Assessment &

Types of Assessment

Contents
No. Information Page

01 Assessment Definition 01

02 Internal Assessment 02

03 External Assessment 03

04 Formal Assessment 04

05 Informal Assessment 05

06 Terminal/Summative Assessment 06

07 Continuous/Formative Assessment 07

08 Standardized Assessment 08

09 Non-Standardized Assessment 09

10 Norm Referenced Assessment 10

11 Criterion Referenced Assessment 11

12 Convergent Assessment 12

13 Divergent Assessment 13
Assessment
 Etymology
 According to Evangeline Harris Stefanakis (2002),
 "The word assess comes from the Latin assidere, which means to sit beside.
Literally then, to assess means to sit beside the learner."

This word origin implies that in assessment the teacher sits with the learner and
assessment is something teachers do with and for students rather than to
students (Green, 1998).
 Meaning

 According to Merriam Webster Dictionary ‘Assessment’ has two meanings

1. “An amount that a person is officially required to pay” and
2. “The act of making a judgment about something”

 Definitions
 According to Fenton (1996),
 "Assessment is the collection of relevant information that may be relied on for
making decisions.’
 According to Merriam Webster Dictionary
 The action or an instance of making a judgment about something.
 According to Cambridge Dictionary
 The act of judging or deciding the amount, value, quality, or importance of
something, or the judgment or decision that is made.
 Functions of assessment
 (Kratochvílová) defines 4 main and basic functions of assessment.
 Informative
 Corrective
 Motivational
 Developmental
 (Kolář and Šikulová) have however added several other functions (44).
 Motivational
 Informative
 Regulative
 Formative
 Prognostic
 Differential

1
 Internal Assessment
Definition

 Internal assessment refers to the process evaluating students or staffs by the people who
govern it.
 Internal assessment is often called “Home examination”, “Class room test” or “Teacher
made test. There are the assessments for which all the arrangement are made by the teachers
of the same institution. Its main aim is to evaluate the progress of students in different
classes at different levels.

Characteristics

 To evaluate the Mental Nourishment of students.

 To estimate the student’s educational progress, speed of achieving and ability of learning.
 It fulfills the objective of learning and retaining it for a long time.
 Teacher evaluate his progress and his teaching methods and try to overcome his weakness.
 Students and teacher both know the status of each student, who is leading and who is
lagging and how much.

Merits

 It is direct, flexible and can easily be tied with the unit of instruction.
 It is economical in terms of time and money and can be conducted frequently.
 The student accepts it as part of teaching learning process and faces it without squirm or
fear.
 Students can be engaged in study throughout the year.
 Internal assessment helps to reduce anxiety and prevent nervous breakdown in students.

Demerits

 Internal assessment tends to lead to indiscreet comparison of students.

 It is not possible to apply internal evaluation in respect of thousands of private candidates.
 Teacher can yield to local pressures.
 Grades will vary from school and will not have uniform significance.
 Pupils and their parents have lessor faith in internal evaluation.

Example

 Daily Test
 Weekly Test
 Entrance Test or admission Test
 the essays, group assignments, tests, etc.

2
 External Assessment
Definition

 Refers to the examination, which is usually taken in the exam period once your lectures
and workshops are finished.
 An assessment carried out by evaluators external to the facility/school/university.
 Refers to all student testing developed and used by sources outside of the student's school.

Characteristics

 Comparison of abilities.
 To evaluate the progress of Institution
 Competition.
 Evaluation of teacher’s performance
 Evaluation of objectives and curriculum.

Merits

 helps in developing competent person from practicing.

 justifies the decision as to whether they should move up to the next class or be awarded a
degree or diploma.
 to detect and locate faults and problems which often are overseen by internal systems
 a good device for motivating students.
 provides Information which is critical to know whether the School system is delivering
good performance

Demerits

 Incomplete evaluation of personality.

 Unreliable results.
 Exams without specific objectives.
 It is time consuming.
 Marking is not up to the standard.

Example
 Comprehensive exam

3
 Formal Assessment
Definition

 Which is planned in advance by the administration. Which lacks spontaneity.

 Where students are aware that the task they are doing is for assessment purpose

Characteristics

 Student are aware of what is being assessed by teacher

 Encourages students in achieving the goal
 Structured
 Product Based
 Knowledge testing

Merits

 Perceived to be Fairer
 Explicit criteria
 Not biased
 Drives Instruction – Teachers can target exact deficiencies.
 Students are aware that they are being assessed so they behave accordingly

Demerits

 The wording on the formal tests may cause students to answer incorrectly based on wording
alone and not knowledge of content.
 Induces stress to the students because of the pressures put on formal testing.
 Multiple choice questions may not show knowledge but rather the ability to eliminate a
select few answers and guess. This means the student may score high on assessment without
understanding the content.
 Students’ scores are compared to other students and not compared to their previous
knowledge or abilities.
 Students perform less well

Example

 Chapter Test
 Unit Examination
 Final Course Examination
 Term Papers

4
 Informal Assessment
Definition

 More spontaneous, often and less obvious.

