EDUC 4 (Assessment in Learning 1)

LESSON 2 – BASIC CONCEPTS IN ASSESSMENT

Introduction
Assessment of learning focuses on the development and utilization of assessment
tools to improve the teaching-learning process. It emphasizes on the use of testing for
measuring knowledge, comprehension and other thinking skills. As part of the overall
evaluation process, we need specifically to find if the learners are actually learning
(changing their behavior) as a result of teaching. This will show us whether teaching has
been effective. Assessment is a means of finding out what learning is taking place. We
might also measure other changes in behavior related to “personality” such as social
skills, interests, and learning style, among others.
With the change of focus of instruction from content to learning outcomes came
the need to redefine and clarify the terms used to determine the progress of students
toward the attainment of the desired learning outcomes. These are testing,
measurement, assessment, and evaluation.

Learning Outcomes

1. Explain the basic concepts and principles in educational assessment.

2. Explain the various approaches to assessment: assessment FOR, OF and AS
learning.
3. Differentiate the types of assessment that can be applied for classroom evaluation.
4. Discuss the role of assessment in making instructional decisions to improve
teaching and learning.
Content Focus
The former Executive Director of Teacher Education Council (TEC), Dr. Roberto N.
Padua, states that “teaching today is a far more complicated profession than it was a
couple of decades ago. The teacher, therefore, is expected to be fully conversant of the
measurement and assessment procedures that underpin testing in the three domains:
cognitive, affective, and psychomotor.” He points out that all institutions of learning
should aspire for a very comprehensive evaluation program. This means that the
evaluation program should take an account of the total aspects of students’ lives—inside
and outside of the school.
This recent view of a comprehensive evaluation necessitates the use of
assessment rather than measurement.

A. Common Terminologies MEASUREMENT

• Process of quantifying test results or the attributes of an object.
• It expresses the assessment data in terms of numerical values and answers the
question “how much”.
• Actual collection of information on student learning through the use of various
strategies and tools.
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• Common example of measurement is when a teacher gives a score to the test

taken by the students where numerical values are used to represent the
performance of students.

TESTING
• The most common form of assessment is giving a test.
• A process of administering a test to an individual or a group of students.
• Use of test or battery of tests to collect information on student learning over a
specific period of time.
• Involves test preparation, test administration, scoring, and interpretation of test
results.
EVALUATION
• Process of making value judgements on the information collected from
measurement.
• It is a comparison of data to a set of standard or learning criteria for the purpose of
judging the worth or quality.
• The scope is wider than assessment which focuses specifically on student
learning outcomes.

TYPES AND DISTINCTIONS OF TEST

Test and Assessment
Test and assessment are used interchangeably, but they do mean something
different. A test is a “product” that measures a particular behavior or set of objectives.
Meanwhile assessment is seen as a procedure instead of a product. Assessment is used
during and after the instruction has taken place. After you’ve received the results of your
assessment, you can interpret the results and in case needed alter the instruction. Tests
are done after the instruction has taken place. It’s a way to complete the instruction and
get the results.
A test is used to examine someone’s knowledge of something to determine what
that person knows or has learned. It measures the level of skill or knowledge that has
been reached. It is a formal and systematic way of gathering information about the
learners’ behavior, usually through paper-and-pencil procedure.
While a test is one form of assessment that refers to procedures used to measure a
learners’ learning at a specific point in time and often involves collecting information in
numerical form, assessment refers to any of the procedure’s teachers use to do this,
which may include interviews, observations, administering questionnaires and reviewing
students’ work. Assessment covers a broader range of procedures than testing and
includes both formal and informal measures.
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Types of Tests
Numerous types of tests are used in school. There are different ways of categorizing
tests, namely: ease of quantification of response, mode of preparation, mode of
administration, test constructor, mode of interpreting results, and nature of response.
As to test constructor, tests can be classified into standardized and
unstandardized.

1. Standardized test – test prepared by an expert or specialist. This test samples

behavior under uniform procedures. Questions are administered to students
with the same directions and time limits. Results in this kind of test are scored
following a detailed procedure based on its manual and interpreted based on
specified norms or standards. In other words, this type of test is administered
and scored under a consistent set of procedures. Uniform conditions of
administration are necessary to make it possible to compare results across
individuals or schools. Example: NAT (National Achievement Test)
2. Unstandardized test (or Informal Test) – test prepared by teachers for use in
the classroom with no established norms for scoring and interpretation of
results. It is constructed by a classroom teacher to meet a particular need.

