Innovation in Assessment and Evaluation System

2017

A number of people contributed to the successful completion of his thesis in different ways. I feel indebted to acknowledge their selfless contributions.  To my promoter Prof EC du Plessis and academic consultant Prof GD Kamper. Thank you for your superb guidance and support which inspired me. I am grateful for believing in me from the start and for enduring the exciting scholarly pursuit with me.  To my dear colleagues at CES who, throughout this, were patient with me and allowed me lots of chances to share my goals and explain my thinking.  UNAM for financial support throughout this study.  My dearest wife Roslyn and my daughters (#Khitago and Hatago) for unwavering support and encouragement. You have been pillars of strength.  All my family and friends who supported.me throughout and remained my friends despite my "silence".

1985

The idea of assessment as learning is discussed, along with the practical history of assessment, and how student assessments should be conducted. Background information covers the use of assessment in'business and government, as well as in education and psychology. It is proposed that assessment include: multidimensional sampling of students' abilities in action; observation and judgment of those samples on the basis of explicit criteria; and structured feedback, administered sequentially in relation to a learner's development. Each of these elements in turn must contribute to the growth of the students' ability to self-assess. Issues relevant to beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners are identified, and research on criteria, feedback, and self-assessment is reviewed. To help faculty design individual classroom assessments, consideration is given to: determining a specific ability or expected outcome, identifying component abilities, selecting or designing a stimulus and context, attending to developmental levels, developing criteria, providing for self-assessment, and judging performance and giving feedback. Included are guidelines for judging whether criteria are effective and an example of extending assessment beyond the classroom to a wider curriculum context. (SW)

2019

This chapter discusses that the goal of assessment, as a part of teaching, in higher education should be to prepare the learner for performing in real life as a professional. The learner should become a self-regulator and a self-evaluator. The instructor (faculty, supervisor, or mentor) at the university must understand that assessment is a process of coaching and assisting, not just approving students’ achievement. Technology acquired by the universities in the form of learning management systems (LMS) can be used to provide feedback and assistance to a large number of students. The role of feedback is discussed as an essential component of assessment that would help students to reflect and learn. Rubrics must be used as a tool to provide feedback to students instead of just grading assignments. Assessment of Learning in Higher Education

2013

The article explores the challenges of assessment in open distance learning (ODL). The authors argue that ultimately assessment should be about improving the quality of teaching and effective learning. It should be based on making expectations explicit and public, setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality, systematically gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches expectations and standards, and using the resultant information to document, explain, and improve performance. However, getting all these variables to work in ODL presents mammoth challenges. How can ODL lecturers validate and authenticate students' written work? How can they tell whether the students' submitted work sufficiently reflects their knowledge and understanding? South Africa has inherited an unequal, racially skewed and inequitable educational provision from its apartheid past. This poses serious challenge for assessing quality. The article therefore seeks to understand these context-specific challenges of ODL assessment at UNISA.

Tci, 2014

Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education, 2023

This chapter considers the assessment of learning in open, distance, and digital education. To add new insights to the extensive body of relevant prior research literature, the chapter uses two "dimensions" of assessment to summarize and extend this work. The first dimension is assessment function. This includes traditional summative functions ("assessment of learning"), modern formative functions ("for learning"), and contemporary transformative functions ("as learning"). This also includes recently introduced conformative functions ("as compliance") and deformative functions ("as sabotage"). The second dimension is theory of learning. This includes differential, cognitive-associationist, cognitive-constructivist, and situative/sociocultural theories. This chapter pays particular attention to how these dimensions interact with each other in complex (and often unanticipated) ways, and briefly considers how they interact with two other

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has emerged as an important mode for providing education to diverse sections of the society because of its inherent flexibility and affordability coupled with application of new information and communication technologies. Quality of education being offered by ODL Institutions has become a matter of major concern in today’s context keeping in view the large number of institutions offering programme through distance mode and also because of the fact that there is not much face to face interaction between the teachers and learners in ODL. The rapid growth in the number of ODL institutions and the speed at which they are growing has necessitated the need to rank them or grade them in accordance with their level of achievement in meeting the expected standards or criteria laid down for such systems. A common question raised in higher education is “should Standards for Quality Assurance in Open and Distance Learning be different from Quality Assurance in Conventional Education?” In order to maintain equivalence and credibility of programme offerings, it is generally agreed that while standards and benchmarks should be the same, the assessment framework should reflect the special features of ODL. In this article an attempt is made to develop a framework to evaluate ODL institutions and grade them through a systematic scheme of assessment and accreditation.

Unleashing the potential of continuous improvement in teaching/learning requires an appreciation of the difference in spirit between assessment and evaluation. Assessment is frequently confused and confounded with evaluation. The purpose of an evaluation is to judge the quality of a performance or work product against a standard. The fundamental nature of assessment is that a mentor values helping a mentee and is willing to expend the effort to provide quality feedback that will enhance the mentee's future performance. While both processes involve collecting data about a performance or work product, what is done with these data in each process is substantially different and invokes a very different mindset. This paper first looks at what assessment is and the various aspects involving. Then attention will be turn to evaluation and its components. Furthermore, it will look at testing as a tool used by both assessment and evaluation, lastly some differences between assessment and evaluation will be presented.

Based from the behavioural educational theories, higher learning institutions has been using assessment to measure the quality or success of a taught course and to evaluate whether the students have achieved (Ellery, 2008) the minimum standard that is acceptable to be awarded with the degree. An assessment can be conducted by means of paper and pencil, presentations, lab work, case studies, essays, multiple choice questions, true/false statements, short essays, etc. During the semester, students may be tested to improve their learning experience; this is called a formative test (continuous assessment), whereas a summative test (final assessment) is done at the end or completion of the course or program. A test can be used to measure students' ability or to determine the basic mastery or skills or competencies acquired during a course. There are several types of tests; such as, placement test, diagnostic test, progress test, achievement test, and aptitude test. A placement test is done to place students in teaching groups or classes so that they are within the same level of ability or competency. A diagnostic test is done to identify students' strengths and weaknesses in a particular course. A progress test is done during the semester to measure the progress of students in acquiring the subject taught. An achievement test is done to determine students' mastery of a particular subject at the end of the semester. Whereas an aptitude test is done to determine the students' ability to learn new skills or the potential to succeed in a particular academic program. A good assessment should be valid, reliable, and practical. In terms of validity, an assessment should test what it is intended to measure. For example, content validity is when the test items adequately cover the syllabus. A valid assessment measures achievement of the course learning outcomes. In terms of reliability, does the assessment allow the examiners to evaluate it consistently and differentiate between varying levels of performance? Whereas in terms of practicality, we need to ensure that the length given to students for their assessments are appropriate. There are two types of tests, objective and subjective. For objective, we can choose multiple choice questions, true/false, or fill in the blanks; whereas for subjective we can choose either short or long essay. Although there are objective and subjective tests, I would like to focus on subjective test (essays) because we use this type most often; especially in final exam. When constructing an assessment, we need to bear in mind the objectives of learning of a particular course. Specifically, we need to refer to the course information of the course learning outcomes before constructing the exam questions. In addition, we need to understand Bloom's Taxonomy or classifications of objectives. The three classifications are cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The six levels of cognitive domain are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The levels for affective domain are receiving, responding, valuing, organizing, and characterizing. Psychomotor levels are imitation, manipulation, precision, articulation, and naturalization. I have discussed in detail about the levels of each domain in the previous issue; thus, in this issue I would like to discuss on cognitive domain because this is the most frequently used in final exam and we are quite familiar with it.