 Unplanned observations and general feedback
 those that are used to evaluate a student's own performance and progress individually. In
the classroom,
Mostly conducted when teacher observe a student having no attention into the class.

Characteristics

 Useful for making valid and useful assessments of learners

 Flexible
 Continuous
 Process Based
 Progress measuring

Merits

 More closely related to curriculum

 More sensitive to small gains
 Identify specific errors
 Quick and focused
 Retention of information

Demerits

 Difficult to prepare meaningful questions

 Response times may be extensive
 Not really reliable and valid
 Teacher just observe only a fraction of students
 Teacher often do not provide adequate time to answer

Examples

 checklist
 Quizzes
 Note taking
 Dialogues

5
 Terminal (Final) Assessment
Definition

 This is assessment that is carried out at the end of a course or major unit thereof.
 The assessment which takes place at the end of the term (course).

Characteristics

 Assesses learning as a complete whole.

 Teachers extract important parts of the terminal study and make a format for students to
follow and answer it.
 Assesses whether students have actually learned what they studied or rote memorized it.
 Stimulates superior study methods.
 Enhances ability to organize the knowledge, express opinion and show originality.

Merits

 Simple to organize it in short space of time.

 Time limited.
 Student’s efficacy is measured (Can they write what they learned)
 More emphasis on pure memory.
 Decisive

Demerits

 This is not constructive as it only gives the result of declaring whether the student is passed
or not.
 If student fails, they shall have to reschedule the whole term.
 Extremely stressful.
 Students will have to study the complete work of the whole term.
 Much more planning needed

Example

 Submitting a major item or collection of work (eg a dissertation, thesis or portfolio).

 2 years of study (11th, 12th).
 Undergoing a practical or situational assessment.

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 Continuous Assessment
Definition

 The assessment which is scattered throughout the term.

 This is assessment that is carried out on an on-going basis while students are actually
working through a course or major unit thereof.

Characteristics

 Guidance oriented – collected information for guidance to the learner

 Systematic – requires an operational plan
 Comprehensive – different form of tests
 Cumulative – Accumulated record of students help them to choose a right direction for
future studies
 Motivational – Encourages students to learn faster and effectively

Merits

 Encourages regular systematic study.

 Indicates the performance of students
 Reduces intense stress
 Provides teachers early warning of any problem and weakness of students
 Less emphasis on pure memory

Demerits

 Students feel that they are continually under surveillance

 Students may grossly over assessed.
 Adversely effect the student and teacher relationship
 Over concentration on written test
 Lack of appropriate skills of teachers, test construction and administration.

Example

 Short test
 Class test
 Home work/Assignments
 Projects

7
 Standardized Assessment
Definition

 Standardized – Pre-established Norms.

 Am assessment which requires all test takers to answer the same question which is scored
in a consistent or standard manner
 A standardized assessment is an assessment that is administered and scored in a consistent,
or “standard”, manner.
 An assessment which has uniformity of procedure in scoring, administering and
interpreting the result.

Characteristic

 Allows educators to compare students from different schools and different states from
across the country without variations in conditions.
 To evaluate whether students have learned what they were supposed to learn
 Allow fair comparisons among individual or groups of test takers
 Obtains information on whether a program is achieving its desired outcomes.
 This kind of tests is constructed by a panel of experts in testing after pre-planning and
determination.

Merits

 A ready-made previously validated product that frees teachers from having to spend hours
creating a test.
 Easy to administer
 Results are quantifiable
 Identify proficiency levels
 Mostly scored via computers which saves times for the educator.
 Unbiased
 School-wide weakness and strengths are identifiable

Demerits

 Frequently unrelated to the curriculum

 Its results do no provide enough information for curricular modification if needed.
 makes various teachers to ‘teach to the tests’ only. Such practice hinders the overall
learning potential of the student.
 Standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking
 It measures only content knowledge

Example

 Achievement test
 Aptitude test
 Toefl, IELTS
 Psychological test, IQ test etc.

8
 Non-Standardized Assessment
Definition

 Made by the teachers for use within a single classroom and with a set of students
 They are not made to compare student with one another. Rather, they are made to
determine whether the student is learning or not.
 An assessment for determining the amount of an information the student has learned
through the instruction
 it gauges to measure the student’s knowledge of specific content.

Characteristics

 To evaluate the progress of students in school

 Such assessment varies from school to school and from teacher to teacher
 Results are used for the teachers and students to improve.
 Inexpensive
 Instructions are simple, clear and motivating.

