Module 2 – Preliminary Concepts in Educational Assessment

The rising demand for outcome-based education has changed the concepts and views in
educational evaluation. Teachers must objectively see that their students concretely manifest
the expected outcomes of instruction—instructional objectives in the cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor domains. These teachers can discover that the noble qualities of students, such as
multiple skills and knowledge, and understanding of learning, can be developed and manifested
through the integrated approach of instruction and assessment. They should consider that the
traditional use of examination and summative test is not the sole assessment approach if they
are to consider the context of outcome-based education.
This chapter deals with the discussion of the basic concepts related to the assessment of
students’ learning.

Lesson 1 – Basic Concepts in Assessment

Introduction
Assessment of learning focuses on the development and utilization of assessment tools
to improve the teaching-learning process. It emphasizes on the use of testing for measuring
knowledge, comprehension and other thinking skills. As part of the overall evaluation process,
we need specifically to find if the learners are actually learning (changing their behavior) as a
result of teaching. This will show us whether teaching has been effective. Assessment is a
means of finding out what learning is taking place. We might also measure other changes in
behavior related to “personality” such as social skills, interests, and learning style, among
others.
With the change of focus of instruction from content to learning outcomes came the
need to redefine and clarify the terms used to determine the progress of students toward the
attainment of the desired learning outcomes. These are testing, measurement, assessment, and
evaluation.
Learning Outcomes
1. Explain the basic concepts and principles in educational assessment.
2. Explain the various approaches to assessment: assessment FOR, OF and AS learning.
3. Differentiate the types of assessment that can be applied for classroom evaluation.
4. Discuss the role of assessment in making instructional decisions to improve teaching and
learning.
Content Focus
The former Executive Director of Teacher Education Council (TEC), Dr. Roberto N. Padua,
states that “teaching today is a far more complicated profession than it was a couple of decades
ago. The teacher, therefore, is expected to be fully conversant of the measurement and
assessment procedures that underpin testing in the three domains: cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor.” He points out that all institutions of learning should aspire for a very
comprehensive evaluation program. This means that the evaluation program should take an
account of the total aspects of students’ lives—inside and outside of the school.
This recent view of a comprehensive evaluation necessitates the use of assessment
rather than measurement.

A. What is Assessment/Assessment in Learning?

Assessment is a process of gathering qualitative or quantitative data for the purpose of
making decisions. It determines the impact of curriculum and instruction on students.
Assessment is a general term that includes different ways that teachers used to gather
information in the classroom. It may involve, among others, activities such as administering
different kinds of written tests, observation of behavior or performance, examination of work
samples, use of checklists, and interview.
In order to make classroom evaluation more comprehensive, the term assessment
focuses on determining the amount of learning in the three domains: cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor. It usually answers the questions, “Was the instruction effective?” and “Did the
students achieve the intended learning outcomes?”

Assessment in Learning
● Systematic and purposeful collection, analysis and interpretation of evidence of
student learning in order to make informed decisions relevant to the learners
● Characterized as a process, objective-based and comes from multiple sources
● As a continuous process, assessment establishes measurable and clear student
learning outcomes for learning, provisioning a sufficient amount of learning
opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implementing a systematic way of
gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student
learning matches expectations, and using the collected information to inform
improvement in student learning.

