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Basic Concepts
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in Assessment
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the chapter, the students will be able to:
1. discuss the importance of assessment in classroom instruction;
2. distinguish test, measurement, evaluation from assessment;
3. elucidate the sound principles of assessment in education;

Topic 2: Educational Measurement

Learning Objectives

At the end of the topic, the students will be able to:

1. characterize educational measurement;
2. explain the steps involved in educational measurement; and
3. differentiate between objective measurement and subjective
measurement.

Presentation of Contents

Measurement Defined

Measurement is the process of quantifying observations and/or descriptions about a

quality or attribute of a thing or person (Thorndike & Hagen, 1986). As it applies to education,
measurement includes the development of instruments or procedures for obtaining
information, analyzing and evaluating the quality of the information gained from the use of
instruments or protocols, and strategies for communicating the resulting information to
diverse audiences, such as educators, policymakers, parents, and students. All measurement
in education has the common aims of (1) arriving at defensible conclusions regarding
students’ standing with respect to a specified educational outcome, (2) documenting student
ability, achievement, or interests, (3) gauging student progress toward specified educational
goals, and (4) improving teaching and learning. In these definitions, measurement is viewed
as a process that involves different steps:

Steps Involved in Measurement

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 1. Identifying and defining the quality or attribute that is to be measured. There are
attributes that are easy to identify or determine (e.g. length, temperature and time).
Devices such as meterstick, thermometers and watches can determine such
attributes more precisely because they are especially devised for the purpose.

2. Determining a set of operations by which the attribute may be made manifest and
perceivable. This step can include observation using appropriate measuring
instrument (e.g. meterstick). Sometimes physical quantities can be measured by
combining directly measurable quantities to form derived quantities. For example,
to find the area of a rectangle, multiply its height by its width.

3. Establish a set of procedures or definitions for translating observations into

quantitative statements of degree or amount. There are variables that are not easily
observed such as those that characterize persons like intelligence, aptitude and
scholastic achievement. However, quantification is necessary to make the
determination or differentiation of the attribute less ambiguous and subjective. In
education, knowledge of the subject-matter is often measured through standardized
test results. In this case, the measurement procedure is testing, or knowledge of the
subject-matter can be rated in a scale of 1 to 5 with 1, being the lowest and 5, the
highest. In this procedure, knowledge of the subject-matter is measured through
perceptions.

Types of Measurement

1. Objective Measurement. This type of measurement does not depend on the person
or individual taking the measurements. It is based on how well a person perform a
task, irrespective of what he/she is experiencing while performing the task. It
requires students to select the correct response from several alternatives or to
supply a word or short phrase to answer a question or complete a statement. It is
more stable than subjective measurement because of the fact that repeated
measurements of the same quantity or quality of interest will produce almost the
same result. Consequently, more people prefer objective measurement than
subjective measurement.

2. Subjective measurement. Subjective measurement refers to a measure that has

something to do with what people say they actually experience. It permits the
student to organize and present an original answer. This is used to measure aesthetic
appeal of a product or project of a student. However, most of the time, the rating
the aesthetic appeal of a product differs from one assessor to another even if the
same quantity and quality is being measured.