essay about educational assessment

Education assessment in the 21st century: Moving beyond traditional methods

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, esther care and esther care former nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @care_esther alvin vista alvin vista former brookings expert @alvin_vista.

February 23, 2017

This blog is part of a four-part series on shifting educational measurement to match 21st century skills, covering traditional assessments , new technologies , new skillsets , and pathways to the future . These topics were discussed at the Center for Universal Education’s Annual Research and Policy Symposium on April 5, 2017 . You can watch video from the event or listen to audio here .

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) describe the target of achieving inclusive and quality education for all by 2030. As we work to accomplish this goal, we must also face the bigger challenge of not only identifying where children can access education, but how they can benefit from access—an imprecise target. From the perspective of educational measurement, to what extent are we ready and able to assess progress in terms of quality of education?

Traditional educational measurement

When we think about tests in schools, we often picture students shuffling papers at their desks. They fill in short answers to questions, respond to multiple-choice style options, or write brief essays. The majority of their cognitive effort is focused on searching their memory to find appropriate responses to the test items, or applying formulae to familiar problems. This style of educational assessment targets the types of skills that were seen as important throughout the 20th century—the skills of storing relevant information and retrieving it upon demand, often as these processes related to literacy and numeracy.

However, from a measurement perspective, the issues are more complex. Meaningful measurement requires defining what one intends to measure, as well as a consistent system to define the magnitude of what is being measured. This is straightforward for physical measurements, such as weight in pounds and height in inches, but not for cognitive measurements. Although we have been assessing numeracy and literacy skills for over a hundred years, measuring these skills is not as simple as it seems.

Measuring human attributes

Numeracy and literacy are “made-up” concepts. These concepts (known as “constructs” in academic literature) are not tangible objects that can easily be measured by their weight or height. These constructs lack inherent measurement properties independent of human definition. This presents educators with a dilemma. We need to assess student-learning outcomes in order to know what students are ready to learn next. Historically we have relied upon numbers to communicate learning outcomes; however, numbers that are easily applied to properties that exist independently of humans, such as mass and length, do not translate so easily with regard to human characteristics.

When we think about learning or skills, we assume underlying competencies are responsible for particular behaviors. But we cannot see these competencies; we can only see their outcomes. So if we are to measure those competencies, we must examine the outcomes in order to estimate their amount, degree, or quality. This is the challenge: with a huge variety of ways in which competencies might manifest, how do we define a scale to measure outcomes in a way that has consistent meaning? An inch is always an inch, but what is viewed as a correct answer to a question may vary. So what we look for in measurement of these educational constructs are proxies—something that stands for what we are really interested in.

Using proxy measurements

We use proxy measures for many things, physical as well as conceptual. For example, in forensic science, when skeletons are incomplete, the height can be estimated using the length of the arm or leg . These proxies work well, as opposed to say teeth, because they are reasonably accurate and relate closely with height. The quality of our measurements are therefore very much dependent on the quality of the proxies we choose.

Student responses on educational tests are proxies for their competencies and learning, and different types of proxies will be better or worse at revealing the quality of competencies. Here is the crunch: What sorts of proxies are most useful for each skill or competency, and how do we collect these?

The future of educational assessment

Through the last few decades, pen and paper tests have been the main method used to assess educational outcomes. For literacy and numeracy, this makes reasonable sense, since the learning outcome can be demonstrated in much the same way as the applied skill itself is typically demonstrated. However, for other skills of increasing interest in the education world—such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity—this is less the case.

The challenge is how to proceed from the status quo, where system-level assessment using traditional tests is still seen as using good-enough proxies of academic skill, and where testing processes are implemented using traditional methods that everyone finds convenient, systematic, and cost-effective. In addition, increasing interest in education systems’ implementation of 21st century skills raises new hurdles. If we are interested in supporting students’ acquisition of these skills, we need assessment methods that make the skills themselves explicit—in other words, we need to look for new proxies.

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Conceptual analysis article, the past, present and future of educational assessment: a transdisciplinary perspective.

1 Department of Applied Educational Sciences, Umeå Universitet, Umeå, Sweden
2 Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

To see the horizon of educational assessment, a history of how assessment has been used and analysed from the earliest records, through the 20th century, and into contemporary times is deployed. Since paper-and-pencil assessments validity and integrity of candidate achievement has mattered. Assessments have relied on expert judgment. With the massification of education, formal group-administered testing was implemented for qualifications and selection. Statistical methods for scoring tests (classical test theory and item response theory) were developed. With personal computing, tests are delivered on-screen and through the web with adaptive scoring based on student performance. Tests give an ever-increasing verisimilitude of real-world processes, and analysts are creating understanding of the processes test-takers use. Unfortunately testing has neglected the complicating psychological, cultural, and contextual factors related to test-taker psychology. Computer testing neglects school curriculum and classroom contexts, where most education takes place and where insights are needed by both teachers and learners. Unfortunately, the complex and dynamic processes of classrooms are extremely difficult to model mathematically and so remain largely outside the algorithms of psychometrics. This means that technology, data, and psychometrics have become increasingly isolated from curriculum, classrooms, teaching, and the psychology of instruction and learning. While there may be some integration of these disciplines within computer-based testing, this is still a long step from where classroom assessment happens. For a long time, educational, social, and cultural psychology related to learning and instruction have been neglected in testing. We are now on the cusp of significant and substantial development in educational assessment as greater emphasis on the psychology of assessment is brought into the world of testing. Herein lies the future for our field: integration of psychological theory and research with statistics and technology to understand processes that work for learning, identify how well students have learned, and what further teaching and learning is needed. The future requires greater efforts by psychometricians, testers, data analysts, and technologists to develop solutions that work in the pressure of living classrooms and that support valid and reliable assessment.

Introduction

In looking to the horizon of educational assessment, I would like to take a broad chronological view of where we have come from, where we are now, and what the horizons are. Educational assessment plays a vital role in the quality of student learning experiences, teacher instructional activities, and evaluation of curriculum, school quality, and system performance. Assessments act as a lever for both formative improvement of teaching and learning and summative accountability evaluation of teachers, schools, and administration. Because it is so powerful, a nuanced understanding of its history, current status, and future possibilities seems a useful exercise. In this overview I begin with a brief historical journey from assessments past through the last 3000 years and into the future that is already taking place in various locations and contexts.

Early records of the Chinese Imperial examination system can be found dating some 2,500 to 3,000 years ago ( China Civilisation Centre, 2007 ). That system was used to identify and reward talent wherever it could be found in the sprawling empire of China. Rather than rely solely on recommendations, bribery, or nepotism, it was designed to meritocratically locate students with high levels of literacy and memory competencies to operate the Emperor’s bureaucracy of command and control of a massive population. To achieve those goals, the system implemented standardised tasks (e.g., completing an essay according to Confucian principles) under invigilated circumstances to ensure integrity and comparability of performances ( Feng, 1995 ). The system had a graduated series of increasingly more complex and demanding tests until at the final examination no one could be awarded the highest grade because it was reserved for the Emperor alone. Part of the rationale for this extensive technology related to the consequences attached to selection; not only did successful candidates receive jobs with substantial economic benefits, but they were also recognised publicly on examination lists and by the right to wear specific colours or badges that signified the level of examination the candidate had passed. Unsurprisingly, given the immense prestige and possibility of social advancement through scholarship, there was an industry of preparing cheat materials (e.g., miniature books that replicated Confucian classics) and catching cheats (e.g., ranks of invigilators in high chairs overlooking desks at which candidates worked; Elman, 2013 ).

In contrast, as described by Encyclopedia Brittanica (2010a) , European educational assessment grew out of the literary and oratorical remains of the Roman empire such as schools of grammarians and rhetoricians. At the same time, schools were formed in the various cathedrals, monasteries (especially, the Benedictine monasteries), and episcopal schools throughout Europe. Under Charlemagne, church priests were required to master Latin so that they could understand scripture correctly, leading to more advanced religious and academic training. As European society developed in the early Renaissance, schools were opened under the authority of a bishop or cathedral officer or even from secular guilds to those deemed sufficiently competent to teach. Students and teachers at these schools were given certain protection and rights to ensure safe travel and free thinking. European universities from the 1100s adopted many of the clerical practices of reading important texts and scholars evaluating the quality of learning by student performance in oral disputes, debates, and arguments relative to the judgement of higher ranked experts. The subsequent centuries added written tasks and performances to the oral disputes as a way of judging the quality of learning outcomes. Nonetheless, assessment was based, as the Chinese Imperial system, on the expertise and judgment of more senior scholars or bureaucrats.

These mechanisms were put in place to meet the needs of society or religion for literate and numerate bureaucrats, thinkers, and scholars. The resource of further education, or even basic education, was generally rationed and limited. Standardised assessments, even if that were only the protocol rather than the task or the scoring, were carried out to select candidates on a relatively meritocratic basis. Families and students engaged in these processes because educational success gave hope of escape from lives of poverty and hard labour. Consequently, assessment was fundamentally a summative judgement of the student’s abilities, schooling was preparation for the final examination, and assessments during the schooling process were but mimicry of a final assessment.

