Chapter 2: Types of Assessment

Overview:
• Assessment is an essential and powerful tool in the teaching and learning process.
• Moreover, it is a process of obtaining data with which we could measure student
competence and learning outcomes.
• The process begins with the identification of the specific target goals before collecting
and interpreting the information.
• Classifying and synthesizing of the gathered data are possible using the different
assessment techniques.

*This chapter deals mainly on the discussion of the different types of assessment being
used in the teaching and learning process.
Chapter Intended Learning Outcomes
*Able to distinguish the different types of assessment and relate it to learning outcomes.

DepEd No. 73, s. 2012 – Assessment shall be used primarily as quality assurance to track
students progress to the attainment of standards, promote self-reflection, and personal
accountability for one’s learning, and provide a basis for the profiling of student program.
1. Traditional and Authentic Assessment
• Paper-and-pencil tests or quizzes are the best examples of traditional assessment which
mainly describe and measure student learning outcomes.

• Most of the time, teachers still engage themselves in the utilization of traditional
assessment. Law and Eckes (1995) state that traditional assessment are single-occasion
tests which measure what learners can do at particular time.

• Traditional assessments are indirect and inauthentic measures of students learning

outcomes.

• This kind of assessment is standardized and for that reason, they are one-shot, speed-
based, and norm-referenced (Bailey 1998).
1. Traditional and Authentic Assessment
• Traditional assessment often focus on learner’s ability of memorization and recall, which are lower
level of cognition skills (Smaldino, 2000)

• With the above findings in the use of traditional assessment, there has been movement from
traditional assessment toward authentic assessment. Authentic assessment focuses on the
analytical and creative thinking skills, students to work cooperatively and that reflect student
learning, student achievement, and student attitudes of relevant activities.

• Assessment is authentic when it measures performances of products which have realistic meaning
that can be attributed to the success in school. Activities, Questions, and problems with “real world”
satisfy the criterion that it needs to be an authentic intellectual work within the given situation or
contextual realism of the tasks.
The commonly reported dimensions of authencity are grouped into three broad categories (Frey, 2012)

A. Context of the Assessment

• Realistic activity or context
• The task is performance-based
• The task is cognitively complex

B. The Role of the student

• A defense of the answer or product is required
• The assessment is formative
• Students collaborate with each other or with the teacher

C. The scoring
• The scoring criteria are known or student-developed
• Multiple indicators or portfolios are used for scoring
• The performance expectation is mastery
• Wherein, in K to 12 curriculum, students are expected to produce products or performances through
authentic tasks. This should reflect what teachers want their students to do with their learning and
demonstrate the use of real-life situation.

• Wiggins (1989) with an argument of that teachers “test those capacities and habits we think essential
and test them in context” Make them replicate within reason, the challenges at the heart of each
discipline”.

Authentic assessment has four basic characteristics:

1. The task should be representative of performance in the field.
2. Attention should be paid to teaching and learning the criteria for assessment.
3. Self-assessment should play a great role.
4. When possible, students should present their work publicly and defend it.
 Authentic
Assessme
nt:
[Mueller, 2010] Below are some of
the best uses of authentic
1.Authentic assessment areassessment:
direct measures.
 The main purpose of authentic assessment
is to be able to use the acquired knowledge
and skills in the real world.Forms of
assessment task must be applied in
authentic situations.
 This could be done also by teachers by
asking the students to use what they have
learned in some meaningful way. [e.g.
Conducting a science experiment-
hypothesis testing,developing feasibiity
study, calculating savings].
2.Authentic assessments
capture constructive nature of
learning.
 In a constructivist point of view, learners should
create knowledge and measures based from
schemata. Thus, assessment cannot just ask
students to repeat information they have
received.
 Students must also be ask to demonstrate
what they have accurately constructed
meaning about what they have been
taught.
 Students must be given the opportunity to
engage in
the construction of meaning authentic task
not only serve as assessment but also as
vehicles for such learning.
 3.Authentic
assessments
,learning,and assessment.
integrate teaching
 In the authentic, assessment model, the
same authentic task used to measure the
students ability to apply the knowledge or
skills is used as a vehicle for students
learning.
 Problem solving and decision making
skills are best exemplified by this
purpose.
 Students are learning the process of
developing a solution to a problem by simply
applying the meaningful concepts.
4.Authentic assessments
provide multiple paths to
demonstration.
Students may have different ways by which
they could demonstrate what they have
learned.Authentic tasks tend to give the
students more freedom on how they will
demonstrate what they have learned.
By carefully identifying the criteria of good
performance on the authentic task ahead of
time,the teacher can still make comparable
judgements of student performance even
though students performance might be
expressed quite differently from student to
student.
Attributes of Traditional and
Performane Assessments
Attribute Traditonal Assessment Performance Assessment

