Assessments also are used to identify individual student weaknesses and strengths so that

educators can provide specialized academic support, educational programming, or social service.
In education, the term assessment refers to the wide variety of methods or tools that educators
use to evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness, learning progress, skill
acquisition, or educational needs of students.

Measurement is defined as the process of determining the characteristics of an educational

process, program, or curriculum through the use of an accepted standard or applied criteria in an
effort to compare performance or learning.

Test is a method to determine students ability. In education, it is called an examination or exam,
it serves to assess or measure students performance, knowledge or skills. Test is a method of
measuring a person's ability, knowledge, or performance in a give domain.

Educational evaluation is acquiring and analyzing data to determine how each student's behavior
evolves during their academic career. Evaluation is a continual process more interested in a
student's informal academic growth than their formal academic performance.

Assessment of Learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or
symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will
affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of
assessment of learning
be credible and defensible.
Example of assessment of learning
processes that make it possible for students to demonstrate their competence and skill.

Assessment for Learning happens during the learning, often more than once, rather than at the
end.
Students understand exactly what they are to learn, what is expected of them and are given
feedback and advice on how to improve their work.
In Assessment for Learning, teachers use assessment as an investigable tool to find out as much
as they can about what their students know and can do, and what confusions, preconceptions, or
gaps they might have.
The wide variety of information that teachers collect about students’ learning processes provides
the basis for determining what they need to do next to move student learning forward. It
provides the basis for providing descriptive feedback for students and deciding on groupings,
instructional strategies, and resources.”
Example: Providing immediate feedback and direction to students.

Assessment as learning
Through this process students are able to learn about themselves as learners and become aware
of how they learn – become megacognitive (knowledge of one’s own thought processes).
Students reflect on their work on a regular basis, usually through self and peer assessment and
decide (often with the help of the teacher, particularly in the early stages) what their next
learning will be.
Assessment as learning helps students to take more responsibility for their own learning and
monitoring future directions.
Example ipsative assessments, self-assessments and peer assessments.

1. Proficiency Test

The purpose of proficiency test is to test global competence in a language. It tests overall ability
regardless of any training they previously had in the language. Proficiency tests have traditionally
consisted of standardized multiple-choices item on grammar, vocabulary, reading
comprehension, and listening comprehension. One of a standardized proficiency test is TOEFL.

2. Diagnostic Test

The purpose is to diagnose specific aspects of a language. These tests offer a checklist of features
for the teacher to use in discovering difficulties. Proficiency tests should elicit information on
what students need to work in the future; therefore the test will typically offer more detailed
subcategorized information on the learner. For example, a writing diagnostic test would first elicit
a writing sample of the students. Then, the teacher would identify the organization, content,
spelling, grammar, or vocabulary of their writing. Based on that identifying, teacher would know
the needs of students that should have special focus.

3. Placement Test

The purpose of placement test is to place a student into a particular level or section of a language
curriculum or school. It usually includes a sampling of the material to be covered in the various
courses in a curriculum. A student’s performance on the test should indicate the point at which
the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult. Placement tests come in many
varieties: assessing comprehension and production, responding through written and oral
performance, multiple choice, and gap filling formats. One of the examples of Placement tests is
the English as a Second Language Placement Test (ESLPT) at San Francisco State University.

4. Achievement Test

The purpose of achievement tests is to determine whether course objectives have been met with
skills acquired by the end of a period of instruction. Achievement tests should be limited to
particular material addressed in a curriculum within a particular time frame. Achievement tests
belong to summative because they are administered at the end on a unit/term of study. It
analyzes the extent to which students have acquired language that have already been taught.
5. Language Aptitude Test

The purpose of language aptitude test is to predict a person’s success to exposure to the foreign
language. According to John Carrol and Stanley Sapon (the authors of MLAT), language aptitude
tests does not refer to whether or not an individual can learn a foreign language; but it refers to
how well an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given
conditions. In other words, this test is done to determine how quickly and easily a learner learn
language in language course or language training program. Standardized aptitude tests have been
used in the United States:
Example
The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT)
The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB)