USING ASSESSMENT

What is assessment?
• Assessment is the process of gathering data
in order to see what students know,
understand and can do with their knowledge.
 Why is it impotant?
• Assessment is important because after
gathering data in order to see what a student
knows, it can help identify a student’s
learning needs. This can be with future steps
in the classroom, interventions etc.
 Some basic concepts used
for assessment
• Distributions and Frequencies
• Measures of Central Tendency
• Pass Rates
• Histograms
• Standard Deviation
• Item Difficulty
• Item Discrimination
 Distributions and
Frequencies
• As a statistical tool, a frequency
distribution provides a visual
representation for the
distribution of observations
within a particular test.
• To see the distribution with a
frequency table.
• Make a list of all scores for an
assessment in numerical order
from lowest to highest.
• Then, write the number of
students who got that grade next
to the score.
• This spread of scores is called
dispersion.
 Measures of Central
Tendency
• In statistics, the three ways to measure the middle of a distribution are
called measure of central tendency.
• The mean is the arithmetic average, obtained by taking the sum or total of
all scores divided by the number of scores. This gives you information
about how the average student did on the assessment.If this figure is very
low, it may indicate that overall,students found the assessment difficult.

• If teacher examine your frequence table and see scores at either extreme,
then teacher can use one of the other two measures of central tendency.
• The mode is the most frequently occuring score, and the median is the
midpoint score when you range all the individual scores from top to
bottom.
 Pass Rates

• The need to categorise such as letter grades.

• 740 students passed the test and 794 students
took the test.
• 740 ÷ 794 = 0.9320
• 0.9320 × 100 = 93.2 percent
 Histograms
• Histograms, a type of bar chart, are visual representations of
how well a group of students did on test or quiz. Histograms
can be easily drawn from a list of grade breakdowns or from
the actual scores as shown on your frequency table.
A histogram with bell curve
 Standard Deviation
• In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the
amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. This
statistic gives us an idea of how closely scores are distributed
around the mean.

• If the standard deviation value is low, the group to which the

test is applied is homogeneous. Differentiation is minimal.

• If the standard deviation is high, the group to which the test is

applied is heterogeneous. In other words, differentiation
among students is high. The distinctive feature of the test is
high.
• Standard deviation is supplied with analysis software or
obtainable from many hand calculators.

Calculate the Sample Standard Deviation:

• Step 1. Work out the mean
• Step 2. Then for each number: subtract the Mean and square
the result
• Step 3. Then work out the mean of those squared differences.
• Step 4. Take the square root of that.
CLASS A CLASS B Interpret the SD
15 68
23 65
42 64
55 63
59 62
63 61
64 60
67 59
69
72
73
75
81
84
96
M= 62.5 M= 62.5
 Madde analizi (bilen ve
bilmeyen)
– Madde güçlüğü (Item Difficulty)
– Madde ayırt ediciliği (Item discrimination)
– Çeldiriciler iyi işlemiş mi (Distractors)

• 100 students took the test

• Put the scores in an order
• Take the 27 highest/lowest scoring papers
(27%)
 Item Difficulty
• At the item level, the main analytical tool is item difficulty,
sometimes called facility value.
• Both terms indicate the proportion of correct responses,
which is figured by dividing the number of students who
answered correctly by the number of students who attempted
to answer the item.
6th item A B* C D E TOTAL

High 9 54 17 15 5 100

Low 19 12 19 33 17 100

Pj=66/200=33/100= Pj= 0.33 [0-1] 0.3; 0.5; 0.9

• 33D-----67Y
• 0.33= ZOR
 Item Discrimination
• To compare how students did on a single item as
contrasted to their overall performance on the entire
assessment.
• This called item discrimination because it examines
whether the item distinguishes between stronger and
weaker students.
• The purpose of the assessment is to get information
about students who are progressing and those who need
further help, practice or instruction.
 Item discrimination

•  
• Rjx= =0.42 MÜKEMMEL
• -1; 0.19 →Atılmalı
• 0.20; 0.29 →Düzeltilmeli
• 0.30; 0.39 →İyi madde
• 0.40; 1 →Mükemmel
• You have to divide class into high and low groups. Divide
the test population by four according to their overall
grades.

• In a class of 40, the 10 students with the top grades are in

the high group and the 10 with the lowest scores are in
the low group.

• Count how many of the students in the high group got it

correct and subtract the number of the students in the low
group who got the right answer. Then divide that number
in the group size, 10 in this case. That will give you the item
discrimination.
 Distractors
• For several types of objective test where the answers supplied
it is useful to see whether distractors are attracting students
who don’t know the correct answer.
• Good distractors in a multiple choice item should include both
general and specific meaning.
• Distractor analysis is calculate by using high and low groups as
an item discrimination.
• If you find that some distractors don’t attract any responses
then they should be changed.
Distractor
• This item has an item difficulty so many more
students found it difficult.

• The discrimination index is 35 so it did show a

difference between weak and strong student.

• Option a, an incorrect response, attracted as

many students in the high group as in the low
group.
 Analysis Software
• Teachers can use softwares that makes the process
analysis more easier and quicker.

• They can use Microsoft Excell and Iteman commercial

software.

• Whether you analyze with paper, pencil, calculator or

software interpretation is a matter of thinking beyond the
numbers.

• Once we understand what happened we can use insights

in classrooms to improve exams.
• Praise, criticism, and suggestions
(Hyland & Hyland, 2001, p. 186).
• Ellis’s (2009) typology
Types of feedback
• Direct
• Implicit
• Metalinguistic
• Reformulation
• Focused/unfocused feedback
• Computer-assisted feedback

A COMPARARISON OF THE IMPACT OF TEACHER FEEDBACK

WITHIN AND IRRESPECTIVE OF THE ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN
25
LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ ZONE OF PROXIMAL
DEVELOPMENT, 15.05.2018
 Feedback
• Feedback are important part of the teaching /
learning cycle. Analysis takes time and effort but
once the benefits are clear administrators often
supports analysis because it provides them useful
information.

• Consider the people who will receive feedback and

how they process information. Effective feedback
provides just the right amount of information in a
useable form.
• With your colleagues be sensitive to their
concerns about their own teaching and their
students. Be specific about the things that needs
improvement but don’t get mired in details.

• Take notes that might be forgotten. Keep a small

notebook or computer folder just for this. During
the analysis or feedback phases of assessment
keep track of things you would like to change or
do differently.