why second language learners make errors. The first reason is
influence from the learner’s first language (mother tongue/L1) on the second language (L2). This
is called interference or transfer. Learners may use sound patterns, lexis or grammatical
structures from their own language in English. The second reason why learners make errors is
because they are unconsciously (without knowing or being aware) working out, organizing and
experimenting with language they have learnt, but this process is not yet complete. This kind of
error is called a developmental error. These errors are common to all learners, whatever their L1,
and are often similar to those made by a young first language speaker as part of their normal
language development. Common developmental errors in English are using the past tense for the
present perfect tense, or making mistakes with past verb forms. For example, very young first
language speakers of English as well as English language learners often say things like ‘I goed’
instead of ‘I went’. Errors such as this one, in which learners wrongly apply a rule for one item
of the language to another item, are the result of overgeneralization, i.e. applying a rule too
widely. Once children develop their L1 language abilities, these errors disappear, and as a second
language learner’s language ability increases, these errors often disappear, too. Errors play a
necessary and important part in language learning. They are part of learners’ interlanguage, i.e.
the learners’ own version of the second language which they speak as they learn. Learners
unconsciously process, i.e. analyze and reorganize their interlanguage. Interlanguage is not fixed.
It develops and progresses as learners learn more. Experts think that interlanguage is an essential
and unavoidable stage in language learning. In other words, interlanguage and errors are
necessary to language learning. L1 learners go through a stage similar to the interlanguage stage:
when children learn their mother tongue they seem to speak their own version of it for a while, to
make progress on some language items, then to go backwards, and to make mistakes for a time
before these mistakes finally disappear, usually without obvious correction. Errors are a natural
part of learning. They usually show that learners are learning and that their internal mental
processes are working on and experimenting with language. By making mistakes you realize that
you don’t know something and you try to put it right. For example, if you fall off a bicycle
through your own fault you realize that you did something wrong, and you make sure you don’t
make the same mistake again. Similarly, as we communicate with others and see that our
communication isn’t working, we try again, using other words or aiming for greater accuracy.
We go through stages of learning new language, and each new piece of language we learn helps
us learn more fully other pieces of language that we already know – like pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle which only make full sense when they are all in place. Developmental errors are
the errors children usually produce while learning first language. Developmental and
interference errors can disappear by themselves, without correction, as the learner learns more
language. In fact, experts say that correction may only help learners if they are ready for it, i.e.
they are at the right stage in their individual learning process, or interlanguage. There are three
main ways of helping learners develop their language. Firstly, learners need exposure to lots of
interesting language at the right level; secondly, they need to use language to interact; and
thirdly, they need to focus their attention on language forms. Sometimes errors do not disappear,
but get fossilized. Fossilized errors are errors which a learner does not stop making and which
last for a long time, even for ever, in his/her foreign language use. Fossilization of errors often
happens when learners, particularly adults, are able to communicate as much as they need to in
the foreign language and so have no communicative reason to improve their language. These
fossilized errors may be the result of lack of exposure to the L2, the result of a learner’s
conscious (knowing/aware) or unconscious lack of motivation to improve their level of accuracy,
or the fact that they cause no problem in communication.
Key concepts and the language teaching classroom
● It is important for teachers to think hard about whether, when and how to correct
learners.
 ● We can’t expect instant or immediate learning. Learning is gradual, and errors will
occur.
● It’s useful to think about what kind of mistake the learner is making – a slip or an error.
If the mistake is a slip, the learner can correct him/herself, maybe with a little prompting from
the teacher or another learner. Or, there may be no point in correcting a slip.
● Sometimes, particularly in fluency activities, it is better not to pay attention to learners’
mistakes, (i.e. ignore them), so that the learners have an opportunity to develop their confidence
and their fluency, and to experiment and make mistakes with language.
● Some errors may be more important to correct than others. Errors which prevent
communication are more important than those which do not, e.g. missing the final -s of the third
person singular of a present simple tense verb doesn’t prevent communication. But using the
present simple tense instead of the past simple tense sometimes does.
● Some learners within the same class may need to be corrected, while others may not,
depending on their stage of learning, learning style and level of confidence. They may also need
to be corrected in different ways.
● Learners, particularly older ones, may find it useful to know that they make
interference errors, and to be told which they are. Knowing about interference errors can help
learners avoid them, especially in writing.
● Learners can react well to being told what their fossilized errors are, their danger areas!
In this way, they become conscious of them and can try to avoid them, particularly in writing.
● Ways of helping learners get beyond their errors are: – exposing them to lots of
language that is just beyond their level of linguistic ability through reading or listening. This
provides an unconscious challenge to learners’ language learning processes and helps fit the
pieces of the jigsaw into place. – giving them opportunities to focus on the form of language, e.g.
through exercises, reformulation (when the teacher corrects what the student has said by
repeating their words correctly, but without drawing the learner’s attention to their mistake) or
correction. – providing them with time in class to use language to communicate and interact and
see if they can do so successfully.
● Errors are useful not only to the learner but also to the teacher. They can help the
teacher see how well learners have learnt something and what kind of help they may need in
future. Errors can show that a learner is making progress and learning.
Here are common types of errors:
lexical slip- a temporary, often unconscious, mistake in word choice, typically a performance
error, not a lack of knowledge, can happen when someone is speaking quickly or under pressure.
Lexical interference error- occurs when a speaker's first language (L1) influences their second
language, wrong word choice due to literal translation or confusion from L1.
Pronunciation slip- a temporary mispronunciation, often due to nervousness or haste, not a sign
of incorrect phonological knowledge, different from systematic pronunciation errors (which are
more stable).
Grammatical slip- A momentary mistake in grammar, like verb tense or sentence structure,
often occurs in speech, even by native speakers, does not reflect a deeper misunderstanding of
grammar.
Lexical developmental error- Made during the natural process of learning vocabulary, caused
by incomplete knowledge of word meanings or usage, more common in children or second-
language learners.
Fossilized grammatical error- An error that becomes a permanent part of a speaker’s language
use, common in adult language learners, resistant to correction even with instruction.

