2. WHAT IS AN ASSESSMENT?
In education, the term assessment refers to the
wide variety of methods or tools that educators use
to evaluate, measure, and document the academic
readiness, learning progress, skill acquisition, or
educational needs of students.
3. While assessments are often equated with traditional
tests—especially the standardized tests developed by
testing companies and administered to large populations
of students—educators use a diverse array of
assessment tools and methods to measure everything
from a four-year-old’s readiness for kindergarten to a
twelfth-grade student’s comprehension of advanced
physics.
Just as academic lessons have different functions,
assessments are typically designed to measure specific
elements of learning—e.g., the level of knowledge a
student already has about the concept or skill the
teacher is planning to teach or the ability to comprehend
and analyze different types of texts and readings.
4. Assessments also are used to identify individual
student weaknesses and strengths so that
educators can provide specialized academic
support, educational programming, or social
services. In addition, assessments are developed
by a wide array of groups and individuals,
including teachers, district administrators,
universities, private companies, state departments
of education, and groups that include a combination
of these individuals and institutions.
5. While assessment can take a wide variety of forms
in education, the following descriptions provide a
representative overview of a few major forms of
educational assessment.
6. HIGH-STAKES ASSESSMENTS
High-stakes assessments are typically
standardized tests used for the purposes of
accountability—i.e., any attempt by federal, state,
or local government agencies to ensure that
students are enrolled in effective schools and being
taught by effective teachers.
7. In general, “high stakes” means that important
decisions about students, teachers, schools, or
districts are based on the scores students achieve
on a high-stakes test, and either punishments
(sanctions, penalties, reduced funding, negative
publicity, not being promoted to the next grade, not
being allowed to graduate) or accolades (awards,
public celebration, positive publicity, bonuses,
grade promotion, diplomas) result from those
scores.
8. PRE-ASSESSMENTS
Pre-assessments are administered before
students begin a lesson, unit, course, or academic
program. Students are not necessarily expected to
know most, or even any, of the material evaluated
by pre-assessments—they are generally used to
(1) establish a baseline against which educators
measure learning progress over the duration of a
program, course, or instructional period, or
(2) determine general academic readiness for a
course, program, grade level, or new academic
program that student may be transferring into.
9. FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Formative assessments are in-process
evaluations of student learning that are typically
administered multiple times during a unit, course, or
academic program. The general purpose of
formative assessment is to give educators in-
process feedback about what students are learning
or not learning so that instructional approaches,
teaching materials, and academic support can be
modified accordingly. Formative assessments are
usually not scored or graded, and they may take a
variety of forms, from more formal quizzes and
assignments to informal questioning techniques
and in-class discussions with students.
10. SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Summative assessments are used to evaluate
student learning at the conclusion of a specific
instructional period—typically at the end of a unit,
course, semester, program, or school year.
Summative assessments are typically scored and
graded tests, assignments, or projects that are
used to determine whether students have learned
what they were expected to learn during the defined
instructional period.
11. COMPARISON OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS AND
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Formative assessments are commonly said to
be for learning because educators use the results
to modify and improve teaching techniques during
an instructional period, while summative
assessments are said to be of learning because
they evaluate academic achievement at the
conclusion of an instructional period.
Or as assessment expert Paul Black put it, “When
the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative
assessment. When the customer tastes the soup,
that’s summative assessment.”
12. INTERIM ASSESSMENTS
Interim assessments are used to evaluate where
students are in their learning progress and
determine whether they are on track to performing
well on future assessments, such as standardized
tests, end-of-course exams, and other forms of
“summative” assessment.
Interim assessments are usually administered
periodically during a course or school year (for
example, every six or eight weeks) and separately
from the process of instructing students (i.e., unlike
formative assessments, which are integrated into
the instructional process)
13. PLACEMENT ASSESSMENTS
Placement assessments are used to “place”
students into a course, course level, or academic
program. For example, an assessment may be
used to determine whether a student is ready for
Algebra I or a higher-level algebra course, such as
an honors-level course. For this reason, placement
assessments are administered before a course or
program begins, and the basic intent is to match
students with appropriate learning experiences that
address their distinct learning needs.
14. SCREENING ASSESSMENTS
Screening assessments are used to determine
whether students may need specialized assistance
or services, or whether they are ready to begin a
course, grade level, or academic program.