As to ease of quantification of response or scoring, tests can be objective or

subjective.

1. Objective test – a paper-and-pencil test wherein students’ answers can be

compared and quantified to yield a numerical score because it requires
convergent or specific response. No matter who checks the paper at different
times and setting, similar results are generated.
2. Subjective test – a paper-and-pencil test which is not easily quantified as
students are given the freedom to write their answer to a question, such as an
essay test. Thus, the answer to this type of test is divergent. Sometimes this test
allows fewer objective means of scoring (especially when no rubrics are used).

Tests can also be classified as to test item format as selective or supply type.

1. Selective type (also known as Recognition type) - requires students to choose

a correct answer from the given alternatives for every item. Examples of this are
multiple choice, matching type, and alternative response tests.
2. Supply type (or Constructed Response) – requires the examinees to write or
state the correct answer as required for every item. The examinees are required
to write a word or group of words to satisfy the answer for every item in the test
as in the following examples: identification, labelling, enumeration, and
completion tests.
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As to mode of administration, tests can either be individual or group.

1. Individual test – administered to one student at a time.

2. Group test – administered to a group of students simultaneously.

As to scope, tests are classified as mastery or survey test.

1. Mastery test – to find if the students have mastered a specific content.

Determining the students’ level of mastery will make the teacher decide on
some interventions to undertake in order to improve mastery in the specific area.
Thus, the coverage of the Mastery Test is on a specific area.
2. Survey test – to determine what the students have learned over a period of time.
The coverage of this test is on a broad area.

When the level of difficulty of the test is considered, it can be classified as power
or speed test.

1. Speed test – contains items with almost similar difficulty levels. A student’s
performance is measured in terms of how many correct items he obtains in the
allotted period of time.
2. Power test – contains items with increasing difficulty as the testing process
progresses.

B. What is educational assessment

Assessment is a process of gathering qualitative or quantitative data for the
purpose of making decisions. It determines the impact of curriculum and instruction on
students.
Assessment is a general term that includes different ways that teachers used to
gather information in the classroom. It may involve, among others, activities such as
administering different kinds of written tests, observation of behavior or performance,
examination of work samples, use of checklists, and interview. In order to make
classroom evaluation more comprehensive, the term assessment focuses on
determining the amount of learning in the three domains: cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor. It usually answers the questions, “Was the instruction effective?” and
“Did the students achieve the intended learning outcomes?”

Assessment in Learning
● Systematic and purposeful collection, analysis and interpretation of evidence of
student learning in order to make informed decisions relevant to the learners
● Characterized as a process, objective-based and comes from multiple sources
● As a continuous process, assessment establishes measurable and clear student
learning outcomes for learning, provisioning a sufficient amount of learning
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opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implementing a systematic way of

gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student
learning matches expectations, and using the collected information to inform
improvement in student learning.

Principles in Assessing Learning

1. Assessment should have a clear purpose. Effective assessment requires a clear
concept of all intended learning outcomes.
2. Assessment is not an end in itself. It is a vehicle for educational improvement.
3. Assessment is an ongoing, continuous, and formative process.
4. Assessment is learner-centered.
5. Assessment is both product and process oriented.
6. Assessment must be comprehensive and holistic.
7. Assessment requires the use of appropriate measures.
8. Assessment should be as authentic as possible.

Approaches to Assessment
Classroom assessment is generally divided into three types:
Assessment of learning
Assessment for learning
Assessment as learning

a. Assessment of Learning. Generally summative in nature, this is the use of

assessment to determine learners’ acquired knowledge and skills from
instruction and whether they were able to achieve the curriculum outcomes.
(Summative Assessment). It is usually given at the end of a unit, grading period
or a term like a semester. It is meant to assess learning for grading purposes, the
term Assessment of Learning.

b. Assessment for Learning. This is the use of assessment to identify the needs of
learners in order to modify instruction or learning activities in the classroom.
This assessment is formative in nature and is meant to identify gaps between the
learning experience and curriculum outcomes.
(Formative Assessment)
Assessment for learning means teachers using students’ knowledge,
understanding, and skills to inform their teaching. It occurs throughout the
teaching and learning process to clarify and ensure student learning and
understanding.

c. Assessment as Learning. This is the use of assessment to help learners become

self-regulated. It is formative in nature meant to use assessment tasks, results
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and feedback to help learners learn and improve self-regulation and prepare for
possible adjustments to achieve curriculum outcomes.
In short, in assessment as learning, students set their targets, actively
monitor and evaluate their own learning in relation to their set target.
Consequently, they become directed and independent learners. By assessing
their own learning, they are learning at the same time.