LECTURE 10
CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT IN TESTING
Criterion-referenced tests are designed to measure student performance against a fixed
set of predetermined criteria or learning standards—i.e., concise, written descriptions of what
students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In
elementary and secondary education, criterion-referenced tests are used to evaluate whether
students have learned a specific body of knowledge or acquired a specific skill set. For example,
the curriculum taught in a course, academic program, or content area.
If students perform at or above the established expectations—for example, by answering
a certain percentage of questions correctly—they will pass the test, meet the expected standards,
or be deemed proficient. On a criterion-referenced test, every student taking the exam could
theoretically fail if they don’t meet the expected standard; alternatively, every student could earn
the highest possible score. On criterion-referenced tests, it is not only possible, but desirable, for
every student to pass the test or earn a perfect score. Criterion-referenced tests have been
compared to driver’s-license exams, which require would-be drivers to achieve a minimum
passing score to earn a license.
Criterion-referenced tests may include closed tests (standardized tests, have fixed
questions, and are conducted under controlled conditions.) multiple-choice questions, true-false
questions, “open-ended” tests (e.g., tests that ask students to write a short response or an essay),
or a combination of question types. A cloze test is a way of testing comprehension by removing
words (usually every 5th word or so) from a passage or sentence and then asking the
reader/learner to supply the missing elements. Individual teachers may design the tests for use in
a specific course, or they may be created by teams of experts for large companies that have
contracts with state departments of education. Criterion-referenced tests may be high-stakes tests
—i.e., tests that are used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or
districts—or they may be “low-stakes tests” used to measure the academic achievement of
individual students, identify learning problems, or inform instructional adjustments.
Well-known examples of criterion-referenced tests include Advanced Placement
exams and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which are both standardized
tests administered to students throughout the United States. When testing companies develop
criterion-referenced standardized tests for large-scale use, they usually have committees of
experts determine the testing criteria and passing scores, or the number of questions students will
need to answer correctly to pass the test. Scores on these tests are typically expressed as a
percentage.
While criterion-referenced test scores are often expressed as percentages, and many have
minimum passing scores, the test results may also be scored or reported in alternative ways. For
example, results may be grouped into broad achievement categories—such as “below basic,”
 “basic,” “proficient,” and “advanced”—or reported on a 1–5 numerical scale, with the numbers
representing different levels of achievement. As with minimum passing scores, proficiency
levels are judgment calls made by individuals or groups that may choose to modify proficiency
levels by raising or lowering them.
The following are a few representative examples of how criterion-referenced tests and
scores may be used:
● To determine whether students have learned expected knowledge and skills. If the criterion-
referenced tests are used to make decisions about grade promotion or diploma eligibility, they
would be considered “high-stakes tests.”
● To determine if students have learning gaps or academic deficits that need to be addressed.

● To evaluate the effectiveness of a course, academic program, or learning experience by using

“pre-tests” and “post-tests” to measure learning progress over the duration of the instructional
period.
● To evaluate the effectiveness of teachers by factoring test results into job-performance
evaluations.
● To measure progress toward the goals and objectives described in an “individualized education
plan” for students with disabilities.
● To determine if a student or teacher is qualified to receive a license or certificate.

● To measure the academic achievement of students in a given state, usually for the purposes of
comparing academic performance among schools and districts.
● To measure the academic achievement of students in a given country, usually for the purposes of
comparing academic performance among nations. A few widely used examples of international-
comparison tests include the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA),
the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

LECTURE 11
 Assessment and Feedback.
Feedback helps students to understand their progress, recognize areas for improvement, and
stay motivated.
Effective feedback should be:

● Timely – Given promptly while the learning experience is still fresh.

● Specific – Addressing particular strengths and areas for improvement.

● Constructive – Encouraging and guiding students on how to improve rather than just
pointing out mistakes.

● Actionable – Providing clear steps for students to enhance their learning.

Types of Feedback
1. Formative Feedback – Ongoing comments that help students adjust their learning
strategies.
2. Summative Feedback – Given after an assessment to summarize performance and
achievements.
3. Peer Feedback – Feedback provided by classmates, promoting collaborative learning.
4. Self-Assessment – Encouraging students to evaluate their own work critically.

Psychologist Carl Rogers categorizes feedback in five ways:

Evaluative: It offers judgment on an action or skill with the hope that the feedback receiver
improves.
Interpretive: Interpretive feedback comes from a need for clarification. It shows up in the
classroom when you try to understand a student better or know why they did something.
Supportive: often acknowledges effort or just a supportive action in general.
Probing: This type of feedback asks for more from the feedback receiver. Conversations might
start, “What did you mean….”
Understanding: When you communicate for understanding, you are trying to understand why
an action is occurring before fixing it.
The Relationship Between Assessment and Feedback:
Assessment and feedback work hand in hand to support student learning. Assessments
identify areas where students need improvement, and feedback provides the necessary guidance
to help them enhance their understanding. Without meaningful feedback, assessments lose their
potential to foster improvement.
There are some tips for teachers to provide meaningful feedback in the classroom:
Be Specific and Clear
Vague comments such as "Good job" or "Needs improvement" do not provide enough
information. Instead, teachers should highlight what was done well and what needs to be
improved. For example, "Your argument in this essay is strong because of the supporting
evidence you provided, but it could be improved by adding more analysis."

Timely Feedback
Providing feedback soon after an activity or assessment ensures that students can remember their
work and apply the feedback immediately. Delayed feedback may lead to missed opportunities
for learning and growth.
Use a Positive and Constructive Tone
Even when pointing out areas that need improvement, feedback should be delivered in an
encouraging way. Emphasizing strengths before addressing weaknesses can help students stay
motivated. A good approach is the "sandwich method": start with positive feedback, address
areas for improvement, and end with encouragement.

