A Critical Look at Assessment

A Critical Look at Assessment

When it comes to education, it is essential to establish checks and balances that periodically evaluate the progress of the learner and their response to a given teaching strategy to ensure they effectively benefit from the same. Educational assessment is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data based on a learner’s response to a teaching program. The data, in this case, ranges from the learner’s knowledge, attitude, and skills to beliefs about the particular teaching program. By evaluating the student’s response to a given teaching program in this manner, the educator will be better placed to determine the student’s learning ability in addition to refining and improving student learning. The student’s knowledge is refined by making the necessary adjustments to a particular program based on the learner’s reaction. Some programs may be too advanced, while others may be ineffective and irrelevant to the student’s learning needs, thus the need to adjust these to suit the intended effect.

Some of the basic types of assessment strategies include pre-assessment, whose goal is to determine the student’s weaknesses, strengths, and abilities, as well as the needs, which then informs the developing of the best instruction model. The second type is a formative assessment which deals with monitoring student learning to provide feedback. The theories associated with assessment include behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. In formative assessment, the behaviorism theory is essential in monitoring the reaction of the students through their behaviors to determine whether the instruction model suits them or not. Each of the above theories deals with the student’s response to the instruction model by observing their behaviors, educational growth and understanding, and their general interaction in the class, both with the teacher and other learners. Positive responses to each of these theories imply the effectiveness of the instruction model, while the opposite is equally true.

Learning designs and assessments are based on the learning theories because these theories provide a basis to understand how students learn at individual levels and thus detect the type of assessment method that should be used to observe a given learning theory. For instance, the behaviorism theory posits that it is essential to develop an assessment strategy that focuses on gauging the learner’s reaction in the classroom based on how they interact with the teacher and other students. Therefore, for this theory, it will be essential to apply summative assessment, which focuses on determining the effectiveness of learning and the reaction on the instruction model. On the other hand, constructivism theory places much emphasis on recognizing the learner’s knowledge and understanding based on their experiences before entering school. In this case, a diagnostic assessment will be crucial in allowing the teacher to get to know the student better and evaluate the level of their knowledge to determine which instruction model will benefit them.

The standard tools of assessment include tests, projects, rubric checklist, and worksheets. These tools give a periodic report of the student’s learning ability and thus provide a platform to mark and evaluate their continuous projects. Tests, such as continuous assessment tests (CATs) given at the end of a lesson or a term test the learner’s ability to remember what they have been taught, and their performance in these tests are a direct indication of their response to the given class or instruction model. Rubric checklists and worksheets provide the learner with guidance on how they are expected to perform in a given class or task. The teacher then evaluates the student’s performance against the set objectives in the rubrics and worksheets, and determine their ability to meet the set standards of the instruction model.