Module 1 –

Lesson 1 - Review of Principles of High Quality Assessment

“ Teaching- learning process is never complete without assessment.”

Learning Outcomes: after completion of this lesson, students should be able to:
 recall the proposed hierarchy of educational objectives at
cognitive level by Bloom’s Taxonomy;
 differentiate and categorize the abilities of learners into; cognitive
psychomotor and affective in terms of assessments methods;
 Choose and analyze the appropriateness of assessment methods;
 Interpret the quality of assessment instrument and methods used
for sound evaluation and judgment;
 clearly and logically examine the properties of assessment
methods.

Introduction:

Assessment is the process of gathering and analyzing specific information as

part of an evaluation. It is defined as the process by which the teachers/ facilitators
appraises the knowledge, understanding and skills of its students. It is one of major
components of learning, because it helps students learn. . When students are able to
see how they are doing in a class, they are able to determine whether or not they
understand course material and helps motivates them in class.
Assessment also plays a key role in the student learning process, and enhances the
quality of the learning opportunities specially if student has agreed the principles of
assessment that underpin its comprehensive range of assessment policies, procedures and
practices.

THINK
1.1 Clarity of Learning Targets
Assessment can be made precise, accurate and dependable only if what are
to be achieved are clearly stated and feasible. It consider learning targets involving
knowledge, reasoning, skills, products and effects. Learning targets need to be
stated in behavioral terms or terms that denote something which can be observed
through the behavior of students. Targets must be SMART.
Assessment for learning (AFL) is an approach to teaching and learning that
creates feedback which is then used to improve students' performance. Students
become more involved in the learning process and from this gain confidence in
what they are expected to learn and to what is considered standard.

 Cognitive Targets
As early as the 1950’s, bloom(1954), proposed a hierarchy of
educational objectives at the cognitive level. These are:
Level 1. KNOWLEDGE which refers to the acquisition of facts, concepts
and theories. It forms the foundation of all other cognitive
objectives for without knowledge , it is not possible to move up
to the next higher level of thinking skills in the hierarchy of
educational objectives.
 Level 2. COMPREHENSION refers to the same concept as “
understanding”. It is step higher than mere acquisition of facts
and involves a cognition or awareness of the interrelationships
of facts and concepts.
Level 3. APPLICATION refers to the transfer of knowledge from one field
of study to another or from one concept to another concept in
the same discipline.
Level 4. ANALYSIS refers to the breaking down of concept or idea into
its components and explaining the concept as a composition of
these concepts.
Level 5. SYNTHESIS refers to the opposite of analysis and entails
putting together the components in order to summarize the
concept.
Level 6. EVALUATION AND REASONING refers to valuing and
judgment or putting “worth” of a concept or principle.

Bloom’s Taxonomy (Revised, Krathwohl, 2002) and Higher Order Thinking Skills
(HOTS):
 Remember: Retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory
( recognizing and recalling). Define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall,
repeat, state.
 Understand: Determining the meaning of instructional messages,
including oral, written, graphic communication. Interpreting, exemplifying,
classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, explaining.
 Apply : Carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation. (executing
and implementing).
 Analyze: Breaking materials into its constituent parts and detecting how
the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose.
Differentiating, organizing, attributing.
 Evaluate: Making judgments based on criteria and standards (checking
and critiquing)
 Create: Putting elements together to form a novel, coherent whole or
make an original product. Generating, planning, producing.

Bloom’s Taxonomy provides common language about learning goals and

objectives. Most importantly, it provides a basis for the teacher to examine course goals and
assessment, and see what is trying to promote among students and engaging in lower or higher
order thinking. All too often class learning activities and assessments focus mainly on lower
levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy ( Remember, Understand, Apply) but for students to be competent
in their future profession and to deal with complexities in real life situations, the levels of
Analyze, Evaluate and Create are what educators should be aiming for. When preparing a
course, take a look of the goals, objectives, outcomes and test items, and see if it addresses all
levels of thinking as stressed by Krathwohl ( 2002).

 Skills, Competencies and Abilities Targets

Skills refer to a specific activities or tasks that a student can
proficiently do. Related competencies characterize a student’s ability in
 order that the program of study can be so designed as to optimize his/her
innate abilities.
Abilities can be roughly categorized into: cognitive, psychomotor,
affective abilities. The ability to work well with others and to be trusted by
every classmate (affective ability) is an indication that the student can most
likely succeed in work that requires leadership abilities.
 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 worksmanship of such projects. skilled level or novice
level outputs.