MEASUREMENT, ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION IN EDUCATION

MEASUREMENT, ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION IN EDUCATION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS MEASUREMENT? Measurement refers to the process by which the attributes or dimensions of some physical object are determined. One exception seems to be in the use of the word measure in determining the IQ of a person. The phrase, "this test measures IQ" is commonly used. Measuring such things as attitudes or preferences also applies. However, when we measure, we generally use some standard instrument to determine how big, tall, heavy, voluminous, hot, cold, fast, or straight something actually is. Standard instruments refer to instruments such as rulers, scales, thermometers, pressure gauges, etc. We measure to obtain information about what is. Such information may or may not be useful, depending on the accuracy of the instruments we use, and our skill at using them. There are few such instruments in the social sciences that approach the validity and reliability of say a 12" ruler. We measure how big a classroom is in terms of square feet, we measure the temperature of the room by using a thermometer, and we use Ohm meters to determine the voltage, amperage, and resistance in a circuit. In all of these examples, we are not assessing anything; we are simply collecting information relative to some established rule or standard. Assessment is therefore quite different from measurement, and has uses that suggest very different purposes. When used in a learning objective, the definition provided on the ADPRIMA for the behavioral verb measure is: To apply a standard scale or measuring device to an object, series of objects, events, or conditions, according to practices accepted by those who are skilled in the use of the device or scale.

Assessment is a process by which information is obtained relative to some known objective or goal.

Assessment is a broad term that includes testing. A test is a special form of assessment. Tests are assessments made under contrived circumstances especially so that they may be administered. In other words, all tests are assessments, but not all assessments are tests. We test at the end of a lesson or unit. We assess progress at the end of a school year through testing, and we assess verbal and quantitative skills through such instruments as the SAT and GRE. Whether implicit or explicit, assessment is most usefully connected to some goal or objective for which the assessment is designed. A test or assessment yields information relative to an objective or goal. In that sense, we test or assess to determine whether or not an objective or goal has been obtained. Assessment of skill attainment is rather straightforward. Either the skill exists at some acceptable level or it doesn’t. Skills are readily demonstrable. Assessment of understanding is much more difficult and complex. Skills can be practiced; understandings cannot. We can assess a person’s knowledge in a variety of ways, but there is always a leap, an inference that we make about what a person does in relation to what it signifies about what he knows. In the section on this site on behavioral verbs, to assess means To stipulate the conditions by which the behavior specified in an objective may be ascertained. Such stipulations are usually in the form of written descriptions.

Evaluation is perhaps the most complex and least understood of the terms. Inherent in the idea of evaluation is "value." When we evaluate, what we are doing is engaging in some process that is designed to provide information that will help us make a judgment about a given situation. Generally, any evaluation process requires information about the situation in question. A situation is an umbrella term that takes into account such ideas as objectives, goals, standards, procedures, and so on. When we evaluate, we are saying that the process will yield information regarding the worthiness, appropriateness, goodness, validity, legality, etc., of something for which a reliable measurement or assessment has been made. For example, I often ask my students if they wanted to determine the temperature of the classroom they would need to get a thermometer and take several readings at different spots, and perhaps average the readings. That is simple measuring. The average temperature tells us nothing about whether or not it is appropriate for learning. In order to do that, students would have to be polled in some reliable and valid way. That polling process is what evaluation is all about. A classroom average temperature of 75 degrees is simply information. It is the context of the temperature for a particular purpose that provides the criteria for evaluation. A temperature of 75 degrees may not be very good for some students, while for others, it is ideal for learning. We evaluate every day. Teachers, in particular, are constantly evaluating students, and such evaluations are usually done in the context of comparisons between what was intended (learning, progress, behavior) and what was obtained. When used in a learning objective, the definition provided on the ADPRIMA site for the behavioral verb evaluate is: To classify objects, situations, people, conditions, etc., according to defined criteria of quality. Indication of quality must be given in the defined criteria of each class category. Evaluation differs from general classification only in this respect.

To sum up, we measure distance, we assess learning, and we evaluate results in terms of some set of criteria. These three terms are certainly connected, but it is useful to think of them as separate but connected ideas and processes.

Here is a great link that offer different ideas about these three terms, with well-written explanations.

