Prof Ed 8A (ASL 2); PAR

1st Semester, 2020-2021

Nueva Vizcaya State University
Chapter 1
REVIEW OF PRINCIPLES OF HIGH QUALITY ASSESSMENT

Definitions

Measurement – the quantification of what students learned through the use of tests,
rating scales, checklists, score cards and other devices. It answers the question, how much does
a student learn or know?
Assessment – the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge,
skills, attitudes and beliefs. It looks into how much change has occurred on the student’s
acquisition of a skill, knowledge or value before and after a given learning experience.

Evaluation – the making of judgments on the worth or value of a performance; it

answers the question, how good, adequate or desirable is it?
While measurement refers to the quantification of students’ performance and
assessment as the gathering and synthesizing of information, evaluation is a process of making
judgments, assigning value or deciding on the worth of students’ performance.
Alternative Assessment Methods (authentic / integrative / holistic assessment) give
students situations that occur in the real world which require them to apply their relevant skills
and knowledge.

Authentic Assessment (AA) – students are asked to perform real-world tasks that
demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills (Jon Mueller, 2011).

Characteristics of AA:
 starts with clear and definite criteria of performance made known to the students
 is criterion-referenced, and it identifies strengths and weaknesses
 requires students to make their own answers and to use a range of higher order
thinking skills
 often emphasizes performance and therefore students are required to demonstrate
their knowledge, skills or competencies in appropriate situations
 encourages both teacher and students to determine their rate of progress in
cooperatively attaining the desired student learning outcomes
 does not encourage rote learning and passive taking of tests
 values not only the finished products but also the learning process
 makes students active and involved in assessment activities

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
Differences between Traditional Assessment (TA) and Authentic Assessment (AA)

Attributes TA AA
Action/Options Selecting a response Developing a response; performing a task
Setting Contrived / Imagined Simulation / Real-life
Method Recall / Recognition Construction / Applications
Focus Teacher-structured Student-structured
Outcome Indirect evidence Direct evidence
Evaluator Teacher Teacher, Student, Peer, Stakeholders
Thinking Skills Lower / Basic Higher in addition to lower

Portfolio Assessment - emphasizes the active demonstration of knowledge through

evidence of student’s work and veers away from traditional testing in the sense of
pencil-paper cognitive tests. It can be used for evaluating not only the learning
outcomes but more importantly, in gauging the quality of the learning process that took
place.
Non-objective Tests – alternative assessment mechanism of measuring educational
outcomes and processes and measure more complex processes in education.
Performance-based Assessment – to gauge a learner competency in a certain task
through observation on site; to assess learners on what they know, what they are able to
do and the learning strategies they employ in the process of demonstrating it.

Taxonomy of the Different Domains

Cognitive Affective Psychomotor

Bloom’s (1956) Anderson’s (1990) Krathwol’s (1964) Simpson’s (1972)
Knowledge Remembering Receiving Perception
Comprehension Understanding Responding Set
Application Applying Valuing Guided Response
Analysis Analyzing Organization Mechanism
Synthesis Evaluating Characterization by a Complex Overt Response
Evaluation Creating Value or Value Adaptation
Complex Origination
Note: with additional hand out on: Kendall’s and Marzano’s New Taxonomy (2007)
Harrow’s Taxonomy (1972)

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
1. 1 Learning Targets / Outcomes
Assessment can be made precise, accurate and dependable only if what are to be
achieved are clearly stated and feasible.

Learning Outcomes in the teacher education program are the competencies,

skills and values that the students are expected to demonstrate at the end of the
course/subject which are in turn, integrated into the year-end formation of students as
they progress towards becoming professional teachers.

Sources of expected student learning outcomes:

1. Institution’s mission statement
2. Policies on competencies and standards issued by government agencies
3. Competencies identified by the profession, business and industry
4. Thrusts and development goals of the national government
5. International trends and development
6. Competencies and expectations of students

Characteristics of good learning outcomes:

1. Centered on the students, on what the learners are capable of doing
2. Based on the program mission statement agreed upon by the program faculty
in consultation with other stakeholders
3. Understood by both students and faculty
4. Include a spectrum of thinking skills from simple to the higher order of
application of knowledge and skills
5. Measurable

a. Cognitive Targets
Knowledge – acquisition of facts, concepts and theories.
Comprehension – understanding.
Application – the transfer of knowledge from one field of study to another or from
one concept to another concept in the same discipline.
Analysis – the breaking down of a concept or idea into its components and
explaining the concept as a composition of these concepts.
Synthesis – the opposite of analysis and entails putting together the components in
order to summarize the concept.
Evaluation and Reasoning – valuing and judgment or putting the worth of a concept
or principle.

b. Skills, Competencies and Abilities Targets

Skills refer to specific activities or tasks that a student can proficiently do. e.g. skills
in coloring, language skills.
Competencies refer to skills which are clustered together. e.g. birthday card making.

