SESS Glossary of Assessment Terms
© SESS 2016
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Accommodation
Accommodations exist for state exam candidates with permanent or long-term conditions. These include physical, visual, hearing or specific learning difficulties, which may significantly impair performance in the examinations. Accommodations are referred to as Reasonable Accommodations in Certificate Examinations (RACE). Applications for RACE are considered by the State Examinations Commission. Accommodations refer to the way in which a test is administered while not altering what the test measures or the validity of its result. Accommodations may include changes to presentation format, response format, test setting or allocation of time.
Age Appropriate
The characteristics of the skills taught, the activities, the materials selected and the language level employed that reflect the chronological age of the student.
Alternate/Parallel Forms
This is two or more versions of a test (Form A and Form B for example) that are considered interchangeable. They measure the same constructs in the same ways, are intended for the same purposes and are administered using the same directions.
Examples of such tests include the Drumcondra Primary Reading Test, The Drumcondra Primary Mathematics Test, the MICRA-T and the SIGMA-T.
Parallel Forms allows for the effective re-assessing of the student with the same assessment.
Assessment
In relation to education, the term assessment can refer to the gathering and interpretation of information related to a pupil’s learning abilities, learning attainments, learning strengths and learning needs.
Assessment processes can be formal or informal. Information obtained can measure pupils’ progress and achievement, highlighting areas of strengths or weakness.
Assessment provides valuable information for use in the planning of learning and of teaching.
Assessment as Learning
AaL is characterised by students reflecting on their own learning. It emphasises assessment as a process of metacognition for students to become adept at personally monitoring their own learning, to make adjustments and even make changes in their thinking.
Assessment for Learning
AFL is the process of seeking evidence from a student’s work and interpret it to decide where students are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there. It is a form of Formative Assessment
Assessment of Learning
AoL refers to the ‘traditional’ from of assessment whereby assessment is used to confirm what students know and to demonstrate whether they have achieved the curriculum outcomes. It shows how they are placed in relation to their peers. It is a form of Summative Assessment Glossary of Assessment Terms
Baseline Data
This is the initial measure of a student’s performance. Future measures will be compared to the base line to gauge attainment.
Benchmarks
A specific statement of knowledge and skills within a continuum that a student must possess to demonstrate a level of progress toward mastery of a standard.
Classroom Assessment
An assessment developed, administered, and scored by a teacher to evaluate individual or classroom pupil performance. This is a form of Informal Assessment.
Cohort
This is a group of students whose characteristics and demographics make it possible to make comparisons over time.
Confidence Intervals
This measures the probability that the value will fall between two set values, given known levels of error or ‘mistake’. The most common confidence level is 90%
Conversion Table
A chart used to translate test scores into different measures of performance (e.g. class equivalents, percentile ranks, standardised scores).
Chronological Age
The number of years and months a person has lived. This is used especially as a standard against which to measure behaviour, intelligence, etc.
Criteria
What level of performance meets the stated objective
Criterion Referenced Tests
In Criterion referenced tests the pupil’s performance is compared with a pre-specified standard or criterion rather than with other pupils. Most tests and quizzes written by school teachers are criterion-referenced tests. The objective is simply to see whether or not the pupil has learned the content. These test results can be used to determine a student’s progress towards mastery of a content area. Specific skill development is measured as opposed to a predefined absolute level of mastery.
Curriculum
The subjects comprising a course of study in an educational setting.
Curve of Normal Distribution
This is a bell shaped graphical representation of the results which emerge when certain factors are measured in a large, randomly selected sample. An example would be the intelligence curve, where the scoring of modern intelligence quotient (IQ) tests such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale foe Children is based on a projection of the pupil’s measured rank on the bell curve with a centre value (average IQ) of 100, and a standard deviation of 15. It must be noted that different tests may have different standard deviations.
Diagnostic Assessment
This is an assessment, or an observation schedule, which is designed to yield evidence on particular aspects in which the student is having difficulty. This form of assessment can be used to determine a student’s learning style or preferences and used to determine how well a student can perform a certain set of skills.
Examples of diagnostic tests include the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, the Quest Starter Pack, the Aston Index and the Jackson Phonics Skills Test.
Dynamic Assessment
Dynamic assessment (DA) is an umbrella term. Dynamic Assessment in its simplest definition means supporting learner development actively by understanding learner abilities.
Its aim is to assess potential for learning, rather than a static level of achievement.
It does this by prompting, cueing or mediating within the assessment, and evaluating the enhanced performance.
Evaluation
Judgement made on the basis of a student’s performance
Formative Assessment
Assessment is formative where it is part of an on-going instructional process where teachers measure pupils’ knowledge and progress in order to inform teaching. Examples of formative assessment may include concept maps, classroom questioning, journals, directed summarising, monitoring of pupils’ performance on homework, diagnostic tests and quizzes. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as assessment for learning.
Individual or Group Administration
Some tests have instructions and procedures which require that they are administered to only one person at a time (e.g. Dyslexia Screening Test).