Encourage Self-Reflection
Asking students to assess their own work before receiving feedback can foster critical thinking
and self-awareness. Questions like "What do you think was your strongest point?" or "What
challenges did you face in this task?" help students engage in their learning process actively.

Make Feedback Actionable

Students should know exactly what steps to take based on the feedback. Instead of just saying,
"Improve your writing structure," a teacher could suggest, "Try using topic sentences at the
beginning of each paragraph to make your argument clearer."

1. Use Different Feedback Formats

Verbal feedback, written comments, peer reviews, and one-on-one conferences can all be
effective. The method used should depend on the nature of the task and the student’s
learning style.
2. Balance Individual and Group Feedback
While personalized feedback is important, general feedback to the whole class can
address common errors efficiently. Teachers can use group discussions or model
examples to clarify frequent mistakes and demonstrate best practices.
3. Utilize Technology for Feedback
Digital tools such as online quizzes, learning management systems, and audio/video
feedback can make the process more interactive and engaging. Technology can also help
track student progress over time.
4. Foster a Growth Mindset
Encourage students to view feedback as an opportunity to learn rather than as criticism.
Reinforce the idea that mistakes are part of the learning process and that improvement
comes through practice and effort.
Strategies to implement feedback in the classroom:
As an instructor, you may not always have the time to provide feedback the way you
would like to. The following strategies offer some suggestions for how you can still efficiently
provide students with useful feedback.
Look for common errors among the class
You may notice common errors or misconceptions among the class while grading exams,
or realize that many students ask a similar question at office hours. If you take note of these
common mistakes, you can then address them to the class as a whole. This can have the added
benefit of making students feel less alone, as some may not realize that the mistake they made is
a common one among their peers.
Prioritize feedback
As mentioned earlier, it can be helpful even to provide minimal feedback on a rough draft
to steer students in the right direction. Often, it might not be necessary to provide feedback on all
aspects of an assignment and doing so may actually overwhelm students with feedback. Instead,
think about what would be most important to provide feedback on at this time – you may
consider providing feedback on one area at a time, such as one step of crafting an argument or
one step of solving a problem. Be sure to communicate with students which areas you did/did not
provide feedback on.
Incorporate real-time group feedback.
 Many feedback strategies appear more feasible for small classes, but this method is
particularly useful in large lecture classes. Clicker questions are a common example of real time
group feedback. It can be particularly difficult in larger classes to gain a good picture of student
comprehension, so real-time feedback through clicker questions and polls can allow you to check
in with the class. For instance, if you notice there are a large proportion of incorrect answers, you
can think about how to present the material in a different way or have students discuss the
problem together before re-polling.
Utilize peer feedback.
It may not be logistically feasible for you to provide feedback to your students as often as
you wish. Consider what opportunities for peer feedback may exist in your subject. For example,
students could provide each other with immediate, informal feedback in-class using techniques
such as “Think-Pair” where each student has had time to first grapple with a concept or a
problem individually and then is asked to explain the concept or problem solving approach to
each other. Using peer feedback allows students to learn from each other while also preventing
you from getting overwhelmed with constantly having to provide feedback as the instructor. Peer
feedback can be just as valuable as instructor feedback when students are clear on the purpose of
peer feedback and how they can effectively engage in it. One way to create successful peer
feedback, particularly for more substantial assignments, is to provide students with a rubric and
an example that is evaluated based on the rubric. This makes it clear to students what they should
be looking for when conducting peer feedback, and what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful
end result.
Create opportunities for students to reflect on feedback
By reflecting on how they will implement the feedback they have received, students are
able to actively interact with the feedback and connect it to their work. For example, if students
have a class project divided into milestones, you may ask students to write a few sentences about
how they used the comments they received and how it impacted the subsequent assignment.
 LECTURE 12
Assessment tasks and types

What are assessment types and tasks?

Assessment means judging learners’ performance by collecting information about it.