Unfortunately, most information on the Internet concerning this topic amounts to little more than advertisements for services.

Test: A method to determine a student's ability to complete certain tasks or demonstrate mastery of a skill or knowledge of content. Some types would be multiple choice tests, or weekly spelling test. While it is commonly used interchangeably with assessment, or even evaluation, it can be distinguished by the fact that a test is one form of an assessment.

Assessment: The process of gathering information to monitor progress and make educational decisions if necessary. As noted in my definition of test, an assessment may include a test, but also includes methods such as observations, interviews, behavior monitoring, etc.

Evaluation: Procedures used to determine whether the subject (i.e. student) meets a preset criteria, such as qualifying for special education services. This uses assessment (remember that an assessment may be a test) to make a determination of qualification in accordance with a predetermined criteria.

Measurement, beyond its general definition, refers to the set of procedures and the principles for how to use the procedures in educational tests and assessments. Some of the basic principles of measurement in educational evaluations would be raw scores, percentile ranks, derived scores, standard scores, etC.

CHAPTER TWO

ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, TESTING AND GRADING

What is Assessment?

To many teachers and students, “assessment” simply means giving students tests and assigning them grades. This conception of assessment is not only limited, but also limiting. It fails to take into account both the utility of assessment and its importance in the teaching/learning process.

In the most general sense, assessment is the process of making a judgment or measurement of worth of an entity (e.g., person, process, or program). Educational assessment involves gathering and evaluating data evolving from planned learning activities or programs. This form of assessment is often referred to as evaluation. Learner assessment represents a particular type of educational assessment normally conducted by teachers and designed to serve several related purpose. These purposed include:

motivating and directing learning

providing feedback to student on their performance

providing feedback on instruction and/or the curriculum

ensuring standards of progression are met

Learner assessment is best conceived as a form of two-way communication in which feedback on the educational process or product is provided to its key stakeholders (McAlpine, 2002). Specifically, learner assessment involves communication to teachers (feedback on teaching); students (feedback on learning); curriculum designers (feedback on curriculum) and administrators (feedback on use of resources).

For teachers and curriculum/course designers, carefully constructed learner assessment techniques can help determining whether or not the stated goals are being achieved .

According to Brissenden and Slater (n.d.), classroom assessment can help teachers answer the following specific questions:

To what extent are my students achieving the stated goals?

How should I allocate class time for the current topic?

Can I teach this topic in a more efficient or effective way?

What parts of this course/unit are my students finding most valuable?

Formative vs. Summative Assessment

Formative assessment is designed to assist the learning process by providing feedback to the learner, which can be used to identify strengths and weakness and hence improve future performance. Formative assessment is most appropriate where the results are to be used internally by those involved in the learning process (students, teachers, curriculum developers).

Summative assessment is used primarily to make decisions for grading or determine readiness for progression. Typically summative assessment occurs at the end of an educational activity and is designed to judge the learner’s overall performance. In addition to providing the basis for grade assignment, summative assessment is used to communicate students’ abilities to external stakeholders, e.g., administrators and employers.

Informal vs. Formal Assessment

With informal assessment, the judgments are integrated with other tasks, e.g., lecturer feedback on the answer to a question or preceptor feedback provided while performing a bedside procedure. Informal assessment is most often used to provide formative feedback.

As such, it tends to be less threatening and thus less stressful to the student. However, informal feedback is prone to high subjectivity or bias.

Formal assessment occurs when students are aware that the task that they are doing is for assessment purposes, e.g., a written examination or OSCE. Most formal assessments also are summative in nature and thus tend to have greater motivation impact and are associated with increased stress. Given their role in decision-making, formal assessments should be held to higher standards of reliability and validity than informal assessments.

Continuous vs. Final Assessment

Continuous assessment occurs throughout a learning experience (intermittent is probably a more realistic term). Continuous assessment is most appropriate when student and/or instructor knowledge of progress or achievement is needed to determine the subsequent progression or sequence of activities. Continuous assessment provides both students and teachers with the information needed to improve teaching and learning in process.

Obviously, continuous assessment involves increased effort for both teacher and student.

Final (or terminal) assessment is that which takes place only at the end of a learning activity.

