Chapter 1

REVIEW OF PRINCIPLES OF HIGH-QUALITY ASSESSMENT

Definitions

Measurement – the quantification of what students learned through the use of tests, rating scales,
checklists, score cards and other devices. It answers the question, how much does a student learn or know?
Assessment – the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes
and beliefs. It looks into how much change has occurred on the student’s acquisition of a skill, knowledge
or value before and after a given learning experience.

Evaluation – the making of judgments on the worth or value of a performance; it answers the
question, how good, adequate or desirable is it?
While measurement refers to the quantification of students’ performance and assessment as the
gathering and synthesizing of information, evaluation is a process of making judgments, assigning value or
deciding on the worth of students’ performance.
Alternative Assessment Methods (authentic / integrative / holistic assessment) give students
situations that occur in the real world which require them to apply their relevant skills and knowledge.

Authentic Assessment (AA) – students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate
meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills (Jon Mueller, 2011).

Characteristics of AA:
 starts with clear and definite criteria of performance made known to the students
 is criterion-referenced, and it identifies strengths and weaknesses
 requires students to make their own answers and to use a range of higher order thinking skills
 often emphasizes performance and therefore students are required to demonstrate their
knowledge, skills or competencies in appropriate situations
 encourages both teacher and students to determine their rate of progress in cooperatively attaining
the desired student learning outcomes
 does not encourage rote learning and passive taking of tests
 values not only the finished products but also the learning process
 makes students active and involved in assessment activities

Differences between Traditional Assessment (TA) and Authentic Assessment (AA)

Attributes TA AA
Action/Options Selecting a response Developing a response; performing a task
Setting Contrived / Imagined Simulation / Real-life
Method Recall / Recognition Construction / Applications
Focus Teacher-structured Student-structured
Outcome Indirect evidence Direct evidence
Evaluator Teacher Teacher, Student, Peer, Stakeholders
Thinking Skills Lower / Basic Higher in addition to lower

Portfolio Assessment - emphasizes the active demonstration of knowledge through evidence of

student’s work and veers away from traditional testing in the sense of pencil-paper cognitive tests. It
can be used for evaluating not only the learning outcomes but more importantly, in gauging the
quality of the learning process that took place.
Non-objective Tests – alternative assessment mechanism of measuring educational outcomes and
processes and measure more complex processes in education.
Performance-based Assessment – to gauge a learner competency in a certain task through observation
on site; to assess learners on what they know, what they are able to do and the learning strategies they
employ in the process of demonstrating it.
Taxonomy of the Different Domains

Cognitive Affective Psychomotor

Bloom’s (1956) Anderson’s (1990) Krathwol’s (1964) Simpson’s (1972)
Knowledge Remembering Receiving Perception
Comprehension Understanding Responding Set
Application Applying Valuing Guided Response
Analysis Analyzing Organization Mechanism
Synthesis Evaluating Characterization by a Complex Overt Response
Evaluation Creating Value or Value Complex Adaptation
Origination
Note: with additional hand out on: Kendall’s and Marzano’s New Taxonomy (2007)
Harrow’s Taxonomy (1972)

1.1 Learning Targets / Outcomes

Assessment can be made precise, accurate and dependable only if what are to be achieved are
clearly stated and feasible.

Learning Outcomes in the teacher education program are the competencies, skills and values
that the students are expected to demonstrate at the end of the course/subject which are in turn,
integrated into the year-end formation of students as they progress towards becoming professional
teachers.

Sources of expected student learning outcomes:

1. Institution’s mission statement
2. Policies on competencies and standards issued by government agencies
3. Competencies identified by the profession, business and industry
4. Thrusts and development goals of the national government
5. International trends and development
6. Competencies and expectations of students

Characteristics of good learning outcomes:

1. Centered on the students, on what the learners are capable of doing
2. Based on the program mission statement agreed upon by the program faculty in
consultation with other stakeholders
3. Understood by both students and faculty
4. Include a spectrum of thinking skills from simple to the higher order of application of
knowledge and skills
5. Measurable

a. Cognitive Targets
Knowledge – acquisition of facts, concepts and theories.
Comprehension – understanding.
Application – the transfer of knowledge from one field of study to another or from one concept to
another concept in the same discipline.
Analysis – the breaking down of a concept or idea into its components and explaining the concept
as a composition of these concepts.
Synthesis – the opposite of analysis and entails putting together the components in order to
summarize the concept.
Evaluation and Reasoning – valuing and judgment or putting the worth of a concept or principle.

b. Skills, Competencies and Abilities Targets

Skills refer to specific activities or tasks that a student can proficiently do. e.g. skills in coloring,
language skills.
Competencies refer to skills which are clustered together. e.g. birthday card making.
 Abilities refer to related competencies, which can be roughly categorized into:
 Cognitive. e.g. programming and web designing; highly technical individualized work.
 Psychomotor.
 Affective. e.g. the ability to work well with others, and to be trusted = leadership abilities.
b. Products, Outputs and Projects Targets
Products, outputs and projects are tangible and concrete evidence of a student’s ability. A clear
target for products and projects need to clearly specify the level of workmanship of such projects.
e.g.
 expert level - an expert output may be characterized by the indicator “at most two
imperfections noted”

 skilled level - a skilled level output can be characterized by the indicator “at most four (4)
imperfections noted”

 novice level

1.2 Appropriateness of Assessment Methods and Tools

Once the learning targets are clearly set, it is now necessary to determine an appropriate
assessment procedure or method.

a. Written-Response

Written-response instruments include objective tests (multiple choice, true-false, matching or

short answer) and essays.

b. Product / Process Oriented Performance-based Assessments

Examples of products: book reports, maps, charts, diagrams, notebooks, essays and creative
endeavors of all sorts.