Assessment Activity Selecting a Response Performing a task

Nature of Activity Contrived Activity Activity emulates real life

Cognitive Level Knowledge/Compehension Application/analysis/synthesis

Development of Solution Teacher-Structured Student-structured

Objectivity of Scoring Easily achieved Difficult to achieve

Evidence of Mastery Indirect evidence Direct vidence

Liskin-Gasparo[1997],Mueller[2008] & Wren

[2009]
Formative Evaluation
And
Summative Evaluation
• Assessment for learning pertains to the use of formative evaluation to determine and
improve students’ learning outcomes.
• Assessment of learning uses summative evaluation which provides evidence of students’
level of achievement in relation to curicular learning outcomes.
• Teaching and learning plans are based on the results of formative assessment which
provides feedback on the effectiveness of teaching and learning process as seen from
the students learning.
• Classroom-based “Formative Assessment” has also taken on an increasingly important
role in education policy in recent years. Formative Assessment refers to the frequent,
interactive assessment of student progress to identify learning needs and shape teaching
(OECD,2005).
• It is plan planned process in which the teacher or students use assessment-based evidence
to adjust ongoing learning and Instruction. Without any inter- or intra-individual
consensus as to what the term formative assessment means, it is difficult to have a well-
formed body of research (phopam,2011).
• Formative Assessment can defined more specifically as “All those activities undertaken
be teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information
to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they
are engaged” (Black & William, 1998).
• Formative assessment occurs at three(3) points of instruction.
1. During Instruction; 2. Between Lessons; and 3. Between Units.
• Most formative assessment occur during instruction ( William & Leahy, 2007).
• Formative Assessment fosters learning with understanding which benefits both
teachers and students by providing the teachers with information on student learning
needs. By enabling appropriate adaptation of course material and teaching strategies,
formative assessment promotes a reflective teaching process that results in better
teaching and better evaluations from students (Richlin, 1998).
• High-quality feedback to students can model the learning process, although it could
also foster “learned dependence” in which learning goals are subsumed under
performance goals (Yorke, 2003).
• Traditionally, summative assessment are conducted at the end of each section or unit
to find out student achievement. Summary of evidence indicates extent of learning
achievements which can classify or for certification or giving of honors/awards.
Characteristics of Formative and Summative Assessment
Characteristics Formative Summative
Purpose To provide ongoing feedback and adjustment to instruction. To document student learning at the end of an instructional
segment
When Conducted During instruction and after instruction After Instruction

Student involvement Encouraged Discouraged

Student Motivation Intrinsic, mastery-oriented Extrinsic, performance-oriented

Teacher Role To provide immediate specific feedback and instructional To measure student achievement and give grades
correctives.

Learning Emphasized Deep understanding,application and reasoning Knowledge ang Co.prehension

Level of specificity Highly specific and individual General and group oriented

Structure Flexible,adaptable Rigid, highly structured

Techniques Informal Formal

Impact on learning Strong, positive, long-lasting Weak and fleeting

McMillan(2007)
NORM AND CRITERION-REFERENCED
ASSESSMENT

 Norm-referenced assessment give us information on what student can perform by

comparing to another student. It describes student performance in the class by
comparing to others. Teachers can actually rank the achievement of their students;
as a result there is a limited percentage of competion for those who are high
scorers.
 Criterion-referenced assessment describes the performance of the students without
reference to the performance of others which uses preset criteria or predefined
and absolute standard or outcomes. Usually, It describe student mastery of the
course content, thus, there is no competion for a limited percentage for a high
score.
 Both method are very useful in assessing learning outcomes. The first
tells as individual performance compares with that of others the
record tells the specific performance in terms of what an individual
can do without reference to performance of other’s.
Summary Comparison of Two Basic Approaches
to Achievement
Norm-referenced Criterion-referenced

Principal use Survey testing Mastery testing

Major Emphasis Measures individual differences in Describes tasks students can

achievement. perform.

Interpretation of Results Compares performance to that of Compares performance to a clearly

other individual. specified achievement domain.

Content of Courage Typically covers a broad area of Typically focuses on limited set of
achievement. learning tasks.

Nature of Test Plan Table of Specifications is commonly Detailed domain specifications are
used. favored.
Level of performance is Item’s are selected that provide Includes all times needed
determined by relative position maximum discrimination among adequately to describe
in some known groups (ranks individuals (to attain a reliable performance. No attempt is
fifth in a group of 20). ranking). Easy items are typically made to alter item difficulty or
eliminated from the test. to eliminate easy items to
increase the spread of scores.
Performance Standards Level of performance is Level of performance is
determined by relative position commonly determined by
in some known groups (ranks absolute standards
fifth in a group of 20). (demonstrate mastery by
defining 90 percent of
techinical terms).
 Contextualized
and
z
Decontextualized
assessment
z

 In contextualized assessment, the focus is on the students

construction of functioning knowledge and the students performance
in application of knowledge in the real life work context of the
discipline area.

 It describes assessment practices which measure skills and

knowledge in dealing with specific situations or perform specific
tasks which the students have identified as important and
meaningful to them.
z

 According to Biggs (2011), decontextualized assessment

includes written exams and terms papers which are suitable for
assessing declarative knowledge, and do not necessarily have a
direct connection to a real life context.

 While both contextualized and decontextualized learning and

assessment each has its role in evaluating learning outcomes in
practice decontextualized assessment has been
overemphasized compared to the place declarative knowledge
has in the curriculum.
z Analytic and
holistic
assessment
z

 Analytic assessment refers to the specific approach in the

assessment of learning outcomes. With this assessment
shouldn't be undertaken in part but must address the whole
performance.

 Sadler(2009) pointed out that in holistic assessment the teacher

or the assessor has to develop complex mental responses to a
student's work and in evaluating the students work the assessor
provides a grade and supports it with a valid justification for
assigning the grade.
z
 Holistic assessment could be in the form of reflection papers and
journals, peers assessment, self assessment l, group
presentation and portfolio. Subsequently, the correct application
of holistic assessment in the various areas of study is expected
to improve the student's learning outcome ( Abubuilo, 2012).

 One positive implication that may result from holistic assessment

is that the students are competent to handle assessments task
accurately (Sadler, 2009).Most students provide the
requirements of most assessment tasks. Through holistic
assessment l, the students are able to develop decisive and
investigate skills that permit them to handle assessment tasks
effectively.