The kinds of assessment and their usage in educational purposes

Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skill, attitudes, and beliefs. It is a tool or method of obtaining information from tests or other sources about the achievement or abilities of individuals. Often used interchangeably with test.[1,13] Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community (class, workshop, or other organized group of learners), the institution, or the educational system as a whole (also known as granularity) . The word 'assessment' came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.[2,195]

The final purpose of assessment practices in education depends on the theoretical framework of the practitioners and researchers, their assumptions and beliefs about the nature of human mind, the origin of knowledge, and the process of learning. The term assessment is generally used to refer to all activities teachers use to help students learn and to gauge student progress.[3,28] Assessment can be divided for the sake of convenience using the following categorizations:

• 1.    Initial, formative, summative and diagnostic assessment

• 2.    Objective and subjective

• 3.    Referencing (criterion-referenced, norm-referenced, and ipsative)

• 4.    Informal and formal

• 5.    Internal and external

Assessment is often divided into initial, formative, and summative categories for the purpose of considering different objectives for assessment practices.

• •    Placement assessment – Placement evaluation is used to place students according to prior achievement or personal characteristics, at the most appropriate point in an instructional sequence, in a unique instructional strategy, or with a suitable teacher conducted through placement testing, i.e. the tests that colleges and universities use to assess college readiness and place students into their initial classes. Placement evaluation, also referred to as pre-assessment or initial assessment, is conducted prior to instruction or intervention to establish a baseline from which individual student growth can be measured. This type of an assessment is used to know what the student's skill level is about the subject. It helps the teacher to explain the material more efficiently. These assessments are not graded.[4,10]

• •     Formative assessment – Formative assessment is generally carried out throughout a course or project. Formative assessment, also referred to as "educative assessment," is used to aid learning. In an educational setting,

• •     Summative assessment – Summative assessment is generally carried out at the end of a course or project. In an educational setting, summative assessments are typically used to assign students a course grade. Summative assessments are evaluative. Summative assessments are made to summarize what the students have learned, to determine whether they understand the subject matter well. This type of assessment is typically graded (e.g. pass/fail, 0100) and can take the form of tests, exams or projects. A criticism of summative assessments is that they are reductive, and learners discover how well they have acquired knowledge too late for it to be of use.

• •    Diagnostic assessment – Diagnostic assessment deals with the whole difficulties at the end that occurs during the learning process.

Jay McTighe and Ken O'Connor proposed seven practices to effective learning. One of them is about showing the criteria of the evaluation before the test. Another is about the importance of pre-assessment to know what the skill levels of a student are before giving instructions. Giving a lot of feedback and encouraging are other practices.

Educational researcher Robert Stake explains the difference between formative and summative assessment with the following analogy: When the cook tastes the soup, that's formative. When the guests taste the soup, that's summative.[5,11]

Summative and formative assessment are often referred to in a learning context as assessment of learning and assessment for learning respectively.

Assessment of learning is generally summative in nature and intended to measure learning outcomes and report those outcomes to students, parents and administrators. Assessment for learning is generally formative in nature and is used by teachers to consider approaches to teaching and next steps for individual learners and the class. A common form of formative assessment is diagnostic assessment. Diagnostic assessment measures a student's current knowledge and skills for the purpose of identifying a suitable program of learning. Selfassessment is a form of diagnostic assessment which involves students assessing themselves. Forward-looking assessment asks those being assessed to consider themselves in hypothetical future situations. Performance-based assessment is similar to summative assessment, as it focuses on achievement.

Assessment (either summative or formative) is often categorized as either objective or subjective. Objective assessment is a form of questioning which has a single correct answer. Subjective assessment is a form of questioning which may have more than one correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer). There are various types of objective and subjective questions. Objective question types include true/false answers, multiple choice, multipleresponse and matching questions. Subjective questions include extended-response questions and essays. Objective assessment is well suited to the increasingly popular computerized or online assessment format.

Test results can be compared against an established criterion, or against the performance of other students, or against previous performance:

• •    Criterion-referenced assessment, typically using a criterion-referenced test, as the name implies, occurs when candidates are measured against defined (and objective) criteria. Criterion-referenced assessment is often, but not always, used to establish a person's competence (whether s/he can do something). The best known example of criterion-referenced assessment is the driving test, when learner drivers are measured against a range of explicit criteria (such as "Not endangering other road users").

• •    Norm-referenced assessment (colloquially known as "grading on the curve" ), typically using a norm-referenced test, is not measured against defined criteria. This type of assessment is relative to the student body undertaking the assessment. It is effectively a way of comparing students. The IQ test is the best known example of norm-referenced assessment.

A good assessment has both validity and reliability, plus the other quality attributes noted above for a specific context and purpose. In practice, an assessment is rarely totally valid or totally reliable. A ruler which is marked wrongly will always give the same (wrong) measurements. It is very reliable, but not very valid. Asking random individuals to tell the time without looking at a clock or watch is sometimes used as an example of an assessment which is valid, but not reliable. The answers will vary between individuals, but the average answer is probably close to the actual time. In many fields, such as medical research, educational testing, and psychology, there will often be a trade-off between reliability and validity. A history test written for high validity will have many essay and fill-in-the-blank questions. It will be a good measure of mastery of the subject, but difficult to score completely accurately.