Types of Tests

Evaluation vs. Assessment American Evaluation Association: evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products, and organizations to improve their effectiveness.

formative and summative objective and subjective The term assessment is generally used to refer to all activities teachers use to help students learn and to gauge student progress. [3] Though the notion of assessment is generally more complicated than the following categories suggest, assessment is often divided for the sake of convenience using the following distinctions: formative and summative objective and subjective referencing (criterion-referenced, norm-referenced, and ipsative) informal and formal. Objective assessment is a form of questioning which has a single correct answer. Subjective assessment is a form of questioning which may have more than one correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer).

Curriculum -Based Assessment – the use of assessment materials and procedures that mirror instruction in order to ascertain whether specific instructional objectives have been accomplished and monitor progress directly in the curriculum being taught.

Standardized Tests: Norm-referenced score interpretations compare test-takers to a sample of peers (indicates whether the test-taker did better or worse than other people who took the test). Criterion-referenced Tests: A test that measures a person’s skills in terms of absolute levels of mastery Standards-based assessments Alternate Assessment – a substitute way of gathering data often by means of portfolio or performance measures most, criterion-referenced tests involve a cutscore, where the examinee passes if their score exceeds the cutscore and fails if it does not (often called a mastery test). However, not all criterion-referenced tests have a cutscore, and the score can simply refer to a person's standing on the subject domain. EX: ACT is an example of this; there is no cutscore, it simply is an assessment of the student's knowledge of high-school level subject matter. Because of this common misunderstanding, criterion-referenced tests have also been called standards-based assessments by some education agencies,[3] as students are assessed with regards to standards that define what they "should" know, as defined by the state.[4]

A high-stakes test is not specifically a feature of a criterion-referenced test. It is instead a feature of how an educational or government agency chooses to use the results of the test.

Informal and formal Assessment can be either formal or informal. Formal assessment usually implicates a written document, such as a test, quiz, or paper. A formal assessment is given a numerical score or grade based on student performance. An informal assessment does not contribute to a student's final grade. An informal assessment usually occurs in a more casual manner and may include observation, inventories, checklists, rating scales, performance and portfolio assessments, participation, peer and self evaluation, and discussion.