We assess learners for different reasons, using different methods to do so. Assessment
tasks are the tasks we use for assessing learners. We can assess learners informally or formally.
Informal assessment is when we observe learners to see how well they are doing something and
then often give them comments on their performance. Formal assessment is when we assess
learners through tests or exams and give their work a mark or a grade.
There are several reasons why we might want to assess learners formally:
1 At the beginning of a course we might give them a test to find out (diagnose) what they know
and don’t know. This is called a diagnostic test. The information from this type of test helps us
decide what to teach and which learners need help in which areas of language.
2 When learners go to a language school or evening classes, the school may want to know what
level the learners are at, so they give them a test. This is called a placement test. We use the
information from a placement test to decide what level of class the learners should go into.
3 After we have finished teaching a part of a course, we may want to find out how well learners
have learnt it. A test for this purpose is called a progress test. A progress test looks back over a
recent block of the syllabus, e.g. a unit from the course book, to see how well the learners have
learnt what it covered. We use the information from the test to decide if we need to do more
work on this area of the syllabus or not, and perhaps to give learners feedback on their strengths
and difficulties in this area. Using information from assessment to feed into our teaching
and maybe give learners feedback is called formative assessment.
4 Some teachers prefer not to assess their learners’ progress in a term through tests but through
pieces of work given throughout the term. They might set a composition in week 2, for instance,
a presentation in week 4, an essay in week 6, etc., then base the learner’s final mark on the
average mark for the pieces of work. Some teachers think that this method of assessment
(continuous assessment) gives a truer picture of how well the learner has learnt and is less
threatening and more formative than an end-of-course exam. In young learner classes this form
of assessment is sometimes called classroom-based assessment. Another way of assessing
learners’ work throughout the term is through a portfolio. This is a collection of learners’ work
done during the course, which the learner puts together during or at the end a course and then
presents to the teacher. Often it also contains comments on the work written by the learner or
classmates.
Like continuous assessment, portfolios let learners produce work on an area just after it
has been taught. Putting the portfolio together can also be an opportunity for the learner to revise
and improve their work. The portfolio might contain, for example, different kinds of writing, the
results of a project or recordings, e.g. a video of an interview or a presentation.
At the end of a term or course, we may give learners a test to see how well they have
learnt the contents of the whole course. This kind of assessment is called an achievement test or
a summative test. Learners usually receive a score or mark from this kind of testing.
Sometimes learners take tests to see how good they are at language. This kind of test is
called a proficiency test. The contents of the test are not based on a course or syllabus that the
learner has followed. The test measures the learner’s general skill or ability in the language as a
whole (e.g. the IELTS test) or a use of it.
Diagnostic, placement, progress, summative and proficiency tests are all examples of
formal testing. They are taken under exam-like conditions with learners at their own desks,
working silently and within a time limit, consist of set tasks for which a score is given and are
administered by the teacher or an official. There are many different tasks a teacher can use to
assess her learners, e.g. multiple-choice questions, interviews, gap-fill (filling in gaps in
sentences or texts), table completion for listening, or reading for specific information. The tasks
a teacher chooses to use for formal assessment depend on what aspect of language or skills the
teacher wants to assess.
Assessment tasks are often described as objective and subjective. The difference between
objective and subjective tasks is how much the marker needs to use their own judgement to mark
the right answer. In an objective task the marker does not have to judge whether an answer is
right or wrong, or how right or how wrong the answer is, because there is only one answer.
Multiple-choice, true/false, gap-fills and matching tasks are all examples of objective tests.
Objective tests are quick to mark, and the results are accurate: important features for both
teachers and learners. The disadvantages of objective tests are that they are difficult to write and
that they do not test real use of the language, but rather the skills or knowledge that language use
is based on. We may know which letter to tick, (A, B or C), in a multiple-choice test of our
knowledge of the present tense, but not know how to use the same tense while talking.
In a subjective test the marker needs to use their judgment to decide if an answer is right
or how right it is. Examples of subjective tests are role-plays, essays, interviews, group
discussions, compositions. There are many things to mark in tasks like this. For example, in an
essay you could mark grammar and range of vocabulary use, but you could also mark quality of
ideas, task achievement, use of register, organization. The marker needs to decide what aspects
of the essay to mark and then how to distinguish, for example, between excellent, good, average
and poor use of grammar.
Unlike formal assessment, informal assessment does not use assessment tasks and is
rarely used to give the learner a grade, as that is not the purpose of informal assessment. It is also
generally less reliable or accurate than formal assessment. Informal assessment can be carried
out by the teacher or the learners. The purpose of formal assessment is to find out more about
their level, attitudes or learner characteristics.
A teacher might observe a class doing group work, for example, to judge their general
level of fluency, or watch them doing project work to see how motivated they are or how well
they work together (collaboration). The teacher might also just focus on how a particular learner
is getting on, observing them as they do e.g. written work or pair work in class. The teacher
could use a checklist or take notes to help them remember what they have observed. Informal
assessment of this kind helps the teacher learn about the needs of individual learners and about
general levels of ability or attitudes in a class. He or she can use this information to shape future
lessons.
The purpose of informal assessment is to gather evidence about how students learn and
what they know. Informal assessment is often used with young learners, as they may not respond
well to formal assessment. We can see that informal assessment is formative. It provides the
teacher with feedback that can feed into future teaching or could be used to give advice to
learners on how to improve in future. Learners can also carry out informal assessment. They can
assess themselves (self-assessment) or one another (peer assessment). They can do this with
checklists to guide them. The reason for using both peer and self-assessment is to help learners to
understand their language use and performance better, and so become more autonomous.
Informal assessment is often followed up by feedback from the teacher to the learners on the
strengths and weaknesses of their performance, and suggestions for how to improve.
When a teacher is assessing informally or using formal subjective tests they often use
assessment criteria to help with the assessment. These are the general features of a skill which
can be used as a basis for judging students’ performance. For example,
speaking involves the subskills of:
● fluency
● using language accurately
● using language appropriately
● interactive strategies
● pronunciation
● vocabulary range
● discourse organization.
The teacher can use these subskills or some of them (depending on the level of the class)
as criteria against which to judge their learners’ speaking. At beginner or low levels, the teacher
might want to just use e.g. pronunciation and vocabulary range as assessment criteria. In school
tests, the assessment criteria should reflect the focus of what has been taught. It is not fair in a
progress or an achievement test to test students on e.g. their organization of writing, if they have
never been taught this. Assessment criteria help to make subjective tests less subjective, because
the teacher will mark all the students’ work using the same criteria.
Key concepts and the language teaching classroom
● Assessment can affect what we teach, how we teach and our learners’ motivation for learning.
It is very important for tests to have a good influence on teaching and learning.
● Some assessment tasks are easy to write, e.g. essay titles, or mark, e.g. categorizing tasks. But
we need to check if they reflect what we have taught. It is not a good idea to use a particular
testing task just because it is easy to use or easy to mark. For example, for administrative
reasons, it is often difficult to assess learners’ speaking, so speaking is often not assessed, and as
a result, learners may start thinking that speaking isn’t important. Speaking skills can sometimes
be more easily assessed informally than formally.
● To really reflect the level of learners’ learning, the content and tasks included in progress and
summative tests should reflect the content and tasks in our teaching. This may mean that our
tests include a mixture of objective and subjective tasks.
● Assessment needs to be fair. This means that progress and summative tests should only test
what has been taught and that they should be reliable and accurate in their marking. Using bands
to help us mark subjective tasks helps achieve this.
● Feedback to learners on what they got right or wrong, their strengths and weaknesses, and
what they can do to improve, is very important. Through feedback, assessment helps learning.
Informal assessment is often much more suitable for assessing young learners than formal
assessment. This is because young learners’ ways of thinking and learning are based on
experiencing and communicating, and also because teachers of young learners are often
interested in finding out more about their learners’ attitudes, motivation and behaviors.
● If in your school, several classes follow the same syllabus or a course book, and do the same
subjective / partly subjective test, it is useful for the teachers to use the same assessment criteria
or bands. It may be useful to agree what mark you would give to some samples of students’
writing before marking starts. Even then, there may be disagreements amongst teachers. At this
point, it’s useful to discuss exactly what the bands mean. This process helps marking become
fairer and more reliable.
● Working with assessment criteria and bands helps the teacher grade all students against the
same levels of achievement. This can help the teacher and the students know more about their
real level of ability than if the teacher just ranks the students according to their grades.
 LECTURE 13
CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT AS A MEANS OF EDUCATIONAL MOTIVATION

