Assessment is a key part of today’s educational system. Assessment serves as an individual evaluation system, and as a way to compare performance across a spectrum and across populations. However, with so many different kinds of assessments for so many different organizations available (and often required) these days, it can sometimes be hard to keep the real purpose of assessing in view. So, what’s really at the heart of all these assessments?
The purpose of assessment is to gather relevant information about student performance or progress, or to determine student interests to make judgments about their learning process. After receiving this information, teachers can reflect on each student’s level of achievement, as well as on specific inclinations of the group, to customize their teaching plans.
Continuous assessment provides day-to-day feedback about the learning and teaching process. Assessment can reinforce the efficacy of teaching and learning. It also encourages the understanding of teaching as a formative process that evolves over time with feedback and input from students. This creates good classroom rapport. Student assessments are necessary because:
- Throughout a lesson or unit, the teacher might want to check for understanding by using a formative assessment.
- Students who are experiencing difficulties in learning may benefit from the administration of a diagnostic test, which will be able to detect learning issues such as reading comprehension problems, an inability to remember written or spoken words, hearing or speech difficulties, and problems with hand–eye coordination.
- Students generally complete a summative assessment after completing the study of a topic. The teacher can determine their level of achievement and provide them with feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. For students who didn’t master the topic or skill, teachers can use data from the assessment to create a plan for remediation.
- Teachers may also want to use informal assessment techniques. Using self-assessment, students express what they think about their learning process and what they should work on. Using peer assessment, students get information from their classmates about what areas they should revise and what areas they’re good at.
Some standardized assessment procedures are designed to compare the academic achievement of students from different schools, states, nationwide or worldwide. For example:
- The Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was administered to random samples of fourth graders in 36 countries and eighth graders in 48 countries.
- The Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) was last administered in 2012. It tests functional skills in reading, math, and science on a 3-year cycle. American students scored below the international average on the last test.
- Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) focuses on reading comprehension on a 5-year cycle. It was last administered in 2011.
Before you administer an assessment, be sure you understand what its purpose is. What is it testing? Who is it testing? What entity will the results be reported to? Understanding the makeup of each assessment you give will help you better prepare your students to match up to it.
FAQs
Assessments help instructors measure student learning and allow students to discover where they are excelling and how they can improve.
What is the real purpose of assessment? ›
Assessment informs students of their progress
Effective assessment provides students with a sense of what they know and don't know about a subject. If done well, the feedback provided to students will indicate to them how to improve their performance.
What is the purpose of the educational assessment? ›
It helps the students to demonstrate their learning, provide feedback on the errors they've been making, and help provide opportunities to better their performance with each assessment. For the teachers, it works as an excellent tool to figure out if their teaching methodology is working or not.
What are the four purposes of assessment in education? ›
Demonstrate learning achievements at critical intervals in the learning cycle. Offer and receive feedback. Self-regulate and self-assess the learning (learners) Evaluate their performance.
What are the three purposes of assessment in education? ›
Classroom assessment is used for various purposes: assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. Each of these purposes requires a different role for teachers, different planning, and raises different quality issues.
What is the primary purpose of assessment? ›
Purposes of assessment
The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning and teachers' teaching as both respond to the information it provides. Assessment for learning is an ongoing process that arises out of the interaction between teaching and learning.
What is the main goal of assessment? ›
One major purpose of assessment is to inform. The results from an assessment process should provide information that can be used to determine whether or not intended learning outcomes that faculty have set are being achieved. The information can then be used to determine how programs can be improved.
What are the key purposes of assessment? ›
Assessments assist learners by:
- Providing feedback that will help them improve.
- Helping direct themselves towards their learning goals.
- Motivating them to keep making progress.
- Gathering relevant information about them to support them in ways specific to the learner.
Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at improving student learning. It is formative and reflective in nature. It is focused on the learning process at the moment, i.e. how our students are learning.
What is the main purpose of classroom assessment? ›
"The central purpose of Classroom Assessment is to empower both teachers and their students to improve the quality of learning in the classroom" through an approach that is "learner-centered, teacher-directed, mutually beneficial, formative, context-specific, and firmly rooted in good practice" (Angelo & Cross, 1993, p ...
Assessment helps monitor students' progress and contributes to enforcing the assessment triangle, i.e., observations, interpretations of that observation, and understanding of that observation. Any breakdown can be noted by professors when reviewing their students' work.
What is the role of the assessment? ›
The purpose of the assessment might focus on assessing student learning and assessing the program. Assessment should provide guidance and feedback to the learner and it often serves as a form of learning motivation. Decisions about what to assess are inevitably related to decisions about how to assess.
What are the multiple purposes of the assessment? ›
Furthermore, Newton (2010) provides an open list of purposes that affect students in the assessment process: monitoring, certification, formative, screening, diagnostic, eligibility, segregation, and placement.
What is the ultimate purpose of assessment as learning? ›
Assessment as learning (formative assessment) actively involves student reflection on learning, monitoring of his/her own progress, and: supports students in critically analyzing learning related to curricular outcomes; is student-driven with teacher guidance; and. occurs throughout the learning process.
What are three goals of assessment? ›
We define the goals (reasons) of the assessment on the higher level as follows: rewarding, motivating, guidance of the students, supporting of the maturation, and quality control.
What is the purpose of assessment and evaluation in education? ›
The most important purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning. Assessment and evaluations are important tools for designing curriculum and instructional approaches as per need of students.
What is the purpose of the assessment process? ›
Assessment is the process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about student achievement.
What is the purpose of effective assessment? ›
Effective assessment demonstrates the knowledge, skills and strategies, and attitudes of each student and the progress the student is making, rather than simply identifying deficits in learning.