Merits
 Simple to use and easy for the students to answer
 Covers broad and wide area of objectives and content
 Teachers can assess strength and weakness of students
 Immediate feedback
 Helps teacher to adopt better instructional methods

Demerits
 They are either too short or too lengthy
 They are usually hurriedly conducted
 Supervision is not proper
 Sometimes biased
 Cause mental stress to students

Example

 Mid-term exam
 Short essay
 Short answer
 Completion
 MCQs

9
 Norm Referenced Assessment
Definition

 Norm-referenced assessments show where an individual student's performance lies in

relation to other students.
 Compares each test taker’s score against others taking the same test and identifies if the
individual test taker did better or worse than others taking the same test.
 Assessment designed to measure the growth in a student’s attainment and to compare his
level of attainment with the levels reached by other students and norm group.
 An assessment designed to provide a measure of performance that is interpretable in terms
of an individual’s relative standing in a group
 Designed to provide, a measure of performance that is interpretable in terms of an
individual’s relative standing in some known group is called norm-referenced test.
 Assessment which is made as a way to rank or compare students

Characteristics

 Relative - Compares performance between the learners (percentile)

 To discriminate between high and low achievers.
 Normal distribution of scores around a mean.
 Measures general language abilities or proficiencies
 To measure student’s achievement to curriculum-based skill.
 Prepared for a particular grade level
 Helps in forming homogeneous or heterogeneous class groups
 Classifies achievement as above average, average or below average for a given grade.
 Generally reported in the form or percentile rank, linear standard score, normalized
standard score and grade equivalent score.
 Designed to sort and rank students "on the curve,"

Merits

 Time efficient
 Helps in the Measurement of abilities
 Emphasize the discrimination among individuals
 Measure broad skills areas sampled from variety of materials.
 Administered in a standard manner
 This assessment demonstrates the reliability and validity

Demerits

 Students actual achievement may not be acknowledged

 Students do not know where they stand until the course is over
 Encourages poor evaluation practices
 Its grading tells us nothing about standards

Example

 Competitive exams. (CSS)

 IQ test

10
 Criterion Referenced Assessment
Definition

 Compares the test taker against set standards on a test score scale and is used to determine
the candidates’ mastery of content material or skill level
 The performance of students or trainees is assessed against pre-determined criteria,
without regard to their performance relative to one another.

Characteristics

 Absolute – Focuses on criteria (Percentage)

 Measures specific objectives base language points
 Developed to be representative of specified levels of ability or domains of content
 Describe tasks students can perform
 A student’s score is not influenced by other’s scores.

Merits

 Scores indicate whether the student met the mastery criteria

 Fosters learning
 Focuses on individual’s competency
 Motivates students to perform up to the standards
 Students are expected to achieve realistic goals

Demerits

 Cannot be used when class size is very low

 Not all students can pass the given subject or course
 Promotes competition among students rather than cooperation
 Often become fairly similar to norm-referenced
 Difficult to set a reasonable standard for students

Example

 Driving test
 Chapter test
 Citizenship test

11
 Convergent Assessment
Definition

 Those assessments which have one correct answer that the student should select.
 A convergent assessment has only one correct response (per item).

Characteristics

 Aims to discover whether the learner knows, understands or can do a pre-determined

thing.
 (Can you do this...?) This approach is often characterized by tick-lists and can-do
statements
 Closed ended questions to ascertain whether or not the learner knows, understands or can
do a predetermined thing.
 Mostly used in written tests
 Monitors student’s progress
 Judgmental quantitative evaluation

Merits

 Easier to evaluate or score

 They tend to be quicker
 They give more specific and directed feedback to individuals
 Provide greater curricular coverage
 Quickly and effectively highlight the area of weakness and gaps in students

Demerits

 Limited in scope
 Sometimes the scoring can be erroneous
 More focused studying brings more stress to the students.
 Mainly encourages rote memorization

Example

 Objective type tests

 Computerized objective test

12
 Divergent Assessment

Definition

 Divergent assessments are those for which a range of answers or solutions might be
considered correct.
 Divergent assessment appreciates a range of answers based on informed opinion and
analysis.

Characteristics

 Aims to discover what the learner knows, understands or can do.

 Open ended questions
 Gives insight into the learner’s understanding
 Descriptive rather than judgmental assessment

Merits

 Constructivist view of learning

 Helps teacher and student engage collaboratively
 More oriented to student needs
 Flexibility and accountability
 Enhances cognitive skills (Logical)

Demerits

 Time consuming
 Resulting judgement exhibits poor reliability
 Require greater marking skills
 Require the teachers to have information at all aspects and be skilled
 Extra theoretical

Example

 essay tests

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