Motivation plays a crucial role in a student's academic success, influencing their learning
strategies, engagement, and overall achievement. Educational motivation encompasses the
drive behind students’ learning activities. It is not a fixed trait but rather an interplay of various
internal and external factors, including personal interests, perceived relevance of the content,
classroom environment, and cultural or familial expectations.
Key Aspects of educational motivation:
• Purpose and Value: It addresses questions about why learning is important to an
individual.
• Engagement and Persistence: It affects how students engage in learning tasks, cope
with challenges, and persist in the face of difficulties.
• Performance: It can influence academic performance, creativity, and the ability to
overcome obstacles.

Educational motivation can be broadly classified into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic
motivation, with further subtypes that impact student behavior and performance.
1. Intrinsic Motivation occurs when students engage in learning for personal satisfaction,
curiosity, or the joy of mastering a subject. This type of motivation is often associated with
deeper learning, creativity, and long-term academic success.
There are three subtypes of intrinsic motivation:
● Mastery Motivation – Students learn to improve their skills and knowledge rather than for
external rewards.
● Curiosity-Driven Motivation – Students seek new knowledge because they find the subject
interesting and exciting.
● Personal Growth Motivation – Learning is seen as a way to achieve personal goals and self-
improvement.

2. Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation arises when students engage in learning due to external factors such as
rewards, grades, or social recognition. While effective in some cases, extrinsic motivation can
sometimes lead to surface-level learning.
Subtypes of Extrinsic Motivation:
● Reward-Based Motivation – Students study to earn grades, prizes, or privileges.

● Punishment-Avoidance Motivation – Learning occurs to avoid negative consequences, such as

failing a course or receiving disciplinary action.
● Social Motivation – Students are motivated by peer recognition, competition, or the desire to
meet parental and teacher expectations.

3. Amotivation (Lack of Motivation)

Some students may experience amotivation, where they lack a clear purpose or drive to
learn. This can result from feelings of helplessness, a lack of interest in the subject, or negative
 past experiences with education. Addressing amotivation often requires support, encouragement,
and strategies to enhance engagement.

The difference between good students and weak students is that good students are able to
absorb our feedback and use it to create a pathway toward understanding learning targets. Weak
students, however, have trouble understanding feedback and need us to give them specific next
steps in order for them to develop a growth mindset and see a path toward understanding. Unlike
our good students, our weaker students often have given up trying to understand our comments
written in the margins of their papers or don’t know how to find solutions to the test items they
missed. Because they don’t understand how to improve, they often dismiss school and school
work as “stupid” or simply say, “I don’t care.”
When we teach our students how to use our feedback to analyze their work, it not only
gives meaning to the time and effort we have put into grading and commenting on their work,
but also engages our students in the learning process. Requiring students to think about and
apply criteria for meeting learning targets in the context of their own work encourages students
to monitor their own work and take responsibility for their own learning.
Getting students involved in analyzing their mistakes on tests helps them to understand
the intended learning, the immediate next steps they need to take in their journey toward learning
targets, and gives them a clearer picture as to just where they are in the journey. Hattie and
Timperely’s (2007) review of the research on feedback determined that analysis of mistakes is
one of the most powerful ways students learn or increase their learning.
What You Can Do to Make Assessment More Effective
We can help our students’ by teaching them to be more analytic about their own learning,
by giving them class time and a structure to examine their own work in relation to previously
explained criteria, and by clarifying how they can improve their work.

● We begin by helping our students to identify their mistakes by providing them with item
analyses of their tests or rubric scored projects.
● We then set up a system to involve our students in thinking about their mistakes.
Give them time to consider why they made the mistake, and
Help them to understand what they will do differently next time. Thinking About Doing
Better (below) is an example of a handout for helping students to analyze their mistakes on a
forced-choice or short answer test. Each student has a form and works in a group of two or three.
After students analyze their mistakes with a partner, they are asked to set some learning
goals. When students examine what they are doing well and what they need to improve on, they
are beginning the process of setting their own goals for learning. Students should be encouraged
to set small, realistic goals as the most useful goals are those that reflect steps along the way---
not just the final outcome. Taking small steps helps students to self-monitor their way to
success. (Davies, 2007)
Sample Assessment Handout: Thinking About Doing Better.
Directions: Identify three items (questions or problems) you missed on the test. Then with a
partner decide why you missed the question and how you could fix it. Next, with your partner
write down what you will do differently the next time you encounter a similar question or
problem. Budget your time to eight minutes per item.

Item number Why I got it wrong How I can fix it What I will do next time
My Goals
Directions: By yourself write down two learning goals and the activities you will engage in to
reach them. If you need help identifying activities, ask your partner or your teacher.