With the expansion of schooling and higher education through the 1800s, more efficient methods were sought to the workload surrounding hearing memorized recitations ( Encyclopedia Brittanica, 2010b ). This led to the imposition of leaving examinations as an entry requirement to learned professions (e.g., being a teacher), the civil service, and university studies. As more and more students attended universities in the 1800s, more efficient ways collecting information were established, most especially the essay examination and the practice of answering in writing by oneself without aids. This tradition can still be seen in ordered rows of desks in examination halls as students complete written exam papers under scrutiny and time pressure.

The 20th century

By the early 1900s, however, it became apparent that the scoring of these important intellectual exercises was highly problematic. Markers did not agree with each other nor were they consistent within themselves across items or tasks and over time so that their scores varied for the same work. Consequently, early in the 20th century, multiple-choice question tests were developed so that there would be consistency in scoring and efficiency in administration ( Croft and Beard, 2022 ). It is also worth noting that considerable cost and time efficiencies were obtained through using multiple-choice test methods. This aspect led, throughout the century, to increasingly massive use of standardised machine scoreable tests for university entrance, graduate school selection, and even school evaluation. The mechanism of scoring items dichotomously (i.e., right or wrong), within classical test theory statistical modelling, resulted in easy and familiar numbers (e.g., mean, standard deviation, reliability, and standard error of measurement; Clauser, 2022 ).

As the 20th century progressed, the concepts of validity have grown increasingly expansive, and the methods of validation have become increasingly complex and multi-faceted to ensure validity of scores and their interpretation ( Zumbo and Chan, 2014 ). These included scale reliability, factor analysis, item response theory, equating, norming, and standard setting, among others ( Kline, 2020 ). It is worth noting here that statistical methods for test score analysis grew out of the early stages of the discipline of psychology. As psychometric methods became increasingly complex, the world of educational testing began to look much more like the world of statistics. Indeed, Cronbach (1954) noted that the world of psychometrics (i.e., statistical measurement of psychological phenomena) was losing contact with the world of psychology which was the most likely user of psychometric method and research. Interestingly, the world of education makes extensive use of assessment, but few educators are adept at the statistical methods necessary to evaluate their own tests, let alone those from central authorities. Indeed, few teachers are taught statistical test analysis techniques, even fewer understand them, and almost none make use of them.

Of course, assessment is not just a scored task or set of questions. It is legitimately an attempt to operationalize a sample of a construct or content or curriculum domain. The challenge for assessment lies in the conundrum that the material that is easy to test and score tends to be the material that is the least demanding or valuable in any domain. Learning objectives for K-12 schooling, let alone higher education, expect students to go beyond remembering, recalling, regurgitating lists of terminology, facts, or pieces of data. While recall of data pieces is necessary for deep processing, recall of those details is not sufficient. Students need to exhibit complex thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and analysis and synthesis. Assessment of such skills is extremely complex and difficult to achieve.

However, with the need to demonstrate that teachers are effective and that schools are achieving society’s goals and purposes it becomes easy to reduce the valued objectives of society to that which can be incorporated efficiently into a standardised test. Hence, in many societies the high-stakes test becomes the curriculum. If we could be sure that what was on the test is what society really wanted, this would not be such a bad thing; what Resnick and Resnick (1989) called measurement driven reform. However, research over extensive periods since the middle of the 20 th century has shown that much of what we test does not add value to the learning of students ( Nichols and Harris, 2016 ).

An important development in the middle of the 20th century was Scriven’s (1967) work on developing the principles and philosophy of evaluation. A powerful aspect to evaluation that he identified was the distinction between formative evaluation taking place early enough in a process to make differences to the end points of the process and summative evaluation which determined the amount and quality or merit of what the process produced. The idea of formative evaluation was quickly adapted into education as a way of describing assessments that teachers used within classrooms to identify which children needed to be taught what material next ( Bloom et al., 1971 ). This contrasted nicely with high-stakes end-of-unit, end-of-course, or end-of-year formal examinations that summatively judged the quality of student achievement and learning. While assessment as psychometrically validated tests and examinations historically focused on the summative experience, Scriven’s formative evaluation led to using assessment processes early in the educational course of events to inform learners as to what they needed to learn and instructors as to what they needed to teach.

Nonetheless, since the late 1980s (largely thanks to Sadler, 1989 ) the distinction between summative and formative transmogrified from timing to one of type. Formative assessments began to be only those which were not formal tests but were rather informal interactions in classrooms. This perspective was extended by the UK Assessment Reform Group (2002) which promulgated basic principles of formative assessment around the world. Those classroom assessment practices focused much more on what could be seen as classroom teaching practices ( Brown, 2013 , 2019 , 2020a ). Instead of testing, teachers interacted with students on-the-fly, in-the-moment of the classroom through questions and feedback that aimed to help students move towards the intended learning outcomes established at the beginning of lessons or courses. Thus, assessment for learning has become a child-friendly approach ( Stobart, 2006 ) to involving learners in their learning and developing rich meaningful outcomes without the onerous pressure of testing. Much of the power of this approach was that it came as an alternative to the national curriculum of England and Wales that incorporated high-stakes standardised assessment tasks of children at ages 7, 9, 11, and 14 (i.e., Key Stages 1 to 4; Wherrett, 2004 ).

In line with increasing access to schooling worldwide throughout the 20 th century, there is concern that success on high-consequence, summative tests simply reinforced pre-existing social status and hierarchy ( Bourdieu, 1974 ). This position argues tests are not neutral but rather tools of elitism ( Gipps, 1994 ). Unfortunately, when assessments have significant consequences, much higher proportions of disadvantaged students (e.g., minority students, new speakers of the language-medium of assessment, special needs students, those with reading difficulties, etc.) do not experience such benefits ( Brown, 2008 ). This was a factor in the development of using assessment high-quality formative assessment to accelerate the learning progression of disadvantaged students. Nonetheless, differences in group outcomes do not always mean tests are the problem; group score differences can point out that there is sociocultural bias in the provision of educational resources in the school system ( Stobart, 2005 ). This would be rationale for system monitoring assessments, such as Hong Kong’s Territory Wide System Assessment, 1 the United States’ National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2 or Australia’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy. 3 The challenge is how to monitor a system without blaming those who have been let down by it.

Key Stage tests were put in place, not only to evaluate student learning, but also to assure the public that teachers and schools were achieving important goals of education. This use of assessment put focus on accountability, not for the student, but for the school and teacher ( Nichols and Harris, 2016 ). The decision to use tests of student learning to evaluate schools and teachers was mimicked, especially in the United States, in various state accountability tests, the No Child Left Behind legislation, and even such innovative programs of assessment as Race to the Top and PARCC. It should be noted that the use of standardised tests to evaluate teachers and schools is truly a global phenomenon, not restricted to the UK and the USA ( Lingard and Lewis, 2016 ). In this context, testing became a summative evaluation of teachers and school leaders to demonstrate school effectiveness and meet accountability requirements.

The current situation is that assessment is perceived quite differently by experts in different disciplines. Psychometricians tend to define assessment in terms of statistical modelling of test scores. Psychologists use assessments for diagnostic description of client strengths or needs. Within schooling, leaders tend to perceive assessment as jurisdiction or state-mandated school accountability testing, while teachers focus on assessment as interactive, on-the-fly experiences with their students, and parents ( Buckendahl, 2016 ; Harris and Brown, 2016 ) understand assessment as test scores and grades. The world of psychology has become separated from the worlds of classroom teaching, curriculum, psychometrics and statistics, and assessment technologies.

This brief history bringing us into early 21 st century shows that educational assessment is informed by multiple disciplines which often fail to talk with or even to each other. Statistical analysis of testing has become separated from psychology and education, psychology is separated from curriculum, teaching is separated from testing, and testing is separated from learning. Hence, we enter the present with many important facets that inform effective use of educational assessment siloed from one another.

Now and next

Currently the world of educational statistics has become engrossed in the large-scale data available through online testing and online learning behaviours. The world of computational psychometrics seeks to move educational testing statistics into the dynamic analysis of big data with machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms potentially creating a black box of sophisticated statistical models (e.g., neural networks) which learners, teachers, administrators, and citizens cannot understand ( von Davier et al., 2019 ). The introduction of computing technologies means that automation of item generation ( Gierl and Lai, 2016 ) and scoring of performances ( Shin et al., 2021 ) is possible, along with customisation of test content according to test-taker performance ( Linden and Glas, 2000 ). The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly inserted online and distance testing as a commonplace practice with concerns raised about how technology is used to assure the integrity of student performance ( Dawson, 2021 ).

The ecology of the classroom is not the same as that of a computerised test. This is especially notable when the consequence of a test (regardless of medium) has little relevance to a student ( Wise and Smith, 2016 ). Performance on international large-scale assessments (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) may matter to government officials ( Teltemann and Klieme, 2016 ) but these tests have little value for individual learners. Nonetheless, governmental responses to PISA or TIMSS results may create policies and initiatives that have trickle-down effect on schools and students ( Zumbo and Forer, 2011 ). Consequently, depending on the educational and cultural environment, test-taking motivation on tests that have consequences for the state can be similar to a test with personal consequence in East Asia ( Zhao et al., 2020 ), but much lower in a western democracy ( Zhao et al., 2022 ). Hence, without surety that in any educational test learners are giving full effort ( Thorndike, 1924 ), the information generated by psychometric analysis is likely to be invalid. Fortunately, under computer testing conditions, it is now possible to monitor reduced or wavering effort during an actual test event and provide support to such a student through a supervising proctor ( Wise, 2019 ), though this feature is not widely prevalent.