Screening assessments may take a wide variety of
forms in educational settings, and they may be
developmental, physical, cognitive, or academic. A
preschool screening test, for example, may be used
to determine whether a young child is physically,
emotionally, socially, and intellectually ready to
begin preschool, while other screening tests may
be used to evaluate health, potential learning
disabilities, and other student attributes.
16. STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENTS
Standardized assessments are designed,
administered, and scored in a standard, or
consistent, manner. They often use a multiple-
choice format, though some include open-ended,
short-answer questions.
Standardized tests can be administered to large
student populations of the same age or grade level
in a state, region, or country, and results can be
compared across individuals and groups of
students.
17. STANDARDS-REFERENCED OR STANDARDS-
BASED ASSESSMENTS
Standards-referenced or standards-
based assessments are designed to measure how
well students have mastered the specific
knowledge and skills described in local, state, or
national learning standards.
Standardized tests and high-stakes tests may or
may not be based on specific learning standards,
and individual schools and teachers may develop
their own standards-referenced or standards-based
assessments.
18. COMMON ASSESSMENTS
Common assessments are used in a school or district to ensure
that all teachers are evaluating student performance in a more
consistent, reliable, and effective manner.
Common assessments are used to encourage greater
consistency in teaching and assessment among teachers who
are responsible for teaching the same content, e.g. within a
grade level, department, or content area. They allow educators
to compare performance results across multiple classrooms,
courses, schools, and/or learning experiences (which is not
possible when educators teach different material and individually
develop their own distinct assessments).
Common assessments share the same format and are
administered in consistent ways—e.g., teachers give students
the same instructions and the same amount of time to complete
the assessment, or they use the same scoring guides to interpret
results. Common assessments may be “formative” or
“summative.”
19. PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS
Performance assessments typically require
students to complete a complex task, such as a
writing assignment, science experiment, speech,
presentation, performance, or long-term project, for
example. Educators will often use collaboratively
developed common assessments, scoring guides,
rubrics, and other methods to evaluate whether the
work produced by students shows that they have
learned what they were expected to learn.
Performance assessments may also be called
“authentic assessments,” since they are considered
by some educators to be more accurate and
meaningful evaluations of learning achievement
than traditional tests.
20. Portfolio-based assessments are collections of
academic work—for example, assignments, lab
results, writing samples, speeches, student-created
films, or art projects—that are compiled by students
and assessed by teachers in consistent ways.
Portfolio-based assessments are often used to
evaluate a “body of knowledge”—i.e., the
acquisition of diverse knowledge and skills over a
period of time. Portfolio materials can be collected
in physical or digital formats, and they are often
evaluated to determine whether students have met
required learning standards.
21. The purpose of an assessment generally drives the way it is
designed, and there are many ways in which assessments
can be used. A standardized assessment can be a high-
stakes assessment, for example, but so can other forms of
assessment that are not standardized tests. A portfolio of
student work can be a used as both a “formative” and
“summative” form of assessment. Teacher-created
assessments, which may also be created by teams of
teachers, are commonly used in a single course or grade level
in a school, and these assessments are almost never “high-
stakes.” Screening assessments may be produced by
universities that have conducted research on a specific area
of child development, such as the skills and attributes that a
student should have when entering kindergarten to increase
the likelihood that he or she will be successful, or the pattern
of behaviors, strengths, and challenges that suggest a child
has a particular learning disability. In short, assessments are
usually created for highly specialized purposes
22. QUESTION!!
A question is a linguistic expression used to make
a request for information, or the request made
using such an expression. The information
requested should be provided in the form of
an answer.
23. “There are these four ways of answering questions.
Which four?
There are questions that should be answered
categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that].
There are questions that should be answered with
an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or
redefining the terms].
There are questions that should be answered with a
counter-question.
There are questions that should be put aside.
— Buddha, Sutta Pitaka
24. USES
The principal use of questions is to elicit information
from the person being addressed, by indicating,
more or less precisely, the information which the
speaker (or writer) desires.
However, questions can also be used for a number
of other purposes.
Questions may be asked for the purpose of testing
someone's knowledge, as in a quiz or examination.
Raising a question may guide the questioner along
an avenue of research.