Principles in Assessing Learning

1. Assessment should have a clear purpose. Effective assessment requires a clear
concept of all intended learning outcomes. The methods used in collecting
information should be based on this purpose. The interpretation of the data collected
should be aligned with the purpose that has been set. This principle is congruent with
the outcome-based education (OBE) principles of clarity of focus and design down.
2. Assessment is not an end in itself. It is a vehicle for educational improvement. It
serves as a means to enhance student learning. It is not a simple recording or
documentation of what learners know and do not know. Collecting information about
student learning, whether formative or summative, should lead to decision that will
allow improvement of the learners.
3. Assessment is an ongoing, continuous, and formative process. It consists of a
series of tasks and activities conducted over time. It is not a one-shot activity and should
be cumulative. Continuous feedback is an important element of assessment. This
principle is congruent with the OBE principle of expanded opportunity.
4. Assessment is learner-centered. It is not about what the teacher does but what the
learner can do. Assessment of learners provides teachers with an understanding on how
they can improve their teaching, which corresponds to the goal of improving student
learning.
5. Assessment is both product and process oriented. It gives equal importance to
learner performance or product in the process. They engaged in to perform or produce
a product.
6. Assessment must be comprehensive and holistic. It should be performed using a
variety of strategies and tools designed to assess student learning in a holistic way. It
should be conducted in multiple periods to assess learning overtime. This principle is
also congruent with the OBE principle of expanded opportunity.
7. Assessment requires the use of appropriate measures. For assessment to be valid,
the assessment tools or measures used must have sound psychometric properties,
including, but not limited to, validity and reliability. Appropriate measures also mean
that learners must be provided with challenging but age- and context-appropriate
assessment tasks. This principle is consistent with the OBE principle of high expectation.
8. Assessment should be as authentic as possible. Assessment tasks or activities
should closely, if not fully, approximate real-life situations or experiences. Authenticity
of assessment can be taught of as a continuum from least authentic to most authentic,
with more authentic tasks expected to be more meaningful for learners.

Approaches to Assessment
Classroom assessment is generally divided into three types: Assessment for
learning, Assessment of learning, and Assessment as learning
1. Assessment of Learning. Generally summative in nature, this is the use of
assessment to determine learners’ acquired knowledge and skills from instruction
and whether they were able to achieve the curriculum outcomes. (Summative
Assessment). It is usually given at the end of a unit, grading period or a term like a
 semester. It is meant to assess learning for grading purposes, the term
Assessment of Learning.
2. Assessment for Learning. This is the use of assessment to identify the needs of
learners in order to modify instruction or learning activities in the classroom. This
assessment is formative in nature and is meant to identify gaps between the
learning experience and curriculum outcomes. (Formative Assessment)
Assessment for learning means teachers using students’ knowledge,
understanding, and skills to inform their teaching. It occurs throughout the
teaching and learning process to clarify and ensure student learning and
understanding.
3. Assessment as Learning. This is the use of assessment to help learners become
self-regulated. It is formative in nature meant to use assessment tasks, results
and feedback to help learners learn and improve self-regulation and prepare for
possible adjustments to achieve curriculum outcomes.
In short, in assessment as learning, students set their targets, actively
monitor and evaluate their own learning in relation to their set target.
Consequently, they become directed and independent learners. By assessing
their own learning, they are learning at the same time.

B. Roles of Assessment in Classroom Instruction

“Teaching and learning are reciprocal processes that depend on and affect one another”
(Swearingen, 2000 and Kellough, 1999). The assessment component of the instructional
process deals with the learning progress of the students and the teacher’s effectiveness
in imparting knowledge to students. Assessment may be given at the beginning of
instruction, during instruction, and at the end of instruction.

 Assessment enhances learning in the instructional processes if the result provides