Online or remote teaching, learning, and assessment have become a reality for many teachers and students, especially in light of our educational responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Clearly, some families appreciate this because their children can progress rapidly, unencumbered by the teacher or classmates. For such families, continuing with digital schooling would be seen as a positive future. However, reliance on a computer interface as the sole means of assessment or teaching may dehumanise the very human experience of learning and teaching. As Asimov (1954) described in his short story of a future world in which children are taught individually by machines, Margie imagined what it must have been like to go to school with other children:

Margie …was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather's grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it.

And the teachers were people...

The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: "When we add the fractions ½ and ¼ -"

Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

As Brown (2020b) has argued the option of a de-schooled society through computer-based teaching, learning, and assessment is deeply unattractive on the grounds that it is likely to be socially unjust. The human experience of schooling matters to the development of humans. We learn through instruction ( Bloom, 1976 ), culturally located experiences ( Cole et al., 1971 ), inter-personal interaction with peers and adults ( Vygotsky, 1978 ; Rogoff, 1991 ), and biogenetic factors ( Inhelder and Piaget, 1958 ). Schooling gives us access to environments in which these multiple processes contribute to the kinds of citizens we want. Hence, we need confidence in the power of shared schooling to do more than increase the speed by which children acquire knowledge and learning; it helps us be more human.

This dilemma echoes the tension between in vitro and in vivo biological research. Within the controlled environment of a test tube (vitro) organisms do not necessarily behave the same way as they do when released into the complexity of human biology ( Autoimmunity Research Foundation, 2012 ). This analogy has been applied to educational assessment ( Zumbo, 2015 ) indicating that how students perform in a computer-mediated test may not have validity for how students perform in classroom interactions or in-person environments.

The complexity of human psychology is captured in Hattie’s (2004) ROPE model which posits that the various aspects of human motivation, belief, strategy, and values interact as threads spun into a rope. This means it is hard to analytically separate the various components and identify aspects that individually explain learning outcomes. Indeed, Marsh et al. (2006) showed that of the many self-concept and control beliefs used to predict performance on the PISA tests, almost all variables have relations to achievement less than r = 0.35. Instead, interactions among motivation, beliefs about learning, intelligence, assessment, the self, and attitudes with and toward others, subjects, and behaviours all matter to performance. Aspects that create growth-oriented pathways ( Boekaerts and Niemivirta, 2000 ) and strategies include inter alia mastery goals ( Deci and Ryan, 2000 ), deep learning ( Biggs et al., 2001 ) beliefs, malleable intelligence ( Duckworth et al., 2011 ) beliefs, improvement-oriented beliefs about assessment ( Brown, 2011 ), internal, controllable attributes ( Weiner, 1985 ), effort ( Wise and DeMars, 2005 ), avoiding dishonesty ( Murdock et al., 2016 ), trusting one’s peers ( Panadero, 2016 ), and realism in evaluating one’s own work ( Brown and Harris, 2014 ). All these adaptive aspects of learning stand in contrast to deactivating and maladaptive beliefs, strategies, and attitudes that serve to protect the ego and undermine learning. What this tells us that psychological research matters to understanding the results of assessment and that no one single psychological construct is sufficient to explain very much of the variance in student achievement. However, it seems we are as yet unable to identify which specific processes matter most to better performance for all students across the ability spectrum, given that almost all the constructs that have been reported in educational psychology seem to have a positive contribution to better performance. Here is the challenge for educational psychology within an assessment setting —which constructs are most important and effectual before, during, and after any assessment process ( Mcmillan, 2016 ) and how should they be operationalised.

A current enthusiasm is to use ‘big data’ from computer-based assessments to examine in more detail how students carry out the process of responding to tasks. Many large-scale testing programs through computer testing collect, utilize, and report on test-taker engagement as part of their process data collection (e.g., the United States National Assessment of Educational Progress 4 ). These test systems provide data about what options were clicked on, in what order, what pages were viewed, and the timings of these actions. Several challenges to using big data in educational assessment exist. First, computerised assessments need to capture the processes and products we care about. That means we need a clear theoretical model of the underlying cognitive mechanisms or processes that generate the process data itself ( Zumbo et al., in press ). Second, we need to be reminded that data do not explain themselves; theory and insight about process are needed to understand data ( Pearl and Mackenzie, 2018 ). Examination of log files can give some insight into effective vs. ineffective strategies, once the data were analysed using theory to create a model of how a problem should be done ( Greiff et al., 2015 ). Access to data logs that show effort and persistence on a difficult task can reveal that, despite failure to successfully resolve a problem, such persistence is related to overall performance ( Lundgren and Eklöf, 2020 ). But data by itself will not tell us how and why students are successful and what instruction might need to do to encourage students to use the scientific method of manipulating one variable at a time or not giving up quickly.

Psychometric analyses of assessments can only statistically model item difficulty, item discrimination, and item chance parameters to estimate person ability ( Embretson and Reise, 2000 ). None of the other psychological features of how learners relate to themselves and their environment are included in score estimation. In real classroom contexts, teachers make their best efforts to account for individual motivation, affect, and cognition to provide appropriate instruction, feedback, support, and questioning. However, the nature of these factors varies across time (cohorts), locations (cultures and societies), policy priorities for schooling and assessment, and family values ( Brown and Harris, 2009 ). This means that what constitutes a useful assessment to inform instruction in a classroom context (i.e., identify to the teacher who needs to be taught what next) needs to constantly evolve and be incredibly sensitive to individual and contextual factors. This is difficult if we keep psychology, curriculum, psychometrics, and technology in separate silos. It seems highly desirable that these different disciplines interact, but it is not guaranteed that the technology for psychometric testing developments will cross-pollinate with classroom contexts where teachers have to relate to and monitor student learning across all important curricular domains.

It is common to treat what happens in the minds and emotions of students when they are assessed as a kind of ‘black box’ implying that the processes are opaque or unknowable. This is an approach I have taken previously in examining what students do when asked to self-assess ( Yan and Brown, 2017 ). However, the meaning of a black box is quite different in engineering. In aeronautics, the essential constructs related to flight (e.g., engine power, aileron settings, pitch and yaw positions, etc.) are known very deeply, otherwise flight would not happen. The black box in an airplane records the values of those important variables and the only thing unknown (i.e., black) is what the values were at the point of interest. If we are to continue to use this metaphor as a way of understanding what happens when students are assessed or assess, then we need to agree on what the essential constructs are that underlie learning and achievement. Our current situation seems to be satisfied with everything is correlated and everything matters. It may be that data science will help us sort through the chaff for the wheat provided we design and implement sensors appropriate to the constructs we consider hypothetically most important. It may be that measuring timing of mouse clicks and eye tracking do connect to important underlying mechanisms, but at this stage data science in testing seems largely a case of crunch the ‘easy to get’ numbers and hope that the data mean something.

To address this concern, we need to develop for education’s sake, assessments that have strong alignment with curricular ambitions and values and which have applicability to classroom contexts and processes ( Bennett, 2018 ). This will mean technology that supports what humans must do in schooling rather than replace them with teaching/testing machines. Fortunately, some examples of assessment technology for learning do exist. One supportive technology is PeerWise ( Denny et al., 2008 ; Hancock et al., 2018 ) in which students create course related multiple-choice questions and use them as a self-testing learning strategy. A school-based technology is the e-asTTle computer assessment system that produces a suite of diagnostic reports to support teachers’ planning and teaching in response to what the system indicated students need to be taught ( Hattie and Brown, 2008 ; Brown and Hattie, 2012 ; Brown et al., 2018 ). What these technologies do is support rather than supplant the work that teachers and learners need to do to know what they need to study or teach and to monitor their progress. Most importantly they are well-connected to what students must learn and what teachers are teaching. Other detailed work uses organised learning models or dynamic learning maps to mark out routes for learners and teachers using cognitive and curriculum insights with psychometric tools for measuring status and progress ( Kingston et al., 2022 ). The work done by Wise (2019) shows that it is possible in a computer assisted testing environment to monitor student effort based on their speed of responding and give prompts that support greater effort and less speed.

Assessment needs to exploit more deeply the insights educational psychology has given us into human behavior, attitudes, inter- and intra-personal relations, emotions, and so on. This was called for some 20 years ago ( National Research Council, 2001 ) but the underlying disciplines that inform this integration seem to have grown away from each other. Nonetheless, the examples given above suggest that the gaps can be closed. But assessments still do not seem to consider and respond to these psychological determinants of achievement. Teachers have the capability of integrating curriculum, testing, psychology, and data at a superficial level but with some considerable margin of error ( Meissel et al., 2017 ). To overcome their own error, teachers need technologies that support them in making useful and accurate interpretations of what students need to be taught next that work with them in the classroom. As Bennett (2018) pointed out more technology will happen, but perhaps not more tests on computers. This is the assessment that will help teachers rather than replace them and give us hope for a better future.

