CHAPTER 2

TYPES OF
ASSESSMENT
 TRADITIONAL AND AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

• Paper-and-pencil tests or quizzes are best examples of traditional assessment

which mainly describe and measure student learning outcomes.
• Most of the time, teachers still engage themselves in the utilization of
traditional assessment. Law and Eckes (1995) state that traditional
assessments are single-occasion tests which measure what learners can do
at a particular time.
• Traditional assessments are indirect and authentic measures of students
learning outcomes. This kind of assessments is standardized and for the
reason, they are one-shot, speed-based, and norm-referenced (Brailey,
1998).
TRADITIONAL AND AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

• Traditional assessment often focus on learner’s ability of

memorization and recall, which are lower level of cognition skills
(Smaldino, 2000).
• Assessment is authentic when it measures performances or
products which have realistic meaning that can be attributed to the
success in school.
• Activities, questions and problems with “real word” satisfy the
criterion that it needs to be a authentic intellectual work within the
given situation or contextual realism of the tasks.
 T H E COM M ONL Y R E P OR T E D DI M E NSI ONS OF A U T H E NT I C I T Y A R E G R OUP E D I NT O
TH R E E BO A R D CA T E G O R I E S ( F R E Y , 2 01 2):

a. The context of the assessment

• Realistic activity or context
• The task is performance-based
• The task is cognitively complex
b. The role of the student
• A defense of the answer or product is required.
• The assessment is formative.
• Students collaborate with each other or with the teacher.
c. The scoring
• The scoring criteria are known or student-developed.
• Multiple indicators or portfolios are used in scoring.
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT
• Wiggins (1989) argues that teachers should “test those
capacities and habits we think are essential and test them in
context. Make them replicate with reason, the challenges at
the heart of each discipline.”
• Authentic assessment has four basic characteristics:
1. The task should be representative of performance in the field.
2. Attention should be paid to teaching and learning the criteria for
assessment.
3. Self-assessment should play a great role.
4. When possible, students should present their work publicly and defend it.
USES OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT (MUELLER, 2010)

• Authentic assessments are direct measures.

• The main purpose of authentic assessment is to be able
to use the acquired knowledge and skills in the real word.
Forms of assessment task must be applied in authentic
situations. This could be done also by teachers by asking
the students to use what they have learned in some
meaningful way. (e.g. conducting a science experiment –
hypothesis testing, developing feasibility study, calculating
savings).
USES OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT (MUELLER, 2010)

• Authentic assessments capture constructive nature of learning

• In a constructivist point of view, learners should create knowledge
and meaning based from schemata. Thus, assessments cannot just
ask students to repeat information they have received. Students must
also be asked to demonstrate that they have accurately constructed
meaning about what they have been taught. Moreover, students
must be given in the opportunity to engage in the instruction of
meaning authentic tasks not only serve as assessments but also as
vehicles for such learning.
USES OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT (MUELLER, 2010)

• Authentic assessments integrate teaching, learning, and

assessment.
• In the authentic assessment model, the same authentic task used to
measure the students’ ability to apply the knowledge or skills is used
as a vehicle for student learning. Problem solving and decision
making skills are best exemplified by this purpose. Students are
learning the process of developing a solution to a problem by
simply applying the meaningful concepts.
USES OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT (MUELLER, 2010)

• Authentic assessments provide multiple paths to demonstrate.

• Students may have different ways by which they could
demonstrate what they have learned. Similarly, authentic tasks tend
to give the students more freedom on how they will demonstrate
what they have learned. By carefully identifying the criteria of good
performance on the authentic task ahead of time, the teacher can still
make comparable judgements of students performance even though
student performance might be expressed quite differently from
student to student.
Att ributes of traditi onal and performance assessments

Attribute Traditional Performance

assessment assessment
Assessment activity Selecting a response Performing a task
Nature of activity Contrived activity Activity emulates real
life
Cognitive level Knowledge/comprehen Application/ analysis/
sion synthesis
Development of Teacher-structured Student-structured
solution
Objectivity of scoring Easily achieved Difficult to achieve
Evidence of mastery Indirect evidence Direct evidence
FORMATIVE EVALUATION AND SUMMATIVE EVALUATION
• Assessment for learning pertains to the use of formative evaluation to
determine and improve students’ learning outcomes.
• Assessment of learning uses summative evaluation which provides
evidence of students’ level of achievement in relation to curricular
learning outcomes.
• Teaching and learning plans are based on the results of formative
assessment which provides feedback on the effectiveness of teaching and
learning process as seen from the students learning.
• Summative assessment on the other hand, is used to determine how much
students have learned at the end of terms, unit or academic year.
• Summative assessment is one basis for determining the final grade as
demonstrated from the achievement of the students.
FORMATIVE EVALUATION AND SUMMATIVE EVALUATION
• Classroom-based “formative assessment” has also taken on an increasingly important role in
education policy in recent years.
• Formative assessment refers to the frequent, interactive assessment of student progress to
identify learning needs and shape teaching (OECD, 2005).
• It is a planned process in which the teacher or students use assessment-based evidence to adjust
ongoing learning and instruction. Without any inter-or intra- individual consensus as to what
the term formative assessment means, it is difficult to have a well-formed body of research
(Popham, 2011).
• Formative assessment can be defined more specifically as, “all those activities undertaken
by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves which provide information to be
used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged
“(Black & William, 1998).
• The results of formative assessment leads to identifying its goal in improving and motivating
the students to enhance achievement. The gathered information and interpreted evidence is
utilized by the teacher to give feedback about the progress of students as learning takes place.
 FORMATIVE EVALUATION AND SUMMATIVE EVALUATION
• Formative assessment occurs at three(3) points of instruction: (1) during instruction; (2)
between lessons; and (3) between units.
• Most formative assessments occurs during instruction ( William & Leahy, 2007). This is
when teachers are actively engaged in assessing student progress as they instruct.
Teachers are observing and using questions, giving feedback in informal targeted ways.
This is typically based on quizzes, observation, student self-assessment, and other major
assessment which are given at the end of these time frames.
• Formative assessment fosters learning with understanding which benefits both teachers
and students by providing the teachers with information on student learning needs. By
enabling appropriate adaptation of course material and teaching strategies, formative
assessment promotes a reflective teaching process that results in better teaching and
better evaluations from students,(Richlin, 1998). High-equality feedback to students can
model the learning process, although it could also foster “learned dependence” in which
learning goals are subsumed under performance goals (Yorke, 2003).
FORMATIVE EVALUATION AND SUMMATIVE EVALUATION

