Faculty of Education Assessment Workshop Facilitator: Prof. Derek Cheung 24 June 2011

Some Basic Concepts Educational Assessment -- a process for obtaining information that is used for making decisions about students, curricula and programs, and educational policy. Assessing a students competence -- collect information to help us decide the degree to which the student has achieved the learning targets. Validity ( ) is the soundness of your interpretations and uses of students assessment results (Nitko & Brookhart, 2011, p. 35). Reliability ( ) refers to the consistency of assessment results.

Five Types of Learning Outcomes 1.Knowledge/Understanding (e.g., the definition of neutralization, the causes of acid rain) 2.Reasoning proficiency (e.g., identify an unknown chemical substance) 3.Performance Skills (e.g., filtration, distillation) 4.Ability to create products (e.g., research report, model, concept map, leaflet, poster, portfolio) 5.Affective (e.g., attitude toward practical work) Adapted from Stiggins (2005).

Traditional Assessment Methods

Alternative Assessment ( ) Any type of assessment as opposed to standardized achievement tests and to multiple-choice, true/false, matching, or completion format. Examples: performance assessment ( ) portfolio assessment ( ) interview ( )

Five Types of Performance Assessment 1.Paper-and-pencil performance ( ) 2.Identification test ( ) 3.Structured performance test ( ) 4.Simulated performance ( ) 5.Work sample ( )

Selected response (e.g., MCQ) Short answer questions Structured questions or essay Performance assessment Oral test/ Interview Knowledge/ understanding Reasoning proficiency Performance skills Ability to create products Affective outcomes Tick those learning outcomes that are best to be assessed by a particular type of assessment method. Consider validity, reliability, and efficiency.

Sample materials provided by the Faculty of Education Intranet User ID Password

Other Assessment Issues Examples: 1. Group work 2. Scoring rubrics 3. Class size 4. Plagiarism

References 1.Coutts, R., Gilleard, W. & Baglin, R. (2011). Evidence for the impact of assessment on mood and motivation in first-year students. Studies in Higher Education, 36(3), Davis, W. M. (2009). Groupwork as a form of assessment: Common problems and recommended solutions. Higher Education, 58, Gilles, J.L., Detroz, P. & Blais, J.G. (2011). An international online survey of the practices and perceptions of higher education professors with respect to the assessment of learning in the classroom. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 36(6), Nitko, A.J. & Brookhart, S.M. (2011). Educational assessment of students (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson. 5.Popham, W.J. (2011). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson. 6.Stiggins, R.J. (2005). Student-involved assessment for learning (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. 7.Tummons, J. (2010). The assessment of lesson plans in teacher education: A case study in assessment validity and reliability. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(7),