feedback to both the students and teachers.
 The information obtained from assessment is used to evaluate the teaching
methodologies and strategies of the teacher.
 It is also used to make teaching decisions.
 Result of assessment is used to diagnose the learning problems of the students.
Four roles of assessment in the instructional process:
1. Beginning of Instruction
Also known as placement assessment, it is concerned with the entry performance and
typically focuses on the questions: Does the learner possess the knowledge and skills needed to
begin the planned instruction? To what extent has the learner already developed the
understanding and skills that are the goals of planned objectives? To what extent do the
student’s interest, work habits, and personality indicate that one mode of instruction is better
than another?
The purpose of placement assessment is to determine the prerequisite skills, degree of
mastery of the course objectives and the best mode of learning.
2. During Instruction
During the instructional process, the main concern of a classroom teacher is to monitor
the learning progress of the students. The teacher should assess whether the students achieved
the intended learning outcomes set for particular lesson.
Formative Assessment. This is a type of assessment used to monitor the learning
progress of the students during instruction. The purposes of formative assessment are to:
a. provide immediate feedback to both student and teacher regarding the success and
failures of learning;
b. identify the learning errors that are in need of correction;
c. provide teachers with information on how to modify instruction; and
 d. improve learning and instruction.
Diagnostic Assessment. This is a type of assessment given at the beginning of
instruction or during instruction. It aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the
students regarding the topics to be discussed.
3. End of Instruction
Summative assessment is a type of assessment usually given at the end of a course or
unit to determine the extent to which instructional objectives have been attained, the students’
mastery of the intended learning outcomes, and the effectiveness of instruction.
C. Common Terminologies
MEASUREMENT
 Process of quantifying test results or the attributes of an object.
 It expresses the assessment data in terms of numerical values and answers the
question “how much”.
 Actual collection of information on student learning through the use of various
strategies and tools.
 Common example of measurement is when a teacher gives a score to the test
taken by the students where numerical values are used to represent the
performance of students.
TESTING
 The most common form of assessment is giving a test.
 A process of administering a test to an individual or a group of students.
 Use of test or battery of tests to collect information on student learning over a
specific period of time.
 Involves test preparation, test administration, scoring, and interpretation of test
results.
EVALUATION
 Process of making value judgements on the information collected from
measurement.
 It is a comparison of data to a set of standard or learning criteria for the purpose
of judging the worth or quality.
 The scope is wider than assessment which focuses specifically on student
learning outcomes.
Summary
To summarize, we measure height, distance, weight, knowledge of subject matter
through testing; we assess learning outcome; we evaluate results in terms of some criteria
or objectives.
Measurement refers to the process by which the attributes or dimensions of some
objects or subjects of study are determined.
Assessment is a process of selecting, receiving and using data for the purpose of
improvement in the current performance.
Evaluation is an act of passing judgment on the basis of a set of standards.
Another way of saying it is “assessment is the process of objectively understanding
the state or condition of a thing by observation and measurement. Evaluation is the process
of observing and measuring a thing for the purpose of judging it and of determining its
value either by comparison to a similar thing or a standard.”
Very often, you measure what you intended to be measured by means of a tool,
review measurement data to improve further current performance, then pass judgment
(evaluation) based on a set of standards.
 D. Modes of Assessment
There are different types or modes of assessment used by classroom teachers to
assess the learning progress of the students.
1. Traditional Assessment
 A type of assessment in which the students choose their answer from a given list
of choices.
 Students are expected to recognize that there is only one correct or best answer
for the question.
 Teacher-made tests are traditional assessment tools.
2. Alternative Assessment
 Students create an original response to answer a certain question using their
own ideas and in their own words.
 Examples of alternative assessment are short-answer questions, essays, oral
presentations, demonstrations, performance assessment, and portfolios.
Performance-based Assessment – an assessment in which students are asked to
perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential
knowledge and skills. The teacher creates the task as well as develop guidelines for
scoring and interpretation.
Portfolio Assessment – systematic, longitudinal collection of student work created
in response to a specific, known instructional objectives and evaluated in relation to
some criteria.
Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s
efforts, progress and achievement in one or more areas over a period of time.

ACTIVITY:
1. Complete the table to summarize the approaches to assessment in learning. (5 points each)

TYPE of ASSESSMENT PURPOSE

Assessment of learning

Assessment for learning

Assessment as Learning

2. Give a classroom scenario where the principle “Assessment is Learner-Centered” is shown. (5 points)

3. Choose 3 core principles in assessing learning, and explain them in relation to your experiences with
past teachers. A model is provided for your reference.

Principles Practices
Example: I remember my high school teacher in Mathematics who just
1. Assessment should have a gave periodical test items that were not actually presented
clear purpose. nor
discussed in class. He would often include very difficult test
items that even the smartest student in our class could not
answer. I could not understand why he felt so happy when
most of us failed in the test.
2.

3.

4.
4. Write your reflection on the recent concepts of assessment and evaluation. Focus on the
following questions: (10 points)
a. What important points do you realize as you read the concepts?
b. How important are the concepts for your chosen profession?

Prepared by:

ELIZABETH V. BACAY, MAEd

Couse Professor