Classroom Assessment A Practical Guide for Educators by Craig A. Mertler

1. Classroom AssessmentA Practical Guide for Educatorsby Craig A. Mertler Chapter 4 Overview of Assessment Techniques

2. Introduction • Teachers have a wide variety of assessment options available to them. • Decisions should be based on instructional objectives, content, and necessary skills and behaviors. • Two broad categories of assessments are alternative and traditional.

3. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Development resulted from criticism of pencil-and-paper testing and the need for assessments that focused on more meaningful student learning. • Focus on application of knowledge and skills as well as higher levels of real-world application. • Alternative assessments: those assessments that overcome the limitations of pencil-and-paper testing. • Authentic assessments: subcategory of alternative assessments that focus on real-world applications.

4. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Informal Assessments • specifically, teacher observations and teacher questions • characteristics: • most common forms of assessment used in classrooms • typically occur in ongoing, never-ending manner • Observations: watching and/or listening to students. • Questions: unplanned oral inquiries; lower-order vs. higher-order questions.

5. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Informal Assessments (continued) • strengths and limitations: • observing and making mental notes is something we all do naturally • allow us to observe events simultaneously or in quick succession • do not need to be planned in advance • require inference • often forgotten or distorted as time passes • teachers often do not provide adequate time to answer questions

6. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Performance-Based Assessments • allow students to demonstrate what they know and can actually do in applied situations • characteristics: • provide for direct observation of performance • require some subjective scoring procedures (using rating scales, checklists, or rubrics) • wide variety of possibilities when developing performance assessments

7. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Performance-Based Assessments (continued) • strengths and limitations: • allow for assessment of skills that could not be measured using more traditional methods • can be used to evaluate both process and products • can be used to make informed decisions about instruction • tend to be very time consuming • may require a high degree of subjectivity on the part of the teacher

8. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Portfolio Assessments • allow students and teachers to gather evidence of abilities over an extended period of time • characteristics: • contain samples of student work selected by the student based on guidelines developed by the teacher • emphasis is on individual student’s accomplishments • reflection is a key component • variations include documentation, showcase, class, and evaluation

9. Alternative Assessment Techniques • Portfolio Assessments (continued) • strengths and limitations: • students become empowered by being included in the assessment process • foster communication between teachers and students • documentation of student growth • should not be used as the exclusive means of assessment • may be extremely time consuming • subjectivity often results in validity/reliability problems

10. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Primary means of assessment in American education for decades • Majority of assessments on which student grades are based • Objective test items: test items that are scored objectively (single correct answer requiring no judgment). • Subjective test items: test items that require subjective judgments in the scoring process.

11. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Objective Test Items • only one correct answer; no teacher-related judgments involved in scoring • present a question or problem along with several options from which students select answer (selected-response items) • characteristics: • Multiple-choice items: consist of stem, options, and distractors.

12. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Objective Test Items (continued) • characteristics: (continued) • Alternate-choice items: consist of a statement with only two options. • Matching items: two lists of terms (stimuli and responses).

13. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Objective Test Items (continued) • strengths and limitations: • appropriate for assessing lower-order skills • very efficient to score • subject to guessing • sometimes difficult for teachers to write high-quality items that are clearly understood by students

14. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Subjective Test Items • teachers’ subjective judgments enter into the scoring process; more than one possible correct answer • students are required to construct a response to a question or prompt (constructed response or supply items) • characteristics: • Essay items: consist of a problem, question (prompt). • restricted-response (short-answer) items and extended-response items

15. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Subjective Test Items (continued) • characteristics: (continued) • Completion items: consist of statement requiring responses of one or two words. • also knownas fill-in-the-blank items

16. Traditional Assessment Techniques • Subjective Test Items (continued) • strengths and limitations: • typically easy to construct • reduce chances of guessing • students’ abilities to write can affect their scores • spelling can also be an issue