Other tests may be administered to a group of pupils at the same time, (e.g. Access Reading Test).
Intelligence Test
Tests that measure intellectual aptitude or capacities – examples include: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) and Stanford-Binet (SB: IV).
IQScores
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is derived from results obtained from specially designed tests. The quotient is traditionally derived by dividing an individual's mental age by his chronological age and multiplying the result by 100
≥ 130 very superior / 50-70 Mild General learning Disability120-130 superior / 35-49 Moderate G.L. Disability
110-120 high average / 20-34 Severe G.L. Disability
90-110 average / ≤ 20 Profound G.L. Disability
85-90 low average
Metacognition
This puts the student at the centre of their own learning. They think about their own learning style, to apply it to their learning, to use their preferred strategies for thinking and learning.
Moderated Assessment
Moderated Assessment is a process for ensuring that marks or grades are awarded appropriately and consistently. Moderation involves checking and reviewing assessment schemes, items and assessor judgments.
Norm-Referenced Tests
A test in which the pupil’s performance is compared with the performance of a specified group: e.g. Irish children of his/her age.
Observational Assessment
Observational Assessment is a form of structured informal assessment. It allows teachers to gain an accurate insight into the performance of students and provides the foundation for effective teaching and learning interventions. Effective Observational Assessment requires a communal effort. It is the targeted, recording counting of behaviours/events/attainment.
Percentile Rank
This indicated the subject’s test performance relative to that of the group on which the test was standardised. It records the percentage of this group whose scores were lower than that obtained by the subject. For example a test score of 66 and a percentile rank of 83 indicates that a score of 66 is as high or higher than that of 83% of the comparison group.
Portfolio
The Portfolio is a collection of work that demonstrates a student’s progress, learning, effort and achievement. Its purpose is to create a profile on the student. It presents a variety of assessment methods for a holistic view of the student’s needs
Rating Scale/Checklist
States what level of performance meets the objective. It may be done on a rating scale, thus showing if the skill is emerging, achieved or not acquired.
Raw Score
A raw score is the number of questions answered correctly. For example, if a test has 60 items and the pupil gets 31 items correct, the raw score is 31. Raw scores can often be converted to percentile ranks, standard scores and age equivalent scores.
Reading Ages
A standardised reading test (a test measured against established norms for that age group) will provide an age equivalent score which gives an indicator of skill.
10.06+ yrs. / Functional readers9.06 -10.06 / Slightly below average
8.00 – 9.06 / Below average
7.00 – 8.00 / Well below average;
limited functionality
6.11 and below / No functionality in reading – at the building blocks of reading stage.
Reliability
This term relates to the measure of consistency for an assessment instrument. The instrument should yield similar results over time with similar populations in similar circumstances.
Rubric
A Rubric is a set of guidelines for measuring achievement. They should state the learning outcomes with clear performance criteria. They are a source of ongoing feedback for the teacher
Screening
This is a process in which a measure or measures are applied to a group of pupils in order to identify individuals who will require more extensive examination or intervention. Examples of screening tests included the Bangor Dyslexia Test, the Movement ABC checklist and the Connors ADHD Rating Scales.
Standard Deviation
A unit which is used to measure the individual results from the average. The mean and standard deviation are important elements in understanding the outcome of norm-referenced tests such as the MICRA-T, SIGMA-T, Drumcondra Primary Reading Test, the Drumcondra Primary Mathematics Test, The British Picture Vocabulary Scale, the Bankson Language test and the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability.
Standard STEN scores
This score allows the pupil’s test performance to be related to that of the group on whom the test concerned was standardised. The table illustrates what scores may tell about a pupil’s achievement in standardised tests.
STEN score / Meaning / Proportion of pupils who get this score8-10 / Well above average / 1/6
7 / Above average / 1/6
5-6 / Average / 1/3
4 / Below average / 1/6
1-3 / Well below average / 1/6
Table from: Your Child and Standardised Testing (NCCA)
Standardised Tests/Standardised Score
Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers is a standardised test. They are uniformly developed, administered, and scored. They allow the results to be compared to other students of the same age.
Examples of standardised tests include the Drumcondra Primary Reading Test, the Drumcondra Primary Mathematics test, the SIGMA-T and the MICRA-T.
The table illustrates what scores may tell about a pupil’s achievement in standardised tests.
Score / Meaning / Approx. % pupils who get this score130 and above / Very high / 2%
120-129 / High / 7%
110-119 / High average / 16%
90-109 / Average / 50%
80-89 / Low average / 16%
70-79 / Low / 7%
Below 70 / Very low / 2%
Table from: Your Child and Standardised Testing (NCCA)
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment helps to assess a pupil’s learning at a particular point or time in the instructional process. This is often achieved through assessments for specific tasks, at the end of a topic or after teaching a specific skill or concept, for example. State examinations are summative assessment processes and an example of the use of assessment as a way to gauge, at a particular point in time, pupils’ learning relative to norms.
Validity
The test measures the desired performance and appropriate inferences can be drawn from the results. The assessment accurately reflects the learning it was designed to measure.
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