Author contributions

GB wrote this manuscript and is solely responsible for its content.

Support for the publication of this paper was received from the Publishing and Scholarly Services of the Umeå University Library.

Acknowledgments

A previous version of this paper was presented as a keynote address to the 2019 biennial meeting of the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction, with the title Products, Processes, Psychology, and Technology: Quo Vadis Educational Assessment ?

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: assessment, testing, technology, psychometrics, psychology, curriculum, classroom

Citation: Brown GTL (2022) The past, present and future of educational assessment: A transdisciplinary perspective. Front. Educ . 7:1060633. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.1060633

Received: 03 October 2022; Accepted: 25 October 2022; Published: 11 November 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Brown. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Gavin T. L. Brown, [email protected] ; [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Horizons in Education 2022

Our Mission
Why Is Assessment Important?

Asking students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter is critical to the learning process; it is essential to evaluate whether the educational goals and standards of the lessons are being met.

Assessment is an integral part of instruction, as it determines whether or not the goals of education are being met. Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs, curriculum, and, in some cases, funding. Assessment inspire us to ask these hard questions: "Are we teaching what we think we are teaching?" "Are students learning what they are supposed to be learning?" "Is there a way to teach the subject better, thereby promoting better learning?"

Today's students need to know not only the basic reading and arithmetic skills, but also skills that will allow them to face a world that is continually changing. They must be able to think critically, to analyze, and to make inferences. Changes in the skills base and knowledge our students need require new learning goals; these new learning goals change the relationship between assessment and instruction. Teachers need to take an active role in making decisions about the purpose of assessment and the content that is being assessed.

Grant Wiggins, a nationally recognized assessment expert, shared his thoughts on performance assessments, standardized tests, and more in an Edutopia.org interview . Read his answers to the following questions from the interview and reflect on his ideas:

What distinction do you make between 'testing' and 'assessment'?
Why is it important that teachers consider assessment before they begin planning lessons or projects?
Standardized tests, such as the SAT, are used by schools as a predictor of a student's future success. Is this a valid use of these tests?

Do you agree with his statements? Why or why not? Discuss your opinions with your peers.

When assessment works best, it does the following:

What is the student's knowledge base?
What is the student's performance base?
What are the student's needs?
What has to be taught?
What performance demonstrates understanding?
What performance demonstrates knowledge?
What performance demonstrates mastery?
How is the student doing?
What teaching methods or approaches are most effective?
What changes or modifications to a lesson are needed to help the student?
What has the student learned?
Can the student talk about the new knowledge?
Can the student demonstrate and use the new skills in other projects?
Now that I'm in charge of my learning, how am I doing?
Now that I know how I'm doing, how can I do better?
What else would I like to learn?
What is working for the students?
What can I do to help the students more?
In what direction should we go next?

Continue to the next section of the guide, Types of Assessment .

This guide is organized into six sections:

Introduction
Types of Assessment
How Do Rubrics Help?
Workshop Activities
Resources for Assessment

Center for Teaching

Student assessment in teaching and learning.

Much scholarship has focused on the importance of student assessment in teaching and learning in higher education. Student assessment is a critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. Whether teaching at the undergraduate or graduate level, it is important for instructors to strategically evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching by measuring the extent to which students in the classroom are learning the course material.

This teaching guide addresses the following: 1) defines student assessment and why it is important, 2) identifies the forms and purposes of student assessment in the teaching and learning process, 3) discusses methods in student assessment, and 4) makes an important distinction between assessment and grading., what is student assessment and why is it important.

In their handbook for course-based review and assessment, Martha L. A. Stassen et al. define assessment as “the systematic collection and analysis of information to improve student learning.” (Stassen et al., 2001, pg. 5) This definition captures the essential task of student assessment in the teaching and learning process. Student assessment enables instructors to measure the effectiveness of their teaching by linking student performance to specific learning objectives. As a result, teachers are able to institutionalize effective teaching choices and revise ineffective ones in their pedagogy.

The measurement of student learning through assessment is important because it provides useful feedback to both instructors and students about the extent to which students are successfully meeting course learning objectives. In their book Understanding by Design , Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe offer a framework for classroom instruction—what they call “Backward Design”—that emphasizes the critical role of assessment. For Wiggens and McTighe, assessment enables instructors to determine the metrics of measurement for student understanding of and proficiency in course learning objectives. They argue that assessment provides the evidence needed to document and validate that meaningful learning has occurred in the classroom. Assessment is so vital in their pedagogical design that their approach “encourages teachers and curriculum planners to first ‘think like an assessor’ before designing specific units and lessons, and thus to consider up front how they will determine if students have attained the desired understandings.” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pg. 18)

For more on Wiggins and McTighe’s “Backward Design” model, see our Understanding by Design teaching guide.

Student assessment also buttresses critical reflective teaching. Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, contends that critical reflection on one’s teaching is an essential part of developing as an educator and enhancing the learning experience of students. Critical reflection on one’s teaching has a multitude of benefits for instructors, including the development of rationale for teaching practices. According to Brookfield, “A critically reflective teacher is much better placed to communicate to colleagues and students (as well as to herself) the rationale behind her practice. She works from a position of informed commitment.” (Brookfield, 1995, pg. 17) Student assessment, then, not only enables teachers to measure the effectiveness of their teaching, but is also useful in developing the rationale for pedagogical choices in the classroom.

Forms and Purposes of Student Assessment

There are generally two forms of student assessment that are most frequently discussed in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The first, summative assessment , is assessment that is implemented at the end of the course of study. Its primary purpose is to produce a measure that “sums up” student learning. Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature and is fundamentally concerned with learning outcomes. While summative assessment is often useful to provide information about patterns of student achievement, it does so without providing the opportunity for students to reflect on and demonstrate growth in identified areas for improvement and does not provide an avenue for the instructor to modify teaching strategy during the teaching and learning process. (Maki, 2002) Examples of summative assessment include comprehensive final exams or papers.

The second form, formative assessment , involves the evaluation of student learning over the course of time. Its fundamental purpose is to estimate students’ level of achievement in order to enhance student learning during the learning process. By interpreting students’ performance through formative assessment and sharing the results with them, instructors help students to “understand their strengths and weaknesses and to reflect on how they need to improve over the course of their remaining studies.” (Maki, 2002, pg. 11) Pat Hutchings refers to this form of assessment as assessment behind outcomes. She states, “the promise of assessment—mandated or otherwise—is improved student learning, and improvement requires attention not only to final results but also to how results occur. Assessment behind outcomes means looking more carefully at the process and conditions that lead to the learning we care about…” (Hutchings, 1992, pg. 6, original emphasis). Formative assessment includes course work—where students receive feedback that identifies strengths, weaknesses, and other things to keep in mind for future assignments—discussions between instructors and students, and end-of-unit examinations that provide an opportunity for students to identify important areas for necessary growth and development for themselves. (Brown and Knight, 1994)

It is important to recognize that both summative and formative assessment indicate the purpose of assessment, not the method . Different methods of assessment (discussed in the next section) can either be summative or formative in orientation depending on how the instructor implements them. Sally Brown and Peter Knight in their book, Assessing Learners in Higher Education, caution against a conflation of the purposes of assessment its method. “Often the mistake is made of assuming that it is the method which is summative or formative, and not the purpose. This, we suggest, is a serious mistake because it turns the assessor’s attention away from the crucial issue of feedback.” (Brown and Knight, 1994, pg. 17) If an instructor believes that a particular method is formative, he or she may fall into the trap of using the method without taking the requisite time to review the implications of the feedback with students. In such cases, the method in question effectively functions as a form of summative assessment despite the instructor’s intentions. (Brown and Knight, 1994) Indeed, feedback and discussion is the critical factor that distinguishes between formative and summative assessment.

Methods in Student Assessment

Below are a few common methods of assessment identified by Brown and Knight that can be implemented in the classroom. [1] It should be noted that these methods work best when learning objectives have been identified, shared, and clearly articulated to students.

Self-Assessment

The goal of implementing self-assessment in a course is to enable students to develop their own judgement. In self-assessment students are expected to assess both process and product of their learning. While the assessment of the product is often the task of the instructor, implementing student assessment in the classroom encourages students to evaluate their own work as well as the process that led them to the final outcome. Moreover, self-assessment facilitates a sense of ownership of one’s learning and can lead to greater investment by the student. It enables students to develop transferable skills in other areas of learning that involve group projects and teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving, as well as leadership roles in the teaching and learning process.

Things to Keep in Mind about Self-Assessment

Self-assessment is different from self-grading. According to Brown and Knight, “Self-assessment involves the use of evaluative processes in which judgement is involved, where self-grading is the marking of one’s own work against a set of criteria and potential outcomes provided by a third person, usually the [instructor].” (Pg. 52)
Students may initially resist attempts to involve them in the assessment process. This is usually due to insecurities or lack of confidence in their ability to objectively evaluate their own work. Brown and Knight note, however, that when students are asked to evaluate their work, frequently student-determined outcomes are very similar to those of instructors, particularly when the criteria and expectations have been made explicit in advance.
Methods of self-assessment vary widely and can be as eclectic as the instructor. Common forms of self-assessment include the portfolio, reflection logs, instructor-student interviews, learner diaries and dialog journals, and the like.