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
Abilities refer to related competencies, which can be roughly categorized into:
 Cognitive. e.g. programming and web designing; highly technical
individualized work.
 Psychomotor.
 Affective. e.g. the ability to work well with others, and to be trusted = leadership
abilities.
b. Products, Outputs and Projects Targets
Products, outputs and projects are tangible and concrete evidence of a student’s
ability. A clear target for products and projects need to clearly specify the level of
workmanship of such projects. e.g.
 expert level - an expert output may be characterized by the indicator “at most
two imperfections noted”

 skilled level - a skilled level output can be characterized by the indicator “at
most four (4) imperfections noted”

 novice level

1.2 Appropriateness of Assessment Methods and Tools

Once the learning targets are clearly set, it is now necessary to determine an
appropriate assessment procedure or method.

a. Written-Response

Written-response instruments include objective tests (multiple choice, true-

false, matching or short answer) and essays.

b. Product / Process Oriented Performance-based Assessments

Examples of products: book reports, maps, charts, diagrams, notebooks, essays

and creative endeavors of all sorts.

Examples of processes: dancing, surveying, role playing, welding, etc.

Tools that can be used to measure one’s performance include rating scale,
rubrics, and checklists.

c. Oral Test
It is an appropriate assessment method when the objectives are: (a) to assess the
student’s stock knowledge and/or (b) to determine the student’s ability to communicate
ideas in coherent verbal sentences.

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
Several factors to be considered when using this option are the student’s state of
mind and feelings, anxiety and nervousness in making oral presentations which could
mask the student’s true ability.

Tools that can be used to measure one’s performance include rating scale,
rubrics, and checklists.

d. Observation and Self Reports

Observation and self-reports are useful supplementary assessment methods
when used with oral questioning and performance tests. Such methods can offset the
negative impact on the students brought about by their fears and anxieties during oral
questioning or when performing actual task under observation.

Tools could be:

Tally sheet - a device often used by teachers to record the frequency of student
behaviors, activities or remarks.

Self-checklist - a list of several characteristics or activities presented to the

subjects of a study. The individuals are asked to study the list and then to place
a mark opposite the characteristics which they possess or the activities which
they have engaged in for a particular length of time.

1.3 Properties of Assessment Methods

The quality of the assessment instrument and method used in education is very
important since the evaluation and judgment that the teacher gives on a student are based
on the information he obtains using these methods and instruments.

a. Validity
It refers to the appropriateness, correctness, meaningfulness and usefulness of
the specific conclusions that a teacher reaches regarding the teaching-learning situation.

Content validity refers to the appropriateness and comprehensiveness of the content of

the instrument. The sample of items or questions should adequately represent the
content to be assessed.

Criteria for judging content validity:

1. Do students have adequate experience with the type of task posed by the item?

2. Did the teachers cover sufficient material for most students to be able to answer the
item correctly?

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
3. Does the item reflect the degree of emphasis received during instruction?

With these as guide, a content validity table may be constructed in 2 forms as

provided below:

Form A: ITEM VALIDITY

Item No.
Criteria
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Material covered sufficiently.
2. Most students are able to answer item correctly.
3. Students have prior experience with the type of task.
Decision: Accept or Reject

Form B: ENTIRE TEST

Knowledge/Skills Estimated Percent of Percentage of Items
Area Instruction Covered in Test
1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

Based on Form B, adjustments in the number of items that relate to a topic can
be made accordingly.

Face validity – it refers to the outward appearance of the test. It is the lowest form of
test validity.

Criterion-related validity – the test item is judged against a specific criterion.

Construct validity – A “construct” is another term for a factor; and a group of

variables that correlate highly with each other form a factor.

b. Reliability
The reliability of an assessment method refers to its consistency or dependability
or stability. Stability or internal consistency as reliability measures can be estimated in
several ways:
1. Split-half method - involves scoring two halves (usually, odd items versus even
items) of a test separately for each person and then calculating a correlation
coefficient for the two sets of scores. The coefficient indicates the degree to which

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 Prof Ed 11 (ASL 2); JDN
2nd Semester, 2018-2019
Nueva Vizcaya State University
the two halves of the test provide the same results and hence, describes the internal
consistency of the test.
2. Test-retest method – it is used when the same test is administered at two different
time periods. The estimate of test reliability is then given by the correlation of the
two test results.

c. Fairness
An assessment procedure needs to be fair, such that:
 students need to know exactly what the learning targets are and what method of
assessment will be used
 assessment has to be viewed as an opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity
to weed out poor and slow learners
 there should be freedom from teacher-stereo-typing. e.g. gender stereotyping: boys
are better than girls in Mathematics or girls are better than boys in language. Such
stereotyped images and thinking could lead to unnecessary and unwanted biases in
the way that teachers assess their students.

d. Practicality and Efficiency

An assessment procedure should be:
 practical - the teacher should be familiar with it, does not require too much time
and is implementable.
 efficient – the test should not be a complex assessment procedure but should be
easy to score and interpret resulting to correct diagnosis or timely feedback.

e. Ethics in Assessment
Ethics refers to the questions of right and wrong, if it is right to assess a specific
knowledge or investigate a certain question.

Basic points a teacher should consider on ethics in assessment:

1. No physical or psychological harm should come to any one as a result of
assessment or testing
2. Confidentiality of test results and assessment results. Such should be known only
by the student concerned and the teacher.
3. No deception. There are instances in which it is necessary to conceal the objective
of the assessment from the students in order to ensure fair and impartial results.
4. Not to be tempted to assist certain individuals in class during assessment or testing.
In this case, it is better for the teacher not to administer the test himself if he
believes that such a concern may, at a later time, be considered unethical.