Assessment of, as, and for Learning

1 | P a g e https://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/the-collection-and-use-of-assessment-information-good-practice-insecondary-schools/examples-of-good-practice/ Teachers used a range of locally developed and nationally referenced assessment tools to increase their knowledge of students' achievement.

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 2020

Professor Gordon argues for a significant reorientation in the focus and impact of assessment in education. For the types of assessment activities that he advocates to prosper and positively impact education, serious attention must be paid to two important topics: (1) the conceptual underpinnings of the assessment practices we develop and use to support learning and instruction, and ( ) the arguments and evidence we establish for their validity given the intended interpretive use. Such a focus highlights fundamental concepts that have long existed in the broader assessment literature -carefully defining and operationalizing our constructs and then validating the assessments of those constructs. What differs now are the conceptual frameworks, briefly outlined here, that can and must be used to guide both aspects of such work.

Life Science Journal, 2013

Assessment for Learning (AfL) has recently attracted the attention of researchers and educators and has become a buzz-word in the field of education. Research suggests that formative assessment can improve students" learning. However, the concept of formative assessment does not still represent a well-defined set of practices and this issue might affectitssuccessful implementationin different contexts. Studies show thatthere is still no consensus on the definition of formative assessment.Nevertheless, without an agreed upon definition it would be difficult to provide a summary of related research on AfL. In this article,the researchersexplainthe concept of AfL, discussthe most widely used definitions of AfL and proposea new definition from a sociocultural perspective.The proposed definition helps teachers better understand how to implement AfL in a way that enhances students" learning experience.

Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 1998

Deeply embedded in the current education system is assessment. Within education, assessment is used to track and predict pupil achievement and can be defined as a means by which pupil learning is measured (Ronan, 2015). The delivery of teaching and learning within schools is often predetermined by what is assessed, with pupils actively being taught how to achieve the success criteria (appendix 7a). Recognised as a key professional competency of teachers (GTCNI, 2011) and the 6th quality in the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011), assessment can be outlined as ‘the systematic collection, interpretation and use of information to give a deeper appreciation of what pupils know and understand, their skills and personal capabilities, and what their learning experiences enable them to do’ (CCEA, 2013: 4). The aims of the current essay are to venture further into the role of assessment in teaching and learning, paying particular attention to how formative and summative forms of assessment contribute to the discipline; and what impact these have at the classroom and the school level for both teachers and learners. The paper will examine my own experiences of using formative and summative assessment in the classroom, looking specifically at the summative processes I am aware of, before evaluating the purpose of Independent Thinking Time (ITT) and Talk Partners (TP); and how formative assessment can take place within these. In addition to this, the essay will also explore the role of Closing the Gaps (CTGs) in marking, and how questioning can assess conceptual understanding. These will be evaluated against the Teachers’ Standards. The essay will endeavour to foreground some potential challenges with formative and summative assessment (including what I have learned about assessment), before identifying some areas for future development and the strategies to facilitate these.

2000

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.

Critical Quarterly, 2000

Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2011

The idea that assessment is intrinsic to effective instruction is traced from early experiments in the individualization of learning through the work of Benjamin Bloom to reviews of the impact of feedback on learners in classrooms. While many of these reviews detailed the adverse impact of assessment on learning, they also indicated that under certain conditions assessment had considerable potential to enhance learning. It is shown that understanding the impact that assessment has on learning requires a broader focus than the feedback intervention itself, particularly the learner's responses to the feedback, and the learning milieu in which the feedback operates. Different definitions of the terms ''formative assessment'' and ''assessment for learning'' are discussed, and subsumed within a broad definition that focuses on the extent to which instructional decisions are supported by evidence. The paper concludes by exploring some of the consequences of this definition for classroom practice.