Peer Assessment

Peer assessment is a type of collaborative learning technique where students evaluate the work of their peers and have their own evaluated by peers. This dimension of assessment is significantly grounded in theoretical approaches to active learning and adult learning . Like self-assessment, peer assessment gives learners ownership of learning and focuses on the process of learning as students are able to “share with one another the experiences that they have undertaken.” (Brown and Knight, 1994, pg. 52)

Things to Keep in Mind about Peer Assessment

Students can use peer assessment as a tactic of antagonism or conflict with other students by giving unmerited low evaluations. Conversely, students can also provide overly favorable evaluations of their friends.
Students can occasionally apply unsophisticated judgements to their peers. For example, students who are boisterous and loquacious may receive higher grades than those who are quieter, reserved, and shy.
Instructors should implement systems of evaluation in order to ensure valid peer assessment is based on evidence and identifiable criteria .

According to Euan S. Henderson, essays make two important contributions to learning and assessment: the development of skills and the cultivation of a learning style. (Henderson, 1980) Essays are a common form of writing assignment in courses and can be either a summative or formative form of assessment depending on how the instructor utilizes them in the classroom.

Things to Keep in Mind about Essays

A common challenge of the essay is that students can use them simply to regurgitate rather than analyze and synthesize information to make arguments.
Instructors commonly assume that students know how to write essays and can encounter disappointment or frustration when they discover that this is not the case for some students. For this reason, it is important for instructors to make their expectations clear and be prepared to assist or expose students to resources that will enhance their writing skills.

Exams and time-constrained, individual assessment

Examinations have traditionally been viewed as a gold standard of assessment in education, particularly in university settings. Like essays they can be summative or formative forms of assessment.

Things to Keep in Mind about Exams

Exams can make significant demands on students’ factual knowledge and can have the side-effect of encouraging cramming and surface learning. On the other hand, they can also facilitate student demonstration of deep learning if essay questions or topics are appropriately selected. Different formats include in-class tests, open-book, take-home exams and the like.
In the process of designing an exam, instructors should consider the following questions. What are the learning objectives that the exam seeks to evaluate? Have students been adequately prepared to meet exam expectations? What are the skills and abilities that students need to do well? How will this exam be utilized to enhance the student learning process?

As Brown and Knight assert, utilizing multiple methods of assessment, including more than one assessor, improves the reliability of data. However, a primary challenge to the multiple methods approach is how to weigh the scores produced by multiple methods of assessment. When particular methods produce higher range of marks than others, instructors can potentially misinterpret their assessment of overall student performance. When multiple methods produce different messages about the same student, instructors should be mindful that the methods are likely assessing different forms of achievement. (Brown and Knight, 1994).

For additional methods of assessment not listed here, see “Assessment on the Page” and “Assessment Off the Page” in Assessing Learners in Higher Education .

In addition to the various methods of assessment listed above, classroom assessment techniques also provide a useful way to evaluate student understanding of course material in the teaching and learning process. For more on these, see our Classroom Assessment Techniques teaching guide.

Assessment is More than Grading

Instructors often conflate assessment with grading. This is a mistake. It must be understood that student assessment is more than just grading. Remember that assessment links student performance to specific learning objectives in order to provide useful information to instructors and students about student achievement. Traditional grading on the other hand, according to Stassen et al. does not provide the level of detailed and specific information essential to link student performance with improvement. “Because grades don’t tell you about student performance on individual (or specific) learning goals or outcomes, they provide little information on the overall success of your course in helping students to attain the specific and distinct learning objectives of interest.” (Stassen et al., 2001, pg. 6) Instructors, therefore, must always remember that grading is an aspect of student assessment but does not constitute its totality.

Teaching Guides Related to Student Assessment

Below is a list of other CFT teaching guides that supplement this one. They include:

Active Learning
An Introduction to Lecturing
Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities
Bloom’s Taxonomy
How People Learn
Syllabus Construction

References and Additional Resources

This teaching guide draws upon a number of resources listed below. These sources should prove useful for instructors seeking to enhance their pedagogy and effectiveness as teachers.

Angelo, Thomas A., and K. Patricia Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers . 2 nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Print.

Brookfield, Stephen D. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. Print.

Brown, Sally, and Peter Knight. Assessing Learners in Higher Education . 1 edition. London ; Philadelphia: Routledge, 1998. Print.

Cameron, Jeanne et al. “Assessment as Critical Praxis: A Community College Experience.” Teaching Sociology 30.4 (2002): 414–429. JSTOR . Web.

Gibbs, Graham and Claire Simpson. “Conditions under which Assessment Supports Student Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education 1 (2004): 3-31.

Henderson, Euan S. “The Essay in Continuous Assessment.” Studies in Higher Education 5.2 (1980): 197–203. Taylor and Francis+NEJM . Web.

Maki, Peggy L. “Developing an Assessment Plan to Learn about Student Learning.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 28.1 (2002): 8–13. ScienceDirect . Web. The Journal of Academic Librarianship.

Sharkey, Stephen, and William S. Johnson. Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Sociology . ASA Teaching Resource Center, 1992. Print.

Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding By Design . 2nd Expanded edition. Alexandria, VA: Assn. for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2005. Print.

[1] Brown and Night discuss the first two in their chapter entitled “Dimensions of Assessment.” However, because this chapter begins the second part of the book that outlines assessment methods, I have collapsed the two under the category of methods for the purposes of continuity.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Educational Assessment

Introduction, general overviews.

Reference Works
International Journals
American Journals
Current Systems
International Programs
Classroom Use
Accountability Systems
Performance Assessment
Issues for Minority Students
Issues for Special-Needs Students
Research Organizations
Analysis of Testing Data
Interpretation of Tests
Accountability
Instructional Improvement
Policy Implications

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Educational Assessment by Terri Pigott , Joshua R. Polanin LAST REVIEWED: 15 December 2011 LAST MODIFIED: 15 December 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0051

Educational assessment can be defined as any effort to gather systematic evidence about the attainment of learning goals and objectives, either at the level of the individual student or at the level of a larger organization such as a school, district, or country. This bibliography focuses on methods for examining whether particular educational goals are met, rather than on the diagnosis of learning challenges for individual students. There are two main purposes of educational assessment in our schooling systems: accountability to ensure that certain learning goals are attained and instructional improvement to monitor student learning and the effectiveness of teaching practice. These two broad types of assessments, for accountability and for instructional improvement, encompass differing educational goals and as such may require different methods for their development and analysis. The terms “summative” and “formative” assessment have also been used to characterize the differences between using tests for accountability (summative) and for improvement of instruction and learning (formative). The resources for educational assessment have several different audiences, ranging from the classroom teacher to research methodologists interested in the statistical models used in large-scale assessments. This bibliography provides an overview of general resources for educational assessment, as well as more specific resources for the development, analysis, and interpretation of these assessments. The final section provides resources discussing the intended and unintended outcomes of educational assessment, especially for high-stakes accountability of educational systems.

The general overviews of educational assessment tend to focus either on a broad examination of assessment and measurement principles as applied in educational contexts, or on classroom practice and the use of tests to monitor students and improve instruction. The texts on educational assessment and measurement, such as McMillan 2010 ; Miller, et al. 2009 ; and Nitko and Brookhart 2011 , are textbooks typically used in graduate classes on assessment. The overviews of classroom practice, such as Popham 2011 and Stiggins, et al. 2010 , are texts used in courses on classroom assessment in teacher preparation programs.

McMillan, James H. 2010. Classroom assessment: Principles and practice for effective standards-based instruction . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon.

Directed at teachers and providing comprehensive coverage of research on assessments for accountability and instructional improvement. Includes chapters on developing commonly used assessments in classrooms.

Miller, M. David, Robert L. Linn, and Norman E. Gronlund. 2009. Measurement and assessment in teaching . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Pearson.

One of the most widely used texts in graduate courses in educational assessment. Covers the foundations of assessment, including chapters on instructional goals, reliability, validity, and the role of assessment in teaching. Illustrates the construction of common classroom assessment tools such as objective tests, essay questions, performance-based assessments, and portfolios. Includes a discussion of published, standardized tests used in the United States, and interpretation of summary statistics associated with tests.

Nitko, Anthony J., and Susan M. Brookhart. 2011. Educational assessment of students . 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon.

Comprehensive overview of foundations of educational assessment. Used in graduate-level assessment courses. Illustrates construction of common classroom assessment tools, and interpretation of standardized tests.

Popham, W. James. 2011. Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know . Boston: Pearson Education.

Popular text aimed at teachers. Covers foundations of assessment in accessible language, including chapters on reliability, validity, and construction of common assessment tools. Emphasizes the role that assessment can play in improving instruction.

Stiggins, Richard J., Judith A. Arter, Jan Chappuis, and Stephen Chappuis. 2010. Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right—using it well . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Text aimed at teachers. Provides practical advice about developing assessments and communicating results in various formats. Provides accessible discussion of standardized tests and their interpretation.

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Educational Assessment

The Importance of Educational Assessment: Tools and Techniques for Assessing Your Students

June 23, 2022
Faculty Focus

In this educational assessment guide, we’ll answer questions such as:

What is the purpose of educational assessment? What are the benefits of assessments? What are the main types of assessment? What is the difference between evaluation and assessment?