Goal
One:
Activities for Goal
One:

Activities for Goal

Goal
Two:
Two:

Whether we evaluate our students’ work by scanning answer sheets, hand-scoring test
items, putting check marks on rubrics, or commenting directly on students’ written work, our
evaluative feedback needs to provide information for helpful “next steps for learning and not just
a grade. Then class time needs to be set aside for students to understand and use our feedback to
enhance their learning.
When we define what our students need to know and provide the criteria they need to
successfully learn and meet their learning targets, we help our students believe in their potential
for success. When we build assessment systems that provide valuable information to pinpoint
gaps in learning and show our students the next steps they need to take to eliminate the gaps, we
involve our students in the assessment process, and our students gain sense of ownership and
commitment to learning. Soon they become more focused, motivated and achievement oriented.
 LECTURE 14

CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS` PORTFOLIO AND PROJECTS

Portfolio assessment is a term with many meanings, and it is a process that can serve a
variety of purposes. A portfolio is a collection of student work that can exhibit a student's efforts,
progress, and achievements in various areas of the curriculum. A portfolio assessment can be an
examination of student-selected samples of work experiences and documents related to outcomes
being assessed, and it can address and support progress toward achieving academic goals,
including student efficacy. Portfolio assessments have been used for large-scale assessment and
accountability purposes, for purposes of school-to-work transitions, and for purposes of
certification.
Types of Portfolios
While portfolios have broad potential and can be useful for the assessments of students'
performance for a variety of purposes in core curriculum areas, the contents and criteria used to
assess portfolios must be designed to serve those purposes. For example, showcase portfolios
exhibit the best of student performance, while working portfolios may contain drafts that
students and teachers use to reflect on process. Progress portfolios contain multiple examples of
the same type of work done over time and are used to assess progress. If cognitive processes are
intended for assessment, content and rubrics must be designed to capture those processes.
How to Design a Classroom Portfolio Assessment?
Portfolio assessments are quite varied; however, it is possible to describe the basic steps
for creating a portfolio assessment system in a classroom. For both learning and best-works
portfolios, the first thing to do is identify the purpose for the portfolio. That purpose should
include the classroom learning targets and curriculum or state goals it will serve, whether the
purpose will be formative (learning) or summative (best-works), and the audience (who will be
the users of the portfolio system—who creates and who gets the information and for what uses).
Possible purposes include, but are not limited to, the following:
▪ formative assessment as a vehicle for student reflection and teacher feedback, for diagnosing
student needs and planning next steps, for informing instructional planning;
▪ summative assessment of student accomplishment of learning goals, including grading;

▪ program evaluation and/or accountability reporting;

▪ communication as a vehicle for communicating with parents, or with future teachers.
At this point, one possible decision is that a portfolio is not the most appropriate
assessment method for the purpose. If it is appropriate, continue with the following steps.
Specify in greater detail exactly what achievement dimensions the portfolio will assess. This
specification includes the content from the learning goals but also extends to the cognitive
complexity, reflection and self-regulation skills, or dispositions or habits of mind desired as the
focus of portfolio evidence. Because portfolios are a big undertaking and require significant
investments of student time and effort, portfolios should assess important, central learning goals
that require complex thinking and involve tasks that are meaningful to students. Portfolios are
not a good way to assess routine knowledge or recall of facts.
When these foundational issues have been decided and written down, more practical
planning for portfolios should follow. Plan the organization of the portfolio, defining for
example how many and what types of entries will be needed to give evidence of student content
knowledge and cognitive process for intended use of the information. Several pieces of
completed writing in different genres would establish student achievement of writing standards,
for summative evaluation and grading. Sets of drafts of individual papers at various stages
throughout the writing process, at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, would be more
useful for student reflection on how he or she was developing as a writer.
Plan who will decide what goes in the portfolio, the timing of those entries, when and
how individual pieces will be evaluated, how the portfolio will fit into classroom routines,
whether there will be conferences associated with portfolio use, who may see the contents of the
portfolio, who owns the final contents, and so on.
Then plan the scoring or evaluating of the portfolio. For solely formative use, evaluation
may be entirely by feedback and conferencing. For most uses, rubrics of some sort will be used.
Identify or create rubrics that describe performance levels on attributes appropriate to the
portfolio’s purpose. For example, for a writing portfolio designed to furnish evidence of good
use of the writing process, the quality of drafting and editing might be evaluated along with the
quality of the finished pieces. For a writing portfolio designed to furnish evidence of finished-
product writing quality, only qualities of the finished pieces might be evaluated. With or without
rubrics, portfolios are also an excellent vehicle for teachers to give verbal feedback to students.
Teachers can provide written feedback on the portfolio itself, or, especially for younger students,
they can provide oral feedback using the portfolio as the focus of brief student conferences.
Holistic rubrics are used to evaluate the whole portfolio simultaneously. One rubric—one
dimension with a set of quality level descriptions—is used. This type of scoring is quick to use
and works well when the portfolio is used for summative purposes like a final grade. Analytic
rubrics are used to evaluate the portfolio on several dimensions, each with a set of quality level
descriptions. For example, a writing portfolio might have separate rubrics for content/ ideas,
organization, style/voice/word choice, and mechanics. Analytic rubrics take longer to use than
holistic rubrics because several judgments must be made. But they are better for giving feedback
to students because they identify areas of strength and weakness.
Classroom portfolio scoring will often be done by only the teacher. The dependability of
scoring can be checked by having another person cross-check a few portfolios. When double-
scoring is used, there are two approaches to dependability. One is independent scoring, then
calculating the percent of agreement. Another is a consensus approach, sometimes called
moderation, where any disagreements are discussed and resolved. Keeping in mind the question,
would another person agree with this score? helps focus scoring even if there is no double-
scoring. Use clear rubrics, consistently applied, as if the scoring was going to be checked against
someone else’s.
The results of this planning process will be quite varied. Some portfolios have a cover
sheet or entry log as the first entry that functions as a table of contents. Entry logs sometimes
have space for other information; for example, the rationale for including the piece, the rubric
score for the piece, or the date an entry was put in the portfolio. Teachers sometimes make up
these sheets as a checklist, specifying two pieces of narrative writing and one piece of persuasive
writing and so on, with space for the student to name the selections. Other portfolios are much
less prescribed, with entries put in and removed over time as their usefulness expires. Such fluid
portfolios are better suited to formative assessment.
Some portfolios are in sections; for example, literacy portfolios may have a reading
section that contains a book log and a writing section that contains compositions. Other
portfolios represent a variety of work, like a science portfolio that includes unit tests, lab reports,
photographs and essays about projects, and reflections.
The reflection methods in portfolios also vary. Some portfolios have student reflections
on each entry, either on a separate sheet or on an attached sticky note. Reflections may be
required responses to teacher questions (e.g., Why did you select this piece? What does this
piece show about your learning?) or may be free-form. Formatted reflections sometimes even
include multiple-choice questions (e.g., How satisfied are you with your work on this piece? with
a list of choices). Usually, the teacher decides what kinds of reflections are required. Other
portfolios have overall reflections, done as an essay written after the work is collected and placed
either at the front or the back of the portfolio.