Examples of processes: dancing, surveying, role playing, welding, etc.

Tools that can be used to measure one’s performance include rating scale, rubrics, and
checklists.

c. Oral Test
It is an appropriate assessment method when the objectives are: (a) to assess the student’s
stock knowledge and/or (b) to determine the student’s ability to communicate ideas in coherent
verbal sentences.

Several factors to be considered when using this option are the student’s state of mind and
feelings, anxiety and nervousness in making oral presentations which could mask the student’s true
ability.

Tools that can be used to measure one’s performance include rating scale, rubrics, and
checklists.

d. Observation and Self Reports

Observation and self-reports are useful supplementary assessment methods when used with
oral questioning and performance tests. Such methods can offset the negative impact on the students
brought about by their fears and anxieties during oral questioning or when performing actual task
under observation.

Tools could be:

 Tally sheet - a device often used by teachers to record the frequency of student behaviors,
activities or remarks.

Self-checklist - a list of several characteristics or activities presented to the subjects of a

study. The individuals are asked to study the list and then to place a mark opposite the
characteristics which they possess or the activities which they have engaged in for a
particular length of time.

1.3 Properties of Assessment Methods

The quality of the assessment instrument and method used in education is very important since the
evaluation and judgment that the teacher gives on a student are based on the information he obtains using
these methods and instruments.

a. Validity
It refers to the appropriateness, correctness, meaningfulness and usefulness of the specific
conclusions that a teacher reaches regarding the teaching-learning situation.

Content validity refers to the appropriateness and comprehensiveness of the content of the
instrument. The sample of items or questions should adequately represent the content to be assessed.

Criteria for judging content validity:

1. Do students have adequate experience with the type of task posed by the item?

2. Did the teachers cover sufficient material for most students to be able to answer the item correctly?

3. Does the item reflect the degree of emphasis received during instruction?

With these as guide, a content validity table may be constructed in 2 forms as provided below:

Form A: ITEM VALIDITY

Item No.
Criteria
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Material covered sufficiently.
2. Most students are able to answer item correctly.
3. Students have prior experience with the type of task.
Decision: Accept or Reject

Form B: ENTIRE TEST

Knowledge/Skills Estimated Percent of Percentage of Items
Area Instruction Covered in Test
1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

Based on Form B, adjustments in the number of items that relate to a topic can be made
accordingly.

Face validity – it refers to the outward appearance of the test. It is the lowest form of test validity.

Criterion-related validity – the test item is judged against a specific criterion.

 Construct validity – A “construct” is another term for a factor; and a group of variables that
correlate highly with each other form a factor.

b. Reliability
The reliability of an assessment method refers to its consistency or dependability or stability.
Stability or internal consistency as reliability measures can be estimated in several ways:
1. Split-half method - involves scoring two halves (usually, odd items versus even items) of a test
separately for each person and then calculating a correlation coefficient for the two sets of scores.
The coefficient indicates the degree to which the two halves of the test provide the same results
and hence, describes the internal consistency of the test.
2. Test-retest method – it is used when the same test is administered at two different time periods.
The estimate of test reliability is then given by the correlation of the two test results.

c. Fairness
An assessment procedure needs to be fair, such that:
 students need to know exactly what the learning targets are and what method of assessment will
be used
 assessment has to be viewed as an opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity to weed out
poor and slow learners
 there should be freedom from teacher-stereo-typing. e.g. gender stereotyping: boys are better
than girls in Mathematics or girls are better than boys in language. Such stereotyped images and
thinking could lead to unnecessary and unwanted biases in the way that teachers assess their
students.

d. Practicality and Efficiency

An assessment procedure should be:

 practical - the teacher should be familiar with it, does not require too much time and is
implementable.
 efficient – the test should not be a complex assessment procedure but should be easy to score
and interpret resulting to correct diagnosis or timely feedback.

e. Ethics in Assessment
Ethics refers to the questions of right and wrong, if it is right to assess a specific knowledge or
investigate a certain question.

Basic points a teacher should consider on ethics in assessment:

1. No physical or psychological harm should come to any one as a result of assessment or testing
2. Confidentiality of test results and assessment results. Such should be known only by the student
concerned and the teacher.
3. No deception. There are instances in which it is necessary to conceal the objective of the
assessment from the students in order to ensure fair and impartial results.
4. Not to be tempted to assist certain individuals in class during assessment or testing. In this case,
it is better for the teacher not to administer the test himself if he believes that such a concern
may, at a later time, be considered unethical.