Formative assessment can be any assessment that first and foremost promotes students’ learning. Many refer to this type of assessment as assessment “for” learning. In contrast, summative assessment, or assessment “of” learning, looks at grades or scores that give a final judgment or evaluation of proficiency. Assessment “for” learning is usually more informal and includes aspects of teaching. It is formative because it gathers evidence that helps teachers better meet the learning needs of students as well as empowering students to be change agents in their achievement. A host of studies have shown that when formative assessment is implemented effectively, it can greatly enhance, or even double, the speed of student learning. This guide provides specific examples of educational assessment tools, why assessment is important in gauging student comprehension, and how you can implement assessment techniques into your own course.

The importance of educational assessment

Educational assessment is one of the most talked about topics in higher education today. Despite the admirable goal of improving student learning, the trend toward greater accountability through increased academic testing carries with it a diverse range of educational assessment tools, methodologies, perspectives, and stakeholders.

If today’s mandates for educational testing has you searching for answers, take a dive into the following articles and products that cover topics such as forms of assessment, cognitive demand levels, formative and summative assessments, alternative assessment methods, and evaluative assessment.

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Types of educational assessment

While most faculty stick with the tried-and-true quiz and paper assessment strategies for their online courses, the wide range of technologies available today offers a variety of assessment options beyond the traditional forms. But what do students think of these different forms? And more importantly, what types of educational assessment work best for your course and your students?

A few educational assessments that we will cover:

A learning assessment technique (LAT) is a three-part integrated structure that helps teachers to first identify significant learning goals, then to implement effectively the kinds of learning activities that help achieve those goals, and finally—and perhaps most importantly—to analyze and report on the learning outcomes that have been achieved from those learning activities.
Word Clouds. Word clouds are images composed of words associated with concepts, questions, or reactions sought by an instructor; they are fast, engaging, and can provide an emotional connection for students. Think of the powerful insights a facilitator gains by simply asking students to report a single word describing how they feel about their progress on a project? choice?”). Wordle and TagCloud are two popular choices for creating word clouds.
Focused Listing. Focused listing can be used before, during, or after a lesson. This method helps you to gauge student learning.
Elevator Pitch. As a review activity, ask students to summarize main ideas or key topics in fewer than 60 seconds. A fun variation of this approach is to have students present to a classmate acting as a well-known personality or theorist who works in your discipline.

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Educational assessment tools

Most conventional assessment strategies provide limited opportunities for instructors to realign teaching methods and revisit topics that students have not understood well. Teachers can communicate with students individually, but time constraints may prevent multiple individual conversations. Some students in the classroom are reluctant to ask questions and admit confusion. Find out how to overcome these difficulties with specific educational assessment tools. Below are just a few assessment tools that you’ll find within the articles and products.

Continuous and Rapid Testing (CaRT): Improves communication between teachers and students
C.A.P Model : Offers students diverse possibilities to express their understandings of course content, though the explicit aim of the creative component was to center non-dominant cultural ways of knowing, being, and making sense of the world
Pre-formative assessment: This refers to assessments given while students are learning new material independently, before any group interaction has taken place
An Anti-racist Form of Assessment: The CAP Model: Creative. Academic. Practical.
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Assessment and Evaluation in Educational Contexts

First Online: 06 December 2016

Cite this chapter

Sonja Bayer 7 ,
Eckhard Klieme 7 &
Nina Jude 7

Part of the book series: Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment ((MEMA))

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4 Citations

For at least the past three decades, assessment, evaluation, and accountability have been major strands of educational policy and practice internationally. However, the available data on how exactly assessment- and evaluation-based policies are framed and implemented, or how they shape practices within schools, are still limited. This chapter addresses these issues with a broad focus that takes into account several perspectives on school evaluation and student assessment, together with everyday practices of teacher judgment and grading. First, we address assessment and evaluation practices for the purpose of educational system monitoring. Second, school evaluation practices, as well as the use of assessment and evaluation results at the school level, are discussed. A third perspective focuses on practices of teacher evaluation. Finally, practices of student assessment within schools and classrooms are examined. The instruments described and recommended in this chapter have implications for international research, as well as national studies.

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This chapter expands on a technical paper that was presented to the PISA 2015 Questionnaire Expert Group (QEG) in May 2012 (Doc. QEG 2012−05 Doc 08).

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Bayer, S., Klieme, E., Jude, N. (2016). Assessment and Evaluation in Educational Contexts. In: Kuger, S., Klieme, E., Jude, N., Kaplan, D. (eds) Assessing Contexts of Learning. Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45357-6_19

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17.6: What are the benefits of essay tests?

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Jennfer Kidd, Jamie Kaufman, Peter Baker, Patrick O'Shea, Dwight Allen, & Old Dominion U students

Jennfer Kidd, Jamie Kaufman, Peter Baker, Patrick O'Shea, Dwight Allen, & Old Dominion U students
Old Dominion University

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Learning Objectives

Understand the benefits of essay questions for both Students and Teachers
Identify when essays are useful

Introduction

Essays, along with multiple choice, are a very common method of assessment. Essays offer a means completely different than that of multiple choice. When thinking of a means of assessment, the essay along with multiple choice are the two that most come to mind (Schouller).The essay lends itself to specific subjects; for example, a math test would not have an essay question. The essay is more common in the arts, humanities and the social sciences(Scouller). On occasion an essay can be used used in both physical and natural sciences as well(Scouller). As a future history teacher, I will find that essays will be an essential part of my teaching structure.

The Benefits for Students

By utilizing essays as a mean of assessments, teachers are able to better survey what the student has learned. Multiple choice questions, by their very design, can be worked around. The student can guess, and has decent chance of getting the question right, even if they did not know the answer. This blind guessing does not benefit the student at all. In addition, some multiple choices can deceive the student(Moore). Short answers, and their big brother the essay, work in an entirely different way. Essays remove this factor. in a addition, rather than simply recognize the subject matter, the student must recall the material covered. This challenges the student more, and by forcing the student to remember the information needed, causes the student to retain it better. This in turn reinforces understanding(Moore). Scouller adds to this observation, determining that essay assessment "encourages students' development of higher order intellectual skills and the employment of deeper learning approaches; and secondly, allows students to demonstrate their development."

"Essay questions provide more opportunity to communicate ideas. Whereas multiple choice limits the options, an essay allows the student express ideas that would otherwise not be communicated." (Moore)

The Benefits for Teachers

The matter of preparation must also be considered when comparing multiple choice and essays. For multiple choice questions, the instructor must choose several questions that cover the material covered. After doing so, then the teacher has to come up with multiple possible answers. This is much more difficult than one might assume. With the essay question, the teacher will still need to be creative. However, the teacher only has to come up with a topic, and what the student is expected to cover. This saves the teacher time. When grading, the teacher knows what he or she is looking for in the paper, so the time spent reading is not necessarily more. The teacher also benefits from a better understanding of what they are teaching. The process of selecting a good essay question requires some critical thought of its own, which reflects onto the teacher(Moore).

Multiple Choice. True or False. Short Answer. Essay. All are forms of assessment. All have their pros and cons. For some, they are better suited for particular subjects. Others, not so much. Some students may even find essays to be easier. It is vital to understand when it is best to utilize the essay. Obviously for teachers of younger students, essays are not as useful. However, as the age of the student increase, the importance of the essay follows suit. That essays are utilized in essential exams such as the SAT, SOLs and in our case the PRAXIS demonstrates how important essays are. However, what it ultimately comes down to is what the teacher feels what will best assess what has been covered.

Exercise $\PageIndex{1}$

1)What Subject would most benefit from essays?

B: Mathematics for the Liberal Arts

C: Survey of American Literature

2)What is an advantage of essay assessment for the student?

A) They allow for better expression

B) There is little probability for randomness

C) The time taken is less overall

D) A & B

3)What is NOT a benefit of essay assessment for the teacher

A)They help the instructor better understand the subject

B)They remove some the work required for multiple choice

C)The time spent on preparation is less

D) There is no noticeable benefit.

4)Issac is a teacher making up a test. The test will have multiple sections: Short answer, multiple choice, and an essay. What subject does Issac MOST LIKELY teach?

References Cited

1)Moore, S.(2008) Interview with Scott Moore, Professor at Old Dominion University

2)Scouller, K. (1998). The influence of assessment method on students' learning approaches: multiple Choice question examination versus assignment essay. Higher Education 35(4), pp. 453–472

Students in School: Importance of Assessment Essay

Are tests important for students? Why? How should learning be assessed? Essays like the one on this page aim to answer these questions.

Introduction

Assessment of students is a vital exercise aimed at evaluating their knowledge, talents, thoughts, or beliefs (Harlen, 2007). It involves testing a part of the content taught in class to ascertain the students’ learning progress. Assessment should put into consideration students’ class work and outside class work. For younger kids, the teacher should focus on language development.

This will enhance the kids’ confidence when expressing their ideas whenever asked. As in organizations, checks on the performance of students’ progress should be undertaken regularly. Notably, organizations have a high probability of investing in futility because they lack opportunity for correction.

