ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING - PED 6

Teacher: Ms. Michelle Deniega

Prepared By: Ryan Astillero

Assessment, Measurement, and Evaluation

The nature of Assessment

It is customary in the educational setting that at the end of a quarter, trimester, or

semester, students receive a grade. The grade reflects a combination of different forms
of assessment that both the teacher and the student have conducted. These grades were based
on a variety of information that the student and teacher gathered in order to objectively come
up with a value that is very much reflective of the student’s performance. The grades
also serve to measure how well the students have accomplished the learning goals intended
for them in a particular subject, course, or training. The process of collecting various
information needed to come up with an overall information that reflects the attainment of
goals and purposes is referred to as assessment (The details of this process will be explained in
the next section). The process of assessment involves other concepts such as measurement,
evaluation, and testing (The distinction of these concepts and how they are related will be
explained in the proceeding section of the book). The teacher and students use various sources
in coming up with an overall assessment of the student’s performance. A student’s grade that is
reflective of their performance is a collective assessment from various sources such as
recitation, quizzes, long tests, final exams, projects, final papers, performance assessments,
and the other sources. Different schools and teachers would give certain weights to these
identified criteria depending on their set goals for the subject or course. Some schools assign
weights based on the nature of the subject area, some teachers would base it on the objectives
set, and others treat all criteria set with equal weights. There is no ideal weight for these
various criteria because it will depend on the overall purpose of the learning and teaching
process, orientation of the teachers, and goals of the school. An overall assessment should
come from a variety of sources to be able to effectively use the information in making
decisions about the students. For example, in order to promote a student on the next grade
or year level, or move to the next course, the information taken about the student’s
performance should be based on multiple forms of assessment. The student should have been
assessed in different areas of their performance to make valid decisions such as for their
promotion, deciding the top pupils, honors, and even failure and being retained to the
current level. These sources come from objective assessments of learning such as several
quizzes, a series of recitation, performance assessments on different areas, and feedback.
These forms of assessment are generally given in order to determine how well the
students can demonstrate a sample of their skills. What is assessment? How is assessment
conducted? When is assessment conducted?
3Assessment is integrated in all parts of the teaching and the learning process. This means that
assessment can take place before instruction, during instruction, and after instruction. Before
instruction, teachers can use assessment results as basis for the objectives and instructions for
their plans. These assessment results come from the achievement tests of students from
the previous year, grades of students from the previous year, assessment results from the
previous lesson or pretest results before instruction will take place. Knowing the assessment
results from different sources prior to planning the lesson helps teachers decide on a better
instruction that is more fit to the kind of learners they will handle, set objectives
appropriate for their developmental level, and think of better ways of assessing students to
effectively measure the skills acquired. During instruction, there are many ways of assessing
student performance. While class discussion is conducted, teachers can ask questions and
students can answer them orally to assess whether students can recall, understand, apply,
analyze, evaluate, and synthesize the facts presented. During instruction teachers can also
provide seat works and work sheets on every unit of the lesson to determine if students have
mastered the skill needed before moving to the next lesson. Assignments are also provided
to reinforce student learning inside the classroom. Assessment done during instruction
serves as formative assessment where it is meant to prepare students before they are finally
assessed on major exams and tests. When the students are ready to be assessed after
instruction took place, they are assessed in a variety of skills they are trained for which then
serves as a summative form of assessment. Final assessments come in the forms of final exams,
long tests, and final performance assessment which covers larger scope of the lesson and more
complex skills are required to be demonstrated. Assessments conducted at the end of the
instruction are more structured and announced where students need time to prepare.