Implementation Issues, Dilemmas, and Barriers

Portfolios have developed a loyal following, but they have also raised issues. As noted,
scoring reliability is one of these issues. The most frequently reported difficulty is time.
Implementing portfolios well takes both a lot of planning and classroom time. Save portfolio
assessment for occasions when its advantages specifically match the assessment purpose, so the
time is well spent and portfolios are worth the investment.
Another barrier some teachers have reported is that using portfolio assessment has
implications for instruction, so instruction has to be changed. This is particularly problematic if
the instructional changes; for example, giving students control of selection and evaluation of
some or much of their work, go against the teacher’s style of teaching or personal values. Self-
reflection needs to be taught. Time needs to be arranged in classroom lessons for students to
work on their portfolios. Resources and materials need to be arranged.
A final issue for portfolios is that they require teacher professional development. Many
portfolio projects have a professional development component. There is a learning curve for
teachers as they make portfolios part of their teaching repertoire. Teachers go through stages of
development in their ability to use portfolio assessment skillfully. Experience is important for
getting the most out of portfolios, for doing them well, and for not stumbling over the potential
barriers.
Digital portfolios are attracting more and more attention. Electronic storage eliminates
one of the barriers to portfolio implementation—storage space. Digital portfolios, however, share
with other kinds of portfolios the purpose of driving content and plans for assessment. Clear
learning goals are still central. Going digital doesn’t change that. Entries in digital portfolios can
be constructed with the same building blocks that construct any electronic files, depending on
their nature: word processors, digital still or video cameras, spreadsheets, presentation software,
and the like. These files can be simply stored in a folder on a computer or, more and more
frequently, are stored in portfolio software that allows for organizing the artifacts, storing
reflections, and recording scores or teacher comments electronically.
Currently, software developers are marketing products that handle electronic portfolios,
or e-portfolios. Typically, these software products allow for storage of student work in the form
of electronic files and for scoring with rubrics. Some of these programs are Web-based. Some
allow the students to keep their electronic files, some retain ownership for the school, and some
allow access only with a current subscription. Beware of e-portfolio systems that claim to solve
portfolio problems beyond electronic storage and convenience. Setting purpose, ensuring that
portfolios are actually used as intended, identifying and using appropriate rubrics (if scored), and
so on, require human judgments that are the responsibility of the portfolio system users.
Is a Portfolio an Assessment?
Some educators, most notably Stiggins, originally considered portfolios to be a
communication method. He saw a portfolio as a collection of individual assessment information
whose purpose was to communicate information about student achievement to teachers, parents,
and students themselves. Thus he classified portfolios as a communication tool in the same
toolbox as grades, narrative reports, and conferences.
The history of portfolios shows that they have been used as an assessment method, and
most educators now consider portfolios an assessment method in their own right. The failed
experiments with using portfolios for large-scale assessment certainly considered them as a
method in their own right—treating them like tests (for example, standardizing tasks and
directions) and using their results like they would any other assessment results for accountability
and reporting. The classroom uses to which portfolios have been put, whether formative or
summative, have also treated portfolios as an assessment in their own right.
Because of their nature, however, portfolios retain that overlap of instruction and
assessment. They contain real examples of student work that can be reviewed, rediscovered, and
reinterpreted—and those actions constitute a powerful kind of instruction. Thus while the
consensus is that portfolios are an assessment method, they are unusual in that their construction
allows them to float between instruction and assessment more easily than any other kind of
assessment. Any assessment use (for example going over classroom test results) has the potential
to inform and even become part of instruction. But portfolios take to this naturally.
Another difference between portfolios and many other types of assessment is the way
they lend themselves to multiple interpretations. Of course any assessment results do that to
some extent. Because of their history and nature, portfolios easily invite multiple interpretations.
The original uses of portfolios, for artists and others to display their work, were not scored, but
rather interpreted anew by each viewer. An architect reviewing a portfolio of interior designs
might be appraising the designer’s ability to fit into one project or to work in one company. The
same designer might show the same portfolio to a furniture manufacturer who reviews it to
appraise the designer’s ability to fit into an entirely different project or job.
As portfolios migrated into classrooms and were adapted for school use, the purpose of
the portfolio became defined by classroom learning targets. However, they are called (objectives,
goals, targets), learning targets are the basis on which classroom instruction and assessment are
planned and are the building blocks for the curriculum that the classroom work serves. Thus
school portfolios, now defined as purposeful collections of work, usually serve the central
purpose of providing evidence and explanations of achievement of a set of learning targets. Even
so, because student work is multidimensional, there are lots of other things to see in it. A set of
papers that show a student has read and understood Hamlet, for example, might also show that
the student has a good sense of humor, or can write particularly moving narrative prose, or
makes a lot of punctuation errors, or any one of a number of things—large and small—that are
not directly related to the stated purposes of the portfolio.
Studies have investigated the effects of portfolio use on instruction. There is some
evidence that portfolios have an effect on instruction. Teachers often report that portfolios
facilitate learning by encouraging students to look back at their work and see where they have
been and how far they have progressed.
Studies have also investigated the effects of portfolio use on learning. There is some
evidence that students who use portfolios regularly—in portfolio assessment systems that are
well conceived and managed—increase their mastery goal orientation. That is, they learn the
value of learning for its own sake. Of course, not every portfolio user becomes a self-regulated,
self-evaluating, self-starter. But on average, portfolios can foster this kind of orientation over
test-driven instruction and assessment.
Some studies have investigated whether students who regularly use portfolio assessment
systems increase their achievement levels as measured by conventional standardized tests. These
results have been mixed. It is not clear whether the reason for the mixed results is that portfolio
use has no real effect on achievement or that standardized tests do not measure the kind of
complex learning that portfolios develop.
The term portfolio culture has been used to describe a classroom environment in which,
because of the use of portfolios, review and reflection about one’s work come to be valued. In
such an environment, it is safe for students to describe both strengths and weaknesses of a piece
of work. Assessment is seen as a repetitive process, with ongoing revision not only allowed but
valued. This contrasts with a classroom environment that values getting good scores for
everything (sometimes called a testing culture). Seeing errors or less than perfect work as an
opportunity for learning or information for improvement is important to a portfolio culture, and it
is also important for developing honest self-evaluation and self-regulation skills. The term is not
used as much in current literature as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. The formative
assessment literature has picked up this thread for discussion, so the concept is still around.
CRITERIA-BASED ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT ACTIVITY
Project work challenges students to think beyond the boundaries of the classroom,
helping them develop the skills, behaviors, and confidence necessary for success in the 21st-
century. Designing learning environments that help students question, analyze, evaluate, and
extrapolate their plans, conclusions, and ideas, leading them to higher–order thinking, requires
feedback and evaluation that goes beyond a letter or number grade. The term “authentic
assessment” is used to describe assessment that evaluates content knowledge as well as
additional skills like creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and innovation.
Authentic assessment documents the learning that occurs during the project-building
process and considers the real-world skills of collaboration, problem solving, decision making,
and communication. Since project work requires students to apply knowledge and skills
throughout the project-building process, you will have many opportunities to assess work
quality, understanding, and participation from the moment students begin working.
For example, your evaluation can include tangible documents like the project vision,
storyboard, and rough draft, verbal behaviors such as participation in group discussions and
sharing of resources and ideas, and non-verbal cognitive tasks such as risk taking and evaluation
of information. You can also capture snapshots of learning throughout the process by having
students complete a project journal, a self-assessment, or by making a discussion of the process
one component of the final presentation.