However, in schools there are more chances of correcting mistakes. Similarly, teachers and parents should have a basis of nurturing and correcting the students. This is only possible through assessment of students at certain intervals during their learning progress. Equally, parents or teachers can use tests as they teach as a means of offering quick solutions to challenges experienced by students while learning.

All trainers should work together with their students with the aim of achieving some goals. To evaluate if the goals are met, trainers use various assessment methods depending on the profession. This is exactly true when it comes to assessment in schools. Assessment should focus on the student learning progress.

It should be employed from the kindergarten to the highest levels of learning institutions such as the university. The most essential fact about assessment is that it has to be specific. This implies that each test should try to evaluate if a student is able to demonstrate the understanding of certain concepts taught in class. Contrary to what most examiners believe, assessment should never be used as a means of ranking students.

I this case the key aims of assessment will be lost. Ranking is not bad, but to some extent it might create a negative impression and demoralize the students who are not ranked at top in class. They feel that they are foolish, which is not the case. In general, assessment should be used for evaluation of results and thus creating and formulation of strategies for improving the students’ learning and performance.

Importance of assessment in school

Assessment forms an important part of learning that determines whether the objectives of education have been attained or not (Salvia, 2001). For important decision making concerning the student’s performance, assessment is inevitable. It is very crucial since it determines what course or career can the student partake depending on class performance.

This is not possible without an exam assessment. It engages instructors with a number of questions, which include whether they are teaching the students what they are supposed to be taught or not, and whether their teaching approach is suitable for students.

Students should be subjected to assessment beyond class work, because the world is changing and they are supposed to adapt to dynamics they encounter in their everyday lives. Assessment is important for parents, students, and teachers.

Teachers should be able to identify the students’ level of knowledge and their special needs. They should be able to identify skills, design lesson plans, and come up with the goals of learning. Similarly, instructors should be able to create new learning arrangements and select appropriate learning materials to meet individual student’s needs.

Teachers have to inform parents about the student’s progress in class. This is only possible with the assessment of the students through either exam or group assessment. The assessment will make teachers improve learning mechanisms to meet the needs and abilities of all students. It provides teachers with a way of informing the public about the student’s progress in school.

Whenever parents are informed about the results of their children, they have to contribute to decision making concerning the student’s education needs (Harlen, 2007). Parents are able to select and pay for the relevant curriculum for their students. They can hire personal tutors or pay tuition to promote the learning of the student.

Students should be able to evaluate their performance and learning in school with the use of assessment results. It forms the basis of self-motivation as through it students are able to put extra efforts in order improve their exam performance. Without results, a student might be tempted to assume that he or she has mastered everything taught in class.

Methods of assessment

Various mechanisms can be used to assess the students in school. These include both group assessment and various examinations issued during the learning session. The exam could be done on a weekly, monthly, or terminal basis. Through this, a student is required to submit a written paper or oral presentation. Assignments are normally given with a fixed date of submission.

The teacher determines the amount of time required depending on the complexity of the assignment. It can take a day, a week, or even a month and this ensures that the student does not only rely on class work. It promotes research work and instills the self-driven virtue to the student. In addition, short time exam gives a quick feedback to the teacher about the student performance.

Exam methods of assessment

Before looking at the various methods of exam assessment, it is important to understand the major role that the assessment plays in the learning of the student. Carrying out an assessment at regular intervals allows the teachers to know how their students are progressing over time with respect to their previous assessments (Harlen, 2007).

Actually, testing of students helps in their learning and creates motivation to learn more and improve their performance in the future examination. It also guides the teacher on ways of passing on the knowledge to the students. There are three purposes of assessment and these include assessment for learning, assessment to learning, and assessment of learning.

All these help the teacher in planning of his lessons and means of getting feedback from students. Moreover, these three factors of learning join the efforts of parents, student, and teachers in the process of learning. There are several repercussions realized when parents do not monitor closely the performance of their kids.

Education experts assert that parents who fail to monitor their children’s learning progress are like farmers who sow seeds during planting season and wait to reap during the harvesting season yet they did nothing about it. The success of the student is easily achieved when there is harmony among the parents, teachers, and the students.

Methods of assessment can be categorized into three steps: baseline, formative and summative (Stefanakis, 2010). The baseline is considered as the basic and marks the beginning of learning. The summative one carries the bigger weight than the formative in the overall performance of the student. It carries more marks and it is usually done at the end of the teaching period in the term paper.

The aim is to check for the overall understanding of the unit or topic by the student. As the formative assessment is a continuous process during the learning session in the classroom, the instructor should use the general feedback and observations while teaching. It can provide an immediate solution to the teacher because the area that troubles the student is easily identified and the teacher takes appropriate action.

Teachers should never ignore the formative or wait for the summative at the end of the learning term. Even if the teacher discovers weakness of the student, it might be less useful since there will be no room for improvement. Actually, it is more of a reactive measure rather than proactive summative assessment. Various mechanisms can be used to realize the formative assessment.

These include surveys, which involve collecting of students’ opinions, attitudes, and behaviors during class (Nitko, 2001). They help the instructor to interact with the student more closely, creating a supportive learning environment for the student. The teacher is able to clear any existing misconception from the students due to prior knowledge. It can also involve reflections of the student.

Here, the student is required to take some time and reflect on what was taught. It necessitates the student to ask several questions regarding what was taught, for instance, questions about the hottest topic, new concepts, or questions left unanswered. It also involves the teacher asking questions during a teaching session. This makes the teacher to point out the areas the students have not understood.

By doing so, the teacher is able to focus and put more effort on some topics as compared to others. The teacher can also decide to issue homework or assignments to students. This gives students an opportunity to build confidence on the knowledge acquired during class work (Stefanakis, 2010).

Most importantly, the teacher could include the objectives and expectations of each lesson and this can be in form of questions. These questions create awareness and curiosity of students about the topic.

For the above methods of assessment, various formats have been adopted. First is the baseline assessment, which aims at examining individual’s experience as well as the prior knowledge. There are pencil and paper easement method, which is a written test. It can be a short essay or multiple choice questions. It checks for the student’s understanding of certain concepts.

The third is the embedded assessment. It deals with testing the students in contextual learning and it is done in the formative stage. The fourth involves oral reports that aim at capturing the student’s communication and scientific skills. They are carried out in the formative stage. Interviews evaluate the group and individual performance during the formative stage.

There is also a performance task, which requires the student to work on an action related to the problem while explaining a scientific idea. Usually, it is assessed both in the summative and formative stages. All these formats ensure the objective of the assessment is achieved (Harlen, 2007). The above exam method promotes learning and acquiring of knowledge among the students.

Group methods of assessment

Assessment is a flexible activity as what is done to an individual during assessment can also be done in a group and still achieve the objectives of the assessment. Group work aims to ensure that students work together. The method is not as smooth as that of an individual’s assessment since awarding of grades is a bit tricky and not straightforward.

The instructors will not know which student has contributed a lot in the group work, unless the same grade is given to group members to create fairness in the process of assessment (Paquette, 2010). It is advisable to consider both the process and finished product when assessing group work.

By just looking at the final work of the group, no one can tell who did what and did not. Individual contributions are implicit in the final project. The teacher should employ some other measures to be able to distribute grades fairly.

The solutions of assessing group include consideration of the process and the final work. The instructor should assess the process involved in the development of the final work. The aspect of the project includes punctuality, cooperation and contribution of the individual student to the group work (Stefanakis, 2010). The participation of each student and teamwork should be assessed.

Fair grading requires looking at the achievement of the objectives of the project. In addition, the instructors can let the students assess and evaluate themselves through group participation. This enhances group teamwork and yields a fair distribution of grades. This is realized because the members of the group know how to research and present written analysis of their work.

Self-assessment aims at realizing respect, promptness, and listening to minority views within the group. Another effective way of ensuring that group work becomes successful is by holding group members accountable. This actually curbs the issue of joy riding among the group members. Individuals are allocated with a certain portion of the entire job.

This involves asking members to demonstrate what they have learned and how they have contributed into the group. In addition, the products and processes are assessed. Another interesting scenario is realized when the instructor gives students the opportunity to evaluate the work of other team members. The gauging of individuals involves the investigating of various aspects of the projects.

These include communication skills, efforts, cooperation, and participation of individual members. It is facilitated by the use of forms, which are completed by the students.

Group work aims at improving both accountability of individuals and vital information due to dynamics experienced in the group. To some extent, an instructor can involve the external feedbacks. These feedbacks are finally incorporated into the final score of the student’s group grade.

There are various mechanisms for assessing and grading the group. First, there is shared grading. Through this, the submitted work of the group is assessed and same grade to all members is awarded without considering the individual’s contribution. Secondly, there is averaging of the group grade. Through this, each member is required to submit the portion allocated.

After assessing the individual’s work, an average of all the members is evaluated and this grade is awarded to group members. This average group grade promotes members to focus on group and individual work. There is also individual grading, where the student’s allocated work is assessed and grades given to individuals.

This enhances efforts during working with all the members. In fact, this method is the fairest way of grading group work. There is also an individual report grading in which each member is required to write individual report. After submitting, assessment is done and a grade is given to the student.

Finally, there is an individual examination grading where questions are examined based on the project. This encourages students to participate fully during the project. It is hard to answer the questions if you have not participated in the group work.