The Nature of Measurement

Measurement is an important part of assessment. Measurement has the features of
quantification, abstraction, and further analysis that is typical in the process of science. Some
assessment results come in the forms of quantitative values that enable the use of
further analysis. Obtaining evidence of different phenomena in the world can be based on
measurement. A statement can be accepted as true or false if the event can be directly
observed. In the educational setting, before saying that a student is “highly intelligent,” there
must be observable proofs to demonstrate that the student is indeed “highly intelligent.”
The people involved in identifying whether a student is “highly gifted” have to gather
evidence accurate information to claim the student as such. When people start demonstrating
certain characteristics such as “intelligence,” by making a judgment, obtaining a high test
score, exemplified performance in cognitive tasks, high grades, then measurement must have
taken place. If measurement is carefully done, then the process meets the requirements of
scientific inquiry. Objects per se are not measured, what is measured are the characteristics
or traits of objects. These measurable characteristics or traits are referred to as variables.
Examples of variables that are studied in the educational setting are intelligence,
achievement, aptitude, interest, attitude, temperament, and others. Nunnaly (1970) defined
measurement as “consist of rules for assigning numbers to objects in such a way as to
represent quantities of attributes.” Measurement is used to quantify characteristics of objects.
Quantification of characteristics or attributes has advantages: Measurement Assessment
Evaluation
5 1. Quantification of characteristics or attributes determines the amount of that attribute
present. If a student was placed in the 10th percentile rank on an achievement test, then that
means that the student has achieved less in reference to others. A student who got a perfect
score on a quiz on the facts about the life of Jose Rizal means that the student has remembered
enough information about Jose Rizal. 2. Quantification facilitates accurate information. If a
student gets a standard score of -2 on a standardized test (standard scores ranges from -3 to +3
where 0 is the mean), it means that the student is below average on that test. If a student got a
stannine score of 8 on a standardized test (stannine scores range from 1 to 9 where 5 is the
average), it means that the student is above the average or have demonstrated superior ability
on the trait measured by the standardized test. 3. Quantification allows objective comparison
of groups. Suppose that male and female students were tested in their math ability using the
same test for both groups. Then mean results of the males math scores is 92.3 and the mean
results of the females math scores is 81.4. It can be said that males performed better in the
math test than females when tested for significance. 4. Quantification allows classification
of groups. The common way of categorizing sections or classes is based on students’ general
average grade from the last school year. This is especially true if there are designated top
sections within a level. In the process, students grades are ranked from highest to lowest and
the necessary cut-offs are made depending on the number of students that can be
accommodated in a class. 5. Quantification results make the data possible for further
analysis. When data is quantified, teachers, guidance counselors, researchers, administrators,
and other personnel can obtain different results to summarize and make inferences about
the data. The data may be presented in charts, graphs, and tables showing the means and
percentages. The quantified data can be further estimated using inferential statistics such
as when comparing groups, benchmarking, and assessing the effectiveness of an instructional
program. The process of measurement in the physical sciences (physics, chemistry,
biology) is similar in education and the social sciences. Both use instruments or tools to
arrive with measurement results. The only difference is the variables of interest being
measured. In the physical sciences, measurement is more accurate and precise because of the
nature of physical data which is directly observable and the variables involved are tangible
in all senses. In education, psychology, and behavioral science, the data is subject to
measurement errors and large variability because of individual differences and the inability to
control variations in the measurement conditions. Although in education, psychology, and
behavioral science, there are statistical procedures for obtaining measurement errors such as
reporting standard deviations, standard errors, and variance. Measurement facilitates
objectivity in the observation. Through measurement, extreme differences in results are
avoided, provided that there is uniformity in conditions and individual differences are
controlled. This implies that when two persons measure a variable following the same
conditions, they should be able to get consistent results. Although there may be slight
difference (especially if the variable measured is psychological in nature), but the results should
6 be at least consistent. Repeating the measurement process several times and
consistency of results would mean objectivity of the procedure undertaken. The process of
measurement involves abstraction. Before a variable is measured using an instrument, the
variable’s nature needs to be clarified and studied well. The variable needs to be defined
conceptually and operationally to identify ways on how it is going to be measured. Knowing
the conceptual definition based on several references will show the theory or conceptual
framework that fully explains the variable. The framework reveals whether the variable is
composed of components or specific factors. Then these specific factors need to be measured
that comprise the variable. A characteristic that is composed of several factors or
components are called latent variables. The components are usually called factors, subscales, or
manifest variables. An example of a latent variable would be “achievement.” Achievement
is composed of factors that include different subject areas in school such as math, general
science, English, and social studies. Once the variable is defined and its underlying factors are
identified, then the appropriate instrument that can measure the achievement can now be
selected. When the instrument or measure for achievement is selected, it will now be easy to
operationally define the variable. Operational definition includes the procedures on how a
variable will be measured or made to occur. For example, ‘achievement’ can be operationally
defined as measured by the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) that is composed of
verbal, quantitative, analytical, biology, mathematics, music, political science, and psychology.
When a variable is composed of several factors, then it is said to be multidimensional. This
means that a multidimensional variable would require an instrument with several subtests in
order to directly measure the underlying factors. A variable that do not have underlying factors
is said to be unidimensional. A unidimensional variable only measures an isolated unitary
attribute. An example of unidemensional measures are the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and
the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ). Examples of multidimensional measures are
various ability tests and personality tests where it is composed of several factors. The 16 PF is a
personality test that is composed of 16 components (researved, more intelligent, affected by
feelings, assertive, sober, conscientious, venturesome, tough-minded, suspicious, practical,
shrewd, placid, experimenting, self-sufficient, controlled, and relaxed). The common tools
used to measure variables in the educational setting are tests, questionnaires, inventories,
rubrics, checklists, surveys and others. Tests are usually used to determine student
achievement and aptitude that serve a variety of purposes such as entrance exam, placement
tests, and diagnostic tests. Rubrics are used to assess performance of students in their
presentations such as speech, essays, songs, and dances. Questionnaires, inventories, and
checklists are used to identify certain attributes of students such as their attitude in studying,
attitude in math, feedback on the quality of food in the canteen, feedback on the quality of
service during enrollment, and other aspects.

