Administration

of Assessment
Assessment process

 Can be thought of as a 3-step sequence:

1. Gather evidence of learning,
2. Interpret the evidence (gained in fair and reliable ways) –
aka marking and grading, and
3. Make decisions based on that interpretation.
Administration of assessment

 Administration of assessment involves:

 Setting the assessment task.
 Moderation of assessment task.
 Conducting assessment (learners writing).
 Marking.
 Recording of marks.
 Feedback and corrections.
 Analysis of results, error analysis and per item analysis.
 Reporting.
Moderation of assessment tasks

 Moderation refers to the process that ensures that the

assessment tasks are fair, valid and reliable.
 Moderation takes place at school, district, provincial and
national levels.
 The school must develop comprehensive and appropriate
moderation practices for the quality assurance of all subject
assessments.
Moderation of assessment tasks

 All Grade 10 and 11 tasks are internally moderated.

 All Grade 12 tasks should be externally moderated.
 The subject head for Economics or head of department for the
Business, Commerce and Management subjects at the school
will manage the internal moderation process.
Marking and Grading

 Serves 3 main purposes:

1. It allows educators to check learners’ achievements and inform
them of their progress.
2. It provides information that educators can use to guide their
future teaching.
3. It provides a record of learner’s achievements.
 Principal questions you should be trying to answer are:
1. What does this evidence tell me about the knowledge,
understanding and skills of individual learners?
2. How can I best summarise my judgements about the learners’
achievements?
 Marking Process
 Developing a marking guide and using it requires the following steps.
1. Clarify exactly what it is that you are trying to assess.
2. Develop a marking guide that will focus attention on relevant aspects of the learner’s work and help
you to draw valid inferences about their learning. It should distinguish clearly between the seven
different levels of achievement specified in CAPS.
3. Review a random sample of learners’ scripts to satisfy yourself that your marking guide will allow you
to assess and comment on all relevant aspects of learners’ work. If several markers are involved, use
this opportunity to check that all markers are interpreting the marking guide in a consistent way.
4. If feasible, mark blind – without knowing whose work you are marking.
5. Follow your marking guide systematically.
6. Provide feedback that reinforces your high expectations and rewards learner achievement.
7. Make your comments clear, concise and focused on the main points that you wanted learners to
demonstrate.
8. If you are marking something that has distinct sections, mark one section or question at a time rather
than one total paper at a time.
9. If you are marking many scripts, monitor your marking so that you apply the marking criteria
consistently.
Types of marking guides

1. Checklists: used to help you make quantitative assessments of learners’ work

because they focus on what is included or missing and what is right or wrong.
Simplest form and is quite useful for providing basic formative feedback to
learners.
2. Rating scales: help you focus on individual qualitative aspects of learners’
work. Provide feedback on how well they have performed the task. However,
does not indicate how the marker will make the qualitative judgements that
are necessary to arrive at a rating on each item.
3. Rubrics: complex rating scales that allow you to simultaneously rate multiple
aspects of learners’ work. Allows marker to provide descriptive feedback
about the quality of learners’ work, with reference to several specific
criteria. Two basic types: holistic and analytic.
Recording

 Recording is a process of writing down the level of a

learner’s performance in a specific assessment task.
 It indicates learner progress towards the achievement of
the knowledge as prescribed in the Curriculum and
Assessment Policy Statements.
Recording

 Records of learner performance provide evidence of the

learner’s conceptual progression within a grade and
her/his readiness to progress to the next grade.
 Records of learner performance verify the progress made
by teachers and learners in the teaching and learning
process.
 Actual marks are recorded in the subject recording sheet
against the task.
Analysis of results

 Learners’ performance can be analysed by using pass

percentages and average marks.
 The highest mark, the lowest mark, the range and the
median can also be used to analyse learners’
performance.
 The pass percentages and average marks give an
indication of the marks obtained by learners in a
particular assessment task.
Analysis of results
 Per item analysis can be used to determine the items in the
assessment task in which learners did not perform well.
 Per item analysis helps the teacher to determine the topics
which must be re-taught.
 Error analysis can be use to determine the errors of
learners in an assessment task.
 Error analysis helps to determine the wrong things that
learners wrote and help to trace the cause in order to
correct the problem.
Reporting

 Reporting is a process of communicating learner performance

to learners, parents, schools and other stakeholders.
 Learner performance can be reported by report cards,
parents’ meetings, school visitation days, parent-teacher
conferences, phone calls, letters and class or school
newsletters.
Reporting

 Percentages are used to report learners’ performance.

 Seven levels of competence which relates to the
percentages are used.
 Reporting is done in percentages against the subject on
the learners’ report cards.