25. TYPES OF QUESTIONS
A research question is an interrogative statement
that manifests the objective or line of scholarly or
scientific inquiry designed to addresses a specific
gap in knowledge.
Research questions are expressed in a language
that is appropriate for the academic community that
has the greatest interest in answers that would
address said gap.
These interrogative statements serve as launching
points for the academic pursuit of new knowledge
by directing and delimiting an investigation of a
topic, a set of studies, or an entire program of
research.
26. BY PURPOSE
Various categorizations of questions have been
proposed with regard to research projects, one
system distinguishes:
descriptive questions, used primarily with the aim of
describing the existence of some thing or process
relational questions, designed to look at the
relationships between two or more variables
causal questions, designed to determine whether
certain variables affect one or more outcome
variables
27. For the purpose of surveys, one type of question
asked is the closed-
ended (also closed or dichotomous) question,
usually requiring a yes/no answer or the choice of
an option(s) from a list .
There are also nominal questions, designed to
inquire about a level of quantitative measure,
usually making connections between a number and
a concept (as in "1 = Moderate; 2 = Severe; 3 =
...").
Open-ended or open questions give the
respondent greater freedom to provide information
or opinions on a topic.
28. Some types of questions that may be used in an
educational context are listed in Bloom's
Taxonomy of educational objectives.
These include questions designed to test and
promote:
29. Knowledge: Who, what, when, where, why, how . . . ?
Describe . . . ?
Comprehension: Retell . . .
Application: How is . . . an example of . . . ?; How
is . . . related to . . . ?; Why is . . . significant?
Analysis: What are the parts or features of . . . ?
Classify . . . according to . . . ;
Synthesis: What would you infer from . . . ? What ideas
can you add to . . . ? How would you design a new . . . ?
What would happen if you combined . . . ? What
solutions would you suggest for . . . ?
Evaluation: Do you agree that . . . ? What do you think
about . . . ? What is the most important . . . ? Place the
following in order of priority . . . ? How would you decide
about . . . ? What criteria would you use to assess . . . ?
30. The one type of questions are called polar questions
that contain yes/no as an answer.
The other main type of question (other than yes–no
questions) is those called wh-questions (or non-polar
questions). These use interrogative words (wh-words)
such as when, which, who, how, etc. to specify the
information that is desired.
The name derives from the fact that most of the English
interrogative words (with the exception of how) begin
with the letters wh.
These are the types of question sometimes referred to
in journalism and other investigative contexts as
the Five Ws.
31. Tag questions are a grammatical structure in which
a declarative statement or an imperative is turned
into a question by adding an interrogative fragment
(the "tag"), such as right in "You remembered the
eggs, right?", or isn't it in "It's cold today, isn't it?"
Tag questions may or may not be answerable with
a yes or no.
33. This tips sheet contains a brief description of seven
types of examination questions, as well as tips for
using each of them:
1) multiple choice,
2) true/false,
3) matching,
4) short answer,
5) essay,
6) oral, and
7) computational.
34. 1. MULTIPLE CHOICE
Multiple choice questions are composed of one
question (stem) with multiple possible answers
(choices), including the correct answer and several
incorrect answers (distractors).
35. WHAT ARE DISTRACTERS?
Distractors are:
A) Elements of the exam layout that distract
attention from the questions
B) Incorrect but plausible choices used in multiple
choice questions
C) Unnecessary clauses included in the stem of
multiple choice questions
36. TIPS FOR WRITING GOOD MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS:
Avoid
In the stem:
Long / complex sentences
Trivial statements
Negatives and double-negatives
Ambiguity or indefinite terms, absolute statements, and broad
generalization
Extraneous material
Item characteristics that provide a clue to the answer misconceptions
In the choices:
Statements too close to the correct answer
Completely implausible responses
‘All of the above,’ ‘none of the above’
Overlapping responses (e.g., if ‘A’ is true)
37. Do Use
In the stems:
Your own words – not statements straight out of the
textbook
Single, clearly formulated problems
In the choices:
Plausible and homogeneous distracters
Statements based on common student misconceptions
True statements that do not answer the questions
Short options – and all same length
Correct options evenly distributed over A, B, C, etc.