How assessment prepares students for higher education/ workforce/ student character

It is a fact that in any institution exam is an inevitable criterion of assessing students. Whichever the system adopted by the governments of various countries worldwide, exam is an important event as teachers are able to allow those students who perform well to progress in their learning (Stefanakis, 2010). Those who have not met the minimum grading will require extra tuition before they are promoted.

This will involve the initiatives of parents to hire tutors for the student. Exam assessment prepares the student for higher levels of learning, because the higher institutions of learning have exam assessment too. Therefore, it is important for the students to get used to exam as well as research, which will boost the student understanding during lectures in the university or in college.

Similarly, at the end of a university degree course the students are required to carry out a project either as individual or group work. The knowledge and experience of teamwork gained during the lower study levels will play a great role in successful completion of tasks in the university.

Another important factor of assessment is that it helps a student to develop his or her character from childhood to adulthood. For the first time a student joins the school the test should be initiated.

From small things the student is asked by the teacher or by other colleagues, he or she learns how to associate with other students especially during the group work tasks. The student learns and embraces teamwork, cooperation, and accountability. These virtues are a foundation for character. In addition, the student acquires communication skills especially during the presentation of project work or during class sessions.

These small facts about life accumulate and contribute to life outside the school. The student is able to work in any environment. The exam credentials are vital requirements in the job market. All firms base their employment qualification on exams. More often, employers choose best workers based on their exam papers.

This approach has been vital since employers might not have time to assess ability to demonstrate their skills (Stefanakis, 2010). Therefore, the underlying basis is both exam and group assessment. Group assessment helps to build teamwork, which is a vital virtue in the workplace. Most projects in an organization are done in groups. Hence, teamwork aspects are very crucial during implementation.

The student utilizes the knowledge and experience of group work during school. The working environment is not so much different from socialization in school. In any organization, the success of a company is determined by the teamwork and unity of the workers. These vital virtues are learnt and developed in school and are enhanced by assessment.

Harlen, W. (2007). Assessment of learning . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Nitko, A. J. (2001). Educational assessment of students (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

Paquette, K. R. (2010). Striving for the perfect classroom instructional and assessment strategies to meet the needs of today’s diverse learners . New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Salvia, J. (2001). Assessment (8th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Stefanakis, E. H. (2010). Differentiated assessment how to assess the learning potential of every student . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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What are classroom assessment standards, and how do they impact student learning?

When I think back to my eighth-grade math classroom, I remember how I would measure students’ progress toward mastery: I would break standards up into separate learning targets, and those learning targets provided me with a progression for each standard so I could scaffold instruction for my students. But what about the assessments that I gave to determine mastery along the way? I know I designed many opportunities for my students to demonstrate their learning, but did I really have evidence of conceptual understanding that would support students’ growth as standards became increasingly complex? And if I was using standards to effectively teach content, why was I not using standards to effectively assess content?

The classroom assessment standards, first published in 2015, would have helped me in assessing my students more confidently. They provide the necessary foundation for developing and implementing quality classroom assessments, and they are meant to guide current classroom practices so we can positively impact students’ learning. They’re organized into three domains—Foundations, Use, and Quality—and they are the only standards approved by the American National Standards Institute .

Let’s dig a little deeper into the standards and how you might use them in your classroom to further student learning.

A summary of the classroom assessment standards

When we take a closer look at the three domains of the classroom assessment standards, we find six Foundations standards. These provide the starting point for developing and implementing sound and fair classroom assessment.

Assessment Purpose
Learning Expectations
Assessment Design
Student Engagement in the Assessment
Assessment Preparation
Informed Students and Parents/Guardians

The ultimate goal of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and further student learning, so when the intent of the assessment is clear, we are able to effectively align our instructional practices with our classroom assessment practices. The foundation standards articulate the importance of providing multiple opportunities to engage students in demonstrating their understanding, while also stressing the importance of clear communication processes.

The classroom assessment standards have five Use standards that cover everything from understanding how students did to providing feedback and planning instruction following an assessment:

Analysis of Student Performance
Effective Feedback
Instructional Follow-Up
Grades and Summary Comments

When there are productive methods for analyzing student performance, there are opportunities for providing students with effective feedback. Feedback helps kids understand where they are academically and encourages them to use that information to move their learning forward. The Use standards also allow teachers to adjust their current instructional practices to better support students’ efforts, and they remind us to ensure any grades associated with assessments are provided to students in a timely manner and truly reflect mastery of the content.

Finally, five Quality standards focus on providing fair and accurate feedback to all students:

Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
Exceptionality and Special Ed
Unbiased and Fair Assessment
Reliability and Validity

As assessment practices take place in the classroom, it is imperative that students from varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds are provided with adequate opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge. Similarly, students with exceptionalities may require differentiation, and assessment practices should be adjusted accordingly. When they are free from bias, fair classroom assessments ensure there are no tasks that might unfairly impact student performance. Assessments should also consistently provide dependable information that supports the interpretation of each student’s academic knowledge and skills. Ongoing reflection and revision of classroom assessments are best practices to ensure that all methods used to assess students’ learning continue to provide fair, useful, and accurate information.

The classroom assessment standards in action

The classroom assessment standards cover a lot of ground, and I often find that sharing an example from my personal experience can help bring them to life and make it easier for educators to see how they can support them in their classroom.

In 2017, I was serving as an instructional coach in Texas, where I live. Some of our grade-level teams were giving practice STAAR tests, our state assessment, to determine how ready students were for the actual state assessment that would be given later that spring. After the assessment was administered, teachers began analyzing the data and quickly became discouraged by the number of tutoring groups needed for several essential content standards. My role was to work alongside the team of teachers and offer the lenses of collaboration and inquiry. Both then and now, it became clear that focusing on the Foundations and Use standards could help us better serve our students in the time leading up to the real STAAR testing day.

As a discussion developed about why students did not perform as well as we expected on the practice test, the question of purpose emerged, and mixed purposes began to surface. Some teachers explained that they wanted to give the practice assessment to determine how close to passing students were. Other teachers wanted to know which standards their students had mastered so they knew which standards to focus on reteaching. A third group of teachers wanted to have their students practice taking a timed test using test-taking strategies. It was quickly evident that the purpose of the assessment was very muddy. That lack of clarity made next steps unclear, which caused some frustration during our data discussion.

The classroom assessment standards would have served this team of educators well had we had the opportunity to align our purpose ahead of time. The first Foundations standard, Assessment Purpose, asks us to determine why an assessment is needed before we actually begin assessing students, and it provides an opportunity to discuss how the assessment results will be used once we’ve collected the data.

As our data discussion continued, it became evident that several students did not master the most essential grade-level content standards. These particular standards had already been taught for an extended period prior to the assessment. This brought up the question, “How is everyone teaching these standards?” Each team member shared multiple resources and strategies, and differences in opinion on how these specific standards should be taught surfaced during our conversation as well.

The second Foundations standard, Learning Expectations, addresses the alignment of classroom assessment with instructional practices while providing clear learning expectations in student-friendly language. This would have benefited teachers and students at my school by allowing teachers to calibrate instructional strategies. It would also have helped ensure that students were given opportunities to learn in the same way they would be expected to demonstrate their learning on the assessment.

It was evident that our discussion and planning would need to continue during another planning period, so we continued our conversation then. We decided to share student work samples from the assessment at that meeting, and teachers shared their instructional practices with one another to discuss and evaluate their effectiveness. We wanted to ensure we wouldn’t be repeating ineffective strategies and improperly preparing students for success moving forward.

Foundation standard number four, Student Engagement in Assessment, allowed us to determine what exemplars should look like to students. For reteach lessons to be designed effectively, we realized, it was important to remember that students must understand what is expected of them through the illustration of quality work. We also leaned on the second standard in the Use domain, Effective Feedback, to ensure students were getting timely and useful feedback after we followed the first Use standard, Analysis of Student Performance. We committed to allowing more time for feedback when we designed the new lessons that would allow us to reteach the challenging standards.

As you continue on your beautiful journey as an educator, I encourage you to think about how the classroom assessment standards could help you in your work. Ask yourself the following questions about your current practices:

Do I provide a clear purpose for teaching and learning to my students?
Are my classroom instruction and assessments aligned to this purpose?
Do I use multiple pedagogical strategies to allow my students to demonstrate their understanding?
Are my classroom assessment processes and decisions fair for all my students?
Do I engage my students in assessment processes to keep them motivated and connected to their purpose and use?
Am I assessment literate ?

If you’d like more support with assessment, I encourage you to talk to your principal about professional learning opportunities, including NWEA offerings on assessment empowerment . Our sessions can help you understand the elements of a balanced assessment system, build skills in communicating the results of assessments, help you triangulate data to inform your instructional decisions, and make it easier to reframe assessments as opportunities for students to take greater ownership of their learning.

The following Teach. Learn. Grow. articles can also help you on your journey:

“5 feedback game changers every teacher should try”
“What is formative assessment?”
“Formative assessment is not for grading”
“12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth”
“16 resources for putting MAP Growth assessment data to work”

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Six commonly used MAP Growth terms worth knowing

12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth

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What are classroom assessment standards, and how do they impact student learning?

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