It is most appropriate when learning can only be assessed as a complete whole rather than

as constituent parts. Typically, final assessment is used for summative decision-making.

Obviously, due to its timing, final assessment cannot be used for formative purposes.

Process vs. Product Assessment

Process assessment focuses on the steps or procedures underlying a particular ability or task, i.e., the cognitive steps in performing a mathematical operation or the procedure involved in analyzing a blood sample. Because it provides more detailed information, process assessment is most useful when a student is learning a new skill and for providing formative feedback to assist in improving performance.

Product assessment focuses on evaluating the result or outcome of a process. Using the above examples, we would focus on the answer to the math computation or the accuracy of the blood test results. Product assessment is most appropriate for documenting proficiency or competency in a given skill, i.e., for summative purposes. In general, product assessments are easier to create than product assessments, requiring only a specification of the attributes of the final product.

Divergent vs. Convergent Assessment

Divergent assessments are those for which a range of answers or solutions might be considered correct. Examples include essay tests, and solutions to the typical types of indeterminate problems posed in PBL. Divergent assessments tend to be more authentic and most appropriate in evaluating higher cognitive skills. However, these types of assessment are often time consuming to evaluate and the resulting judgments often exhibit poor reliability.

  A convergent assessment has only one correct response (per item). Objective test items are the best example and demonstrate the value of this approach in assessing knowledge.

Obviously, convergent assessments are easier to evaluate or score than divergent assessments. Unfortunately, this “ease of use” often leads to their widespread application of this approach even when contrary to good assessment practices. Specifically, the familiarity and ease with which convergent assessment tools can be applied leads to two common evaluation fallacies: the Fallacy of False Quantification (the tendency to focus on what’s easiest to measure) and the Law of the Instrument Fallacy (molding the evaluation problem to fit the tool).

Assessment versus Evaluation

Depending on the authority or dictionary consulted, assessment and evaluation may be treated as synonyms or as distinctly different concepts. As noted above, if a distinction exists, it probably involves what is being measured and why and how the measurements are made. In terms of what, it is often said that we assess students and we evaluate instruction.

This distinction derives from the use of evaluation research methods to make judgments about the worth of educational activities. Moreover, it emphasizes an individual focus of assessment, i.e., using information to help identify a learner's needs and document his or her progress toward meeting goals.

In terms of why and how the measurements are made, the following table (Apple & Krumsieg, 1998) compares and contrasts assessment and evaluation on several important dimension, some of which were previously defined.

Assessment versus Grading

Based on the above discussion, grading grading could be considered a component of assessment, i.e., a formal, summative, final and product-oriented judgment of overall quality of worth of a student's performance or achievement in a particular educational activity, e.g., acourse. Generally, grading also employs a comparative standard of measurement and sets up a competitive relationship between those receiving the grades. Most proponents of assessment, however, would argue that grading and assessment are two different things, or at least opposite pole on the evaluation spectrum. For them, assessment measures student growth and progress on an individual basis, emphasizing informal, formative, processoriented reflective feedback and communication between student and teacher. Ultimately, which conception you supports probably depends more on your teaching philosophy than anything else.

CONCLUSION

The human mind does not think or reason in terms of discrete elements or "facts."  Rather the mind seeks patterns among discrete elements and processes information in terms of concepts or the rules for categorizing facts.  When people build relationships among facts and concepts (i.e., develop principles), they are able to remember, understand, and access an astonishing amount of information.  People are also able to make predictions from present to future circumstances based on these understandings.  However, it is when theories are developed (add organization and explanations to facts, concepts, and principles) based on laws (empirically validated causal principles) that scientists accomplish the highest goal of science--to control the variables they are studying .

REFERENCES

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for  college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Apple, D.K, & Krumsieg. K. (1998). Process education teaching institute handbook. Corvalis, OR: Pacific Crest Software.

Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Payla, W. (2000). Definition of science. Research methods lecture notes (ver 2.2). Jacksonville, AL: Jacksonville State University. Retrieved May 2001, from http://www.jsu.edu/depart/psychology/sebac/fac-sch/rm/pdfs/Ch2v4.pdf

Wilber, K. (1998). The marriage of sense and soul: Integrating science and religion. New York: Random House.