Alternatives that are in logical or numerical then ‘C’ is
also true) order
At least 3 alternatives
38. 2…………..TRUE/FALSE
True/false questions are only composed of a
statement. Students respond to the questions by
indicating whether the statement is true or false.
For example: True/false questions have only two
possible answers (Answer: True).
39. Like multiple choice questions, true/false questions:
Are most often used to assess familiarity with course
content and to check for popular misconceptions
Allow students to respond quickly so exams can use a
large number of them to test knowledge of a broad
range of content
Are easy and quick to grade but time consuming to
create
True/false questions provide students with a 50% chance
of guessing the right answer. For this reason, multiple
choice questions are often used instead of true/false
questions.
40. TIPS FOR WRITING GOOD TRUE/FALSE ITEMS:
Avoid
Negatives and double-negatives
Long / complex sentences
Trivial material
Broad generalizations
Ambiguous or indefinite terms
41. Do Use
Your own words
The same number of true and false statements (50
/ 50) or slightly more false statements than true
(60/40) – students are more likely to answer true
One central idea in each item
42. 3………………..MATCHING
Students respond to matching questions by pairing
each of a set of stems (e.g., definitions) with one of
the choices provided on the exam. These questions
are often used to assess recognition and recall and
so are most often used in courses where
acquisition of detailed knowledge is an important
goal. They are generally quick and easy to create
and mark, but students require more time to
respond to these questions than a similar number
of multiple choice or true/false items.
43. TIPS FOR WRITING GOOD MATCHING ITEMS:
Avoid
Long stems and options
Heterogeneous content (e.g., dates mixed with
people)
Implausible responses
Do Use
Short responses 10-15 items on only one page
Clear directions
Logically ordered choices (chronological,
alphabetical, etc.)
44. 4…………….SHORT ANSWER
Short answer questions are typically composed of a
brief prompt that demands a written answer that
varies in length from one or two words to a few
sentences. They are most often used to test basic
knowledge of key facts and terms.
45. Avoid
Trivia
Long / complex sentences
Do Use
Your own words
Specific problems
Direct questions
46. 5…………………ESSAYS
Essay questions provide a complex prompt that
requires written responses, which can vary in length
from a couple of paragraphs to many pages. Like
short answer questions, they provide students with
an opportunity to explain their understanding and
demonstrate creativity, but make it hard for students
to arrive at an acceptable answer by bluffing. They
can be constructed reasonably quickly and easily
but marking these questions can be time-
consuming and grader agreement can be difficult.
47. TIPS FOR WRITING GOOD ESSAY ITEMS:
Avoid
Complex, ambiguous wording
Questions that are too broad to allow time for an in-
depth response
Do Use
Your own words
Words like ‘compare’ or ‘contrast’ at the beginning
of the question
Clear and unambiguous wording
A breakdown of marks to make expectations clear
Time limits for thinking and writing
48. 6………………….ORAL EXAMS
Oral examinations allow students to respond directly to
the instructor’s questions and/or to present prepared
statements. These exams are especially popular in
language courses that demand ‘speaking’ but they can
be used to assess understanding in almost any course
by following the guidelines for the composition of short
answer questions. Some of the principle advantages to
oral exams are that they provide nearly immediate
feedback and so allow the student to learn as they are
tested. There are two main drawbacks to oral exams:
the amount of time required and the problem of record-
keeping. Oral exams typically take at least ten to fifteen
minutes per student, even for a midterm exam.
49. 7……………..COMPUTATIONAL
Computational questions require that students
perform calculations in order to solve for an answer.
Computational questions can be used to assess
student’s memory of solution techniques and their
ability to apply those techniques to solve both
questions they have attempted before and
questions that stretch their abilities by requiring that
they combine and use solution techniques in novel
ways.
50. EFFECTIVE COMPUTATIONAL QUESTIONS SHOULD:
Be solvable using knowledge of the key concepts and
techniques from the course. Before the exam solve
them yourself or get a teaching assistant to attempt the
questions.
Indicate the mark breakdown to reinforce the
expectations developed in in-class examples for the
amount of detail, etc. required for the solution.
To prepare students to do computational questions on
exams, make sure to describe and model in class the
correct format for the calculations and answer including:
How students should report their assumptions and
justify their choices
The units and degree of precision expected in the
answer
