PRINCIPLES OF GOOD
PRACTICE IN ASSESSING
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 1. The assessment of student
learning starts with the institution's mission
and core values. There should be a clear
statement on the kinds of learning that the
institution values most for its students.
Principle 2. Assessment works best when
the program has clear statement of
objectives aligned with the institutional
mission and core values. Such alignment
ensures clear, shared and implementable
objectives.
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 3. Outcomes-based assessment
focuses on the student activities that will still
be relevant after formal schooling concludes.
The approach is to design assessment
activities which are observable and less
abstract such as "to determine the student's
ability to write a paragraph" which is more
observable than "to determine the student's
verbal ability."
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 4. Assessment requires attention
not only to outcomes but also and equally to
the activities and experiences that lead to
the attainment of learning outcomes. These
are supporting student activities.
Principle 5. Assessment works best when it
is continuous, ongoing and not episodic.
Assessment should be cumulative because
improvement is best achieved through a
linked series of activities done over time in
an instructional cycle.
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 6. Begin by specifying clearly and
exactly what you want to assess. What you
want to assess is/are stated in your learning
outcomes/lesson objectives.
Principle 7. The intended learning outcome/
lesson objective NOT CONTENT is the basis
of the assessment task. You use content in the
development of the assessment tool and task
but it is the attainment of your learning
outcome NOT the content that you want to
assess. This is Outcome-Based Teaching and
Learning.
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 8. Set your criterion of success or
acceptable standard of success. It is against
this established standard that you will interpret
your assessment results.
Example: Is a score of 7 out of 10 (the highest
possible score) acceptable or considered
success?
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 9. Make use of varied tools for
assessment data-gathering and multiple
sources of assessment data. It is not
pedagogically sound to rely on just one source
of data gathered by only one assessment tool.
Consider multiple intelligences and
learning styles. DepEd Order No. 73, s. 2012
cites the use of multiple measures as one
assessment guideline.
The Multiple
Intelligences by
Howard Gardner
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 10. Learners must be given
feedback about their performance. Feedback
must be specific. "Good work!" is positive
feedback and is welcome but actually is not a
very good feedback since it is not specific. A
more specific feedback is "You observed rules
on subject-verb agreement and variety of
sentences. Three of your commas were
misplaced."
Principles of Good Practice in Assessing
Learning Outcomes
Principle 11. Assessment should be on
real-world application and not on out-of-
context drills.
Principle 12. Emphasize on the
assessment of higher-order thinking.
Principle 13. Provide opportunities for self-
assessment.
