Educational assessment

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.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.

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. Assessment can be divided for the sake of convenience using the following categorizations:

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

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.

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 of learning generally occurs at the conclusion of a class, course, semester or academic year. 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. Self-assessment 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.

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