Developing Assessment
As you design the project, it is helpful to begin with the end in mind. What performances
do you want to see? Then, determine exactly how students will demonstrate each performance as
they build a product or solve a problem to complete the task.
Most of our assessment focuses on content mastery. Techniques we are all familiar with
include the evaluation of the final product and having students to complete quizzes or tests.
Other benchmarks for content mastery you can use include the number of citations a student
references, amount and quality of research, use of experts, validity and effectiveness of
arguments, meeting the topic, and answering the essential question.
 Completing complex authentic projects that require collaboration, creativity, problem-
solving, and innovation helps prepare students for increasingly complex life and work
environments. Effective communication in the 21st-century requires that students can effectively
express themselves in writing, verbally, and visually. Be sure to assess the quality of writing,
including ideas, vocabulary, fluency, organization, and conventions, as well as the use of media
and overall design. Since a project is a collaborative effort that occurs over time, include
evaluation components that consider teamwork, organization, planning, and behavior.
Questions for Students
Content Knowledge
● What new content did you learn while working on this project?
● Did you know more or less than you expected?
● What surprised you?
● What else would you like to know about the topic?
Collaboration & Teamwork
● How did your work and actions contribute to your team’s success?
● What was the hardest part of about working in a team?
● What was the best part?
Technology & Communication
● What new skills did you learn?
● What else do you want to learn how to do?
Creating Rubrics
Because many performances cannot easily be quantified, you want to be as specific about
your expectations as possible. Creating a rubric for the final product and various components of
project work can ensure a more accurate, specific, and useful assessment.
A rubric is an authentic assessment tool that:
● Provides clear expectations for a project.
● Examines the product as well as the entire project-building process.
● Enumerates the performances on which students will be evaluated.
● Explains what constitutes excellence during the project process.
● Helps students understand what they need to do to excel.
● Helps remove subjectivity and bias from the evaluation process.
Sharing and clarifying the performances that will be assessed during a project removes
mystery from the evaluation process, helping students focus on specific actions they can take to
improve their performance.
Involving Students in Assessment
Involving students in project assessment boosts motivation, improves meta-cognition, and
promotes self-directed learning. Students who are asked to reflect on their own performance
learn to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and are able to pinpoint where to focus their
efforts to see the greatest results.
You might have students provide feedback and critiques by asking them to keep a project
journal or work log, evaluate themselves using the project rubric, and answer additional self-
assessment questions. An open-ended self-assessment allows students to share learning that
occurred during the process that was not included in the rubric. As they reflect and evaluate,
students should describe their learning and contemplate decisions they have made individually
and as a team.
 The complexity of student projects makes assessment that captures both the final product
and the learning that occurs along the way an intricate and sometimes difficult task. Summative
assessment can be an effective component of an overall assessment strategy. Authentic
assessment can be used during the project-building process. Rubrics, ideally developed with the
help of the students, can help to evaluate how successfully students address specific goals and
performances. Self-reflection gives students a means to determine what they think they have
learned and how well they have learned it. Crafting assessment strategies that combine all of
these methods helps us gain a much better understanding of the learning that takes place during
the entire process.