The Nature of Evaluation

Evaluation is arrived when the necessary measurement and assessment have taken place. In
order to evaluate whether a student will be retained or promoted to the next level, different
aspects of the student’s performance were carefully assessed and measured such as the
grades and conduct. To evaluate whether the remedial program in math is effective, the
students’ improvement in math, teachers’ teaching performance, whether students’ attitude
towards math changed should be carefully assessed. Different measures are used to assess
different aspects of
7 the remedial program to come up with an evaluation. According to Scriven (1967) evaluation
is “judging the worth or merit” of a case (ex. student), program, policies, processes, events,
and activities. These objective judgments derived from evaluation enable stakeholders (a
person or group with a direct interest, involvement, or investment in the program) to
make further decisions about the case (ex. students), programs, policies, processes, events,
and activities. In order to come up with a good evaluation, Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and Worthen
(2004) indicated that there should be standards for judging quality and deciding whether those
standards should be relative or absolute. The standards are applied to determine the value,
quality, utility, effectiveness, or significance of the case evaluated. In evaluating whether a
university has a good reputation and offers quality education, it should be comparable to a
standard university that topped the World Rankings of University. The features of the
university evaluated should be similar with the standard university selected. A standard
can also be in the form of ideal objectives such as the ones set by the Philippine
Accreditation of Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAASCU). A university is evaluated if they
can meet the necessary standards set by the external evaluators. Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and
Worthen (2004) clarified the aims of evaluation in terms of its purpose, outcome, implication,
setting of agenda, generalizability, and standards. The purpose of evaluation is to help those
who hold a stake in whatever is being evaluated. Stakeholders consist of many groups such as
students, teachers, administrators, and staff. The outcome of evaluation leads to judgment
whether a program is effective or not, whether to continue or stop a program, whether to
accept or reject a student in the school. The implication that evaluation gives is to describe the
program, policies, organization, product, and individuals. In setting the agenda for evaluation,
the questions for evaluation come from many sources, including the stakeholders. In making
generalizations, a good evaluation is specific to the context in which the evaluation object
rests. The standards of a good evaluation are assessed in terms of its accuracy, utility,
feasibility, and propriety. A good evaluation adheres to the four standards of accuracy,
utility, feasibility, and propriety set by the ‘Joint Committee on Standards for Educational
Evaluation’ headed by Daniel Stufflebeam in 1975 at Western Michigan University’s
Evaluation Center. These four standards set are now referred to as ‘Standards for Evaluation of
Educational Programs, Projects, and Materials.’ Table 1 presents the description of the four
standards