Types of Student Assessments
High Stakes
Self-Assessment
Portfolio
Authentic
Performance Based
Diagnostic
Diagnostic assessment is a type of "pre-assessment" that allows a teacher to determine students' individual strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills prior to instruction. It is primarily used to diagnose student difficulties and to guide lesson and curriculum planning. ❤
Pros and Cons
As a pre-assessment tool diagnostic assessment can be consdered a method for assessing student understanding prior to a course of study. 🔓
Examples of diagnostic assessments are unit pretests or running records used to place students into banded reading groups. ✏
High stakes assessments are assessments used to determine which individual students get rewards, honors, or sanctions .High stakes testing can be used to determine yearly progress in meeting state-determined standards, for a student’s promotion to the next grade level and for awarding diplomas or other certificates. ❤
Pros and Cons
High stakes assessments are nearly always used as a summative assessment tool of learning, but can also include tests that impact the status of a school such as those on which a given percentage of students must receive a passing grade. 🔓
Examples of high stalkes assessments are school entrance exams, standardized aptitude tests and primary school leaving examinations. ✏
Performance based assessment is assessment that is designed to assess what students know through their ability to perform certain tasks. Performance based assessment measures students' ability to apply the skills and knowledge learned from a course of study. ❤
Pros and Cons
Performance based assessment is mainly used as a method of measuring student understanding as students are being asked to perform tasks as a summative form of assessment. 🔓
Examples of performance based assessments might be to require a student to serve a volleyball, solve a particular type of math problem, or write a short letter demonstrating that they have acquired new knowledge and skills. ✏
Pros and Cons
An example of an authentic assessment for a lower primary English composition class could be the writing and editing of a class newspaper. ✏
Student self-assessment is a method of assessment that involves students evaluating their own work and learning progress. It can also involve students in the assessment design process to help them better understand test procedure and to promote self reflection. ❤
Pros and Cons
Self-Assessment can be a form of assessment both of and for student learning by giving students agency in both assessment of themselves and by better understanding the process of assessment. 🔓
Examples of self-assessment include reflective journals or letting students set goals for a certain assignement and then allowing them to decide if they have met them. ✏
A portfolio is a collection of a student’s work chosen to exemplify and document their learning progress over time. With portfolio assessment students are often encouraged or required to maintain a portfolio illustrating various aspects of their learning. The portfolio can include various artifacts from their course of study. ❤
Pros and Cons
A portfolio can be an assessment tool both for and of a student’s learning. As an end of program summative assessment where students present work for review or as a continuous process where the portfolio is assessed on an ongoing basis as work is added to it. 🔓
Any student or teacher curated collection of work can be a called a portfolio and assessment can be done by a refective self-assessment, a peer review, a teacher or panel of teachers. ✏
A benefit of authentic assessment is that the students can gain exposure to experiences or skills that can be used outside the context of the classroom and out in the real world. ✅
A drawback of authentic assesments is that they can be difficult to use for abstract concepts or for topics that might put student's well being at risk. 🚫
Examples
Authentic assessments are useful as assessments of learning to show understanding of a learned skill. However, authentic assessments can be useful as assessment for learning to give students a hands on experience with target content. 🔓
Auththentic assessment is a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks to demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. ❤
Purpose
For/Of Learning
Self-Assessment can provide valuable insight into student's sense of understanding as well as provide excellent opportunities for reflection and self correction. ✅
Drawbacks to self assessments could be a student's lack of understanding of the importance of the assessment. Also, it implies a certain level of understanding that might not be suited for all topic or students. 🚫
Some drawbacks of portfolio assessment are that portfolios can be difficult to score reliably and sometimes they can pose a logistical problem for teachers and students. Also, portfolios are not always appropriate for every subject or student. 🚫
Some positives of portfolio assessments are that they encourage student reflection and are a more descriptive and accurate indicator of student learning than grades or test scores, especially in subjects where material artifacts are created. ✅
The advantages of performance based assessments are that they provide a more accurate indication of what students can do over traditional assessments, which might simply require a student to fill in the blank, indicate whether a statement is true or false, or select a right answer from multiple given choices. ✅
Some drawbacks to evaluating students through performance based assessment are that they can be more time-consuming for teachers and students to and more expensive to administer. They can also induce more performance and testing anxiety. 🚫
There exists several benefits of diagnostic assessment such as allowing teachers to plan meaningful and individualized instruction. Also, it creates a baseline for assessing future learning and shows both the teacher and student what is known before any instruction occurs. ✅
If done incorrectly or poorly diagnostic assessment may derail an entire planned course of study. Pretests can also be a source of angst for students unsure of the content. 🚫
Some benefits to high stakes assessments are that they are based on clearly defined standards and can provide important information on students' performance. High stakes assessments can highlight gaps in performance and can also be highly motivating especially when results are tied to grade promotion or graduation. ✅
Some disadvantages of high stakes testing include teachers being forced to teach for a test, poor assessment of creativity or critical thinking skills, test anxiety and an emphasis placed on rote memorization. 🚫
Purpose
For/Of Learning
Examples
Examples
For/Of Learning
Purpose
Purpose
For/Of Learning
Examples
Purpose
For/Of Learning
Examples
Purpose
For/Of Learning
Examples
References
Martin, Pamela (2015) A Guide to Authentic Assessments. Retrieved April 12, 2018 from https://www.brighthubeducation.com/student-assessment-tools/103531-types-of-authentic-assessment/
A Lexicon of Learning (2018) Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved April 12, 2018 from http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Lexicon-of-Learning/table-of-contents.aspx
Andrade, H. & Valtcheva, A. (2009) Promoting learning and achievement through self-assessment. Theory Into Practice
Types of Student Assessment
Key
❤ Purpose
🔓 Assessment for learning or of learning
✅ Pros
🚫 Cons
✏ Assessment examples