Uses of Educational Assessment

Tests serve a lot of functions for school administrators, supervisors, teachers, and
parents, as well (Escarilla & Gonzales, 1990).

1. School administrators utilize test results for making decisions regarding the
promotion or retention of students; improvement or enrichment of the curriculum,
and conduct of staff development programs for teachers.
2. Supervisors use test results in discovering learning areas needing special attention
and identifying teachers’ weaknesses and learning competencies not mastered by
the students. Test results can also provide supervisors baseline data on curriculum
revision.
3. Teachers utilize test results for numerous purposes. Through testing, teachers are
able to gather information about the effectiveness of instruction, give feedback to
students about their progress, and assign grades.
Parents also derive benefits from tests administered to their children. Through test
scores, they are able to determine how well their children are progressing in school and
how well the school is doing its share in educating their children.

Modes of Assessment
There are different types or modes of assessment used by classroom teachers to
assess the learning
progress of the students.

1. Traditional Assessment
• A type of assessment in which the students choose their answer from a given
list of choices.
• Students are expected to recognize that there is only one correct or best
answer for the question.
• Teacher-made tests are traditional assessment tools.
2. Alternative Assessment
• Students create an original response to answer a certain question using their
own ideas and in their own words.
• Examples of alternative assessment are short-answer questions, essays, oral
presentations, demonstrations, performance assessment, and portfolios.
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o Performance-based Assessment – an assessment in which students are

asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful
application of essential knowledge and skills.
The teacher creates the task as well as develop guidelines for scoring
and interpretation. o Portfolio Assessment – systematic, longitudinal
collection of student work created in response to a specific, known
instructional objectives and evaluated in relation to some criteria.
o Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the
student’s efforts, progress and achievement in one or more areas over a
period of time.

Roles of Assessment in the classroom

“Teaching and learning are reciprocal processes that depend on and affect one
another” (Swearingen, 2000 and Kellough, 1999). The assessment component of the
instructional process deals with the learning progress of the students and the teacher’s
effectiveness in imparting knowledge to students. Assessment may be given at the
beginning of instruction, during instruction, and at the end of instruction.

• Assessment enhances learning in the instructional processes if the result provides

feedback to both the students and teachers.
• The information obtained from assessment is used to evaluate the teaching
methodologies and strategies of the teacher.
• It is also used to make teaching decisions.
• Result of assessment is used to diagnose the learning problems of the students.

Four roles of assessment in the instructional process:

• Beginning of Instruction
Also known as placement assessment, it is concerned with the entry
performance and typically focuses on the questions: Does the learner possess the
knowledge and skills needed to begin the planned instruction? To what extent has
the learner already developed the understanding and skills that are the goals of
planned objectives? To what extent do the student’s interest, work habits, and
personality indicate that one mode of instruction is better than another?
The purpose of placement assessment is to determine the prerequisite skills,
degree of mastery of the course objectives and the best mode of learning.

• During Instruction
During the instructional process, the main concern of a classroom teacher is
to monitor the learning progress of the students. The teacher should assess
whether the students achieved the intended learning outcomes set for particular
lesson.
EDUC 4 (Assessment in Learning 1)

Formative Assessment. This is a type of assessment used to monitor the

learning progress of the students during instruction. The purposes of formative
assessment are to:

a. provide immediate feedback to both student and teacher regarding the

success and failures of learning;
b. identify the learning errors that are in need of correction;
c. provide teachers with information on how to modify instruction; and
d. improve learning and instruction.

Diagnostic Assessment. This is a type of assessment given at the

beginning of instruction or during instruction. It aims to identify the strengths
and weaknesses of the students regarding the topics to be discussed.

• End of Instruction
Summative assessment is a type of assessment usually given at the end of a
course or unit to determine the extent to which instructional objectives have been
attained, the students’ mastery of the intended learning outcomes, and the
effectiveness of instruction.

ACTIVITY/SEATWORK:
1. Complete the table to summarize the types of assessment in learning. (5 points each)
TYPE of PURPOSE
ASSESSMENT
Assessment of
learning
Assessment for
learning
Assessment as
Learning

2. Give a classroom scenario where the principle “Assessment is Learner-Centered” is

shown. (10 points)
3. Write your reflection on the recent concepts of assessment and evaluation. Focus on
the following questions: (10 points each)
a. What important points do you realize as you read the concepts?
b. How important are the concepts for your chosen profession?