Ormrod Chapter 16: Assessment Types Overview

Ormrod Chapter 16: Assessment Types Overview

Assessment Type / Examples / Description/Features / Rationale/Purpose / Potential RSVP Issues (and other caveats)
Informal / -Question & Answer (oral)
-Quick checks (e.g., thumbs up/thumbs down)
-Whole class discussions
-Monitoring of group work / -Not for a grade
-Not summative
-For immediate feedback to teacher
-Practical
-“In the moment” “On the fly” / -Monitor student performance/progress
-Provides continuous feedback about instruction
-Assists teacher in future planning
-Supports or questions data from formal assessments
-Assess affective objectives (e.g., student interest)
-Easily adjustable / -Not reliable because inconsistent
-Not standardized, should not be used to compare students
-Not necessarily valid (public behavior not always an indicator of achievement)
-Practical (flexible, spontaneous
-Interpretation of student behavior affected by bias
-Treat informal conclusions as hypothesis
Formal / -Pencil & paper tests
-Oral reports
-Physical fitness test
(Structured performances) / -Planned in advance
-For specific purpose
-Particular time set aside
-Students prepare for the assessment
-Information for all students related to the same objectives / -To determine what students have learned in a standard, consistent way
-Obtain information on each student relative to the same instructional objectives / -Reliability: Specific scoring criteria (e.g., rubrics) make scoring more reliable, as well as formats where only one answer is correct
-Easy to standardize pencil & pencil
-Paper and Pencil are practical
-Validity: Short simple responses are good but long responses (or performance tasks) may better match objectives
Pencil Paper / -Journals
-Quickwrites
-Essays, papers
-Notes
-Graphic organizers
-RAFT
-Multiple choice quiz or test
-Short answer questions
-KWL / Able to assess
-Writing
-Organizing
-Developing ideas
-Reflecting
-Drawing conclusions
-Demonstrating understanding / -Can measure higher order skills and analysis/synthesis
-Can assess writing ability
-Tracking student progress over time through multiple work samples / -Reliability: Depends on type of assessment. Objective scoring -> high R; Subjective scoring -> low R.
-Can be highly standardized
-Validity: Good for students who have limitations with oral or other types of performances, but low V for students with writing difficulties
-Practicality depends on assessment type (e.g., Scantron-yes, essays –No)
Performance / TANGIBLE PRODUCTS
-Drawings
-Posters
-Scientific inventions
INTANGIBLE BEHAVIORS
-oral presentations
-solo instrumental performance
-physical education skills tests / Requires synthesis of knowledge to create
Learned behavior is applied / -Examine student’s thinking and learning process
-Assess students’ mastery of instructional objectives in ways that may simply not be possible in a paper-pencil format. E.g., How students conceptualize and reason. / Different performance tasks  less standardized
Low Reliability – Difficult to judge behaviors in the moment;V. can be higher if performance is a tangible product assessed using a rubric
Low Validity if performance is a small sample of the domain of targeted knowledge/skill; high if application of knowledge/skill is being assessed
Low Practicality – more time consuming, harder to assess

CAESL Assessment Modules