• Traditionally, summative assessments are conducted at the end

of each section or unit to find out student achievement.
• Summary of evidences indicate extent of learning
achievements which can classify or for certification or giving
of honors / awards. Moreover, summative assessments are
typically traditional paper-and pencil measures such as unit
tests, long tests, exams, essays, or projects that form a portion
of a student’s final grade. These serve as evaluation function at
the end of the unit or term.
Characteristi cs of formati ve and summati ve assessment
Characteristics Formative Summative
Purpose To provide on going To document student
feedback adjustment to learning at the end of an
instruction. instructional segment.
When conducted During instruction and after After instruction
instruction
Student involvement Encouraged Discouraged
Student motivation Intrinsic, mastery-oriented Extrinsic, performance-
oriented
Teacher role To provide immediate, To measure student
specific feedback and achievement and give grades
instructional correctives.

Learning emphasized Deep understanding, Knowledge and

application, and reasoning comprehension
Level of specificity Highly specific and General and group oriented
individual
Structure Flexible, adaptable Rigid, highly structured
Techniques Informal Formal
Impact on learning Strong, positive, long lasting Weak and fleeting
NORM AND CRITERION-REFERENCED ASSESSMENT
• Norm-referenced assessment gives us information on what the student can perform by
comparing to another student.
• It describes student performance in the class by comparing to others. Teachers can
actually rank the achievement of their student; as a result, there is a limited percentage of
competition for those who are high scorers.
• Criterion-referenced assessment describes the performance of the students without
referenced to the performance of others which uses preset criteria or predefined and
absolute standard or outcomes.
• Usually, it describes students’ mastery of the course content, thus, there is no
competition for a limited percentage for a high score.
• Both methods are very useful in assessing learning outcomes. The first tells how an
individual performance compares with that of others, the record tells the specific
performance in terms of what an individual can do without reference to performance of
others.
Summary comparison of two basic approaches to achievement
  Norm-referenced Criterion-referenced
Principal use Survey testing Mastery testing
Major emphasis Measures individual differences in achievement Describes tasks students can
perform.
Interpretation of Compares performance to that other individual Compares performance to clearly
results specified achievement domain.

Content of courage Typically covers a board area of achievement Typically focuses on a limited set
of learning tasks
Nature of test plan Table of specifications is commonly used  
Item selection Items are selected that provide maximum Includes all times needed
procedures discrimination among individuals ( to attain a adequately to describe
reliable ranking). Easy items are typically performance.
eliminated from the test. No attempt is made to alter item
difficulty or to eliminate easy items
to increase the spread of scores.

Performance Level of performance is determined by relative Level of performance is commonly

standards positon in some known group (ranks fifth in a determined by absolute standards
group of 20). ( demonstrates mastery by defining
90 percent of technical terms).
CONTEXTUALIZED AND DECONTEXTUALIZED ASSESSMENT

• Contextualized assessment-
• Focus on the students construction of functioning
knowledge and the students performance in application of
knowledge and in the real world context of the discipline.
• It describes assessment practices that measure skills and
knowledge in dealing with specific situations or perform
specific tasks which the students have identified as
important and meaningful to them.
CONTEXTUALIZED AND DECONTEXTUALIZED
ASSESSMENT

• Decontextualized assessment
• Includes written exam and term papers which are suitable
for assessing declarative knowledge and do not necessarily
have a direct connection in real context.
• It focuses on declarative knowledge and or procedural
knowledge in artificial situations detached from real work
context.
ANALYTIC AND HOLISTIC ASSESSMENT
• Analytic assessment – refers to a specific approach in the
assessment of learning outcome
– Student are given feedback on how well they are doing on each
important aspect of specific task expected from them.
• Holistic assessment – refers to a global approach in the assessment
of certain student learning outcome.
– In the holistic assessment the teacher or the assessor has to develop
complex mental responses to students work an in evaluating the
students work.
– It could be in the form of reflection papers, and journals, peer
assessment, self assessment ,group presentation and portfolio.