Classroom Assessment Strategies

Important Qualities of Good Assessment

• Remember RSVP
• Reliability
• The results of our assessments should be consistent no matter when we give it.
• Standardization
• The assessment should have a similar format, content, and procedure for all students.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Important Qualities of Good Assessment

• Validity
• The assessment should measure what it is intended to measure.
• Practicality
• The assessment and its procedures should be fairly simple to use and take only a small amount of time to administer and score.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Reliability

• There may be slight variation from time to time.
• Students change from day to day.
• The physical environment may change.
• Sometimes teachers are more clear in their instructions than others.
• There is always subjectivity in scoring.
• More likely when responses are scored on the basis of vague, imprecise criteria

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Enhancing Reliability

• Include several tasks in each instrument and look for consistency in students’ performance
• Define each task clearly so students know exactly what they are being asked to do
• Identify specific, concrete criteria for evaluation
• Try not to let expectations for students’ performance influence judgments
• Avoid assessing students when they are obviously tired, ill, etc.
• Administer assessments in similar ways and under similar conditions for all students

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Validity

• Content Validity
• This is the extent to which an assessment includes a representative sample of tasks within the domain being assessed.
• It assures that what we are testing truly represents what we have taught (the instructional objectives).
• High content validity is essential in summative evaluations.
• Teachers can use a table of specifications to enhance content validity.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Validity

• Predictive Validity
• Extent to which the results of an assessment predict future performance
• Often take the form of aptitude tests
• Construct Validity
• Extent to which an assessment accurately measures general, abstract characteristics
• E.g., motivation, self-esteem, or intelligence

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Informal Assessment

• Informal assessment occurs in our day-to-day interactions with students.
• Advantages:
• It provides continuing feedback about the effectiveness of instructional tasks and activities.
• It helps determine the appropriateness and success of our formal assessments.
• It is easily adjusted.
• It provides valuable clues about social, emotional, and motivational factors affecting classroom performance.
• Disadvantages:
• It is not very reliable or valid.
• We sometimes see the halo effect.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Paper-Pencil Assessment

• Paper-pencil assessment is often the first choice for formal assessment because of its practicality.
• It may use recognition or recall tasks.
• Recognition: Multiple choice, true-false, matching
• Recall: Short-answer, essay, word problems
• It often only measures lower-level skills.
• However, they can be used to measure higher-level skills, but these questions take more time to write.
• Essays are more often used to measure higher-level skills.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Alternative-Response Items
• Rephrase ideas presented in class or the textbook
• Make statements that clearly reflect one alternative or the other
• Avoid excessive use of negatives

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Matching Items
• Keep the items in each column homogeneous
• Have more items in one column than the other

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Multiple-Choice Items
• Present distractors that are clearly wrong to students who know the material but plausible to students who haven’t mastered it
• Avoid putting negatives in both the stem and the alternative
• Use “all of the above” or “none of the above” seldom if at all
• Avoid giving logical clues about the correct answer

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Short-Answer and Completion Items
• Indicate the type of response required
• For completion items, include only one or two blanks per item
• Problems and Interpretive Exercises
• Use new examples and situations
• Include irrelevant information

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Essay Tasks
• Ask for several essays requiring short responses rather than one essay requiring a lengthy response
• Give students a structure for responding
• Ask questions that can clearly be scored as correct or incorrect

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

General Guidelines for Constructing Paper-Pencil Assessments

• Define tasks clearly and unambiguously
• Decide whether students should have access to reference materials
• Specify scoring criteria in advance
• Place easier and shorter items at the beginning of the instrument
• Set parameters for students’ responses

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Administering the Assessment

• Provide a quiet and comfortable environment
• Encourage students to ask questions when tasks are not clear
• Take steps to discourage cheating

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Strategies for Scoring Students’ Responses

• Specify scoring criteria in concrete terms
• Unless specifically assessing grammar skills, score grammar and spelling separately from the content of students’ responses
• Skim a sample of students’ responses ahead of time
• Score item by item rather than paper by paper
• Try not to let prior expectations of students’ performance influence judgments of their actual performance
• Keep students’ scores confidential

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Performance Assessment

• Performance assessment can be used for measuring mastery of:
• Playing a musical instrument
• Performing a workplace routine
• Engaging in a debate
• Ideal for the assessment of complex achievements

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Choosing Appropriate Performance Tasks

• Four distinctions to help choose tasks most appropriate for the purpose
• Decide whether to look at the products, the processes, or both
• Is what you are assessing tangible (product) or a behavior (process)?
• Determine if you need an individual or group performance
• Dependent upon WHAT you are assessing

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Choosing Appropriate Performance Tasks

• Restricted vs. extended performance
• E.g., is the student playing a few notes or an entire piano piece?
• Should you use static or dynamic assessment?
• Dynamic assessment applies the Vygotskian concept of the zone of proximal development.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Planning and Administering Performance Assessments

• Consider incorporating the assessment into normal instructional activities
• Provide an appropriate amount of structure
• Plan classroom management strategies for the assessment activity
• Be continually aware of what the students are doing and make sure all students are busy and engaged

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Strategies for Scoring Student Performance

• Consider using checklists, rating scales, or both in your rubric
• Decide whether analytic or holistic scoring better serves your purpose(s)
• Analytic: Scoring a student’s performance by evaluating various aspects of it separately
• Holistic: Summarizing a student’s performance with a single score
• Limit the criteria to the most important aspects of the desired response
• Describe the criteria as explicitly and concretely as possible
• Make note of other significant aspects of a student’s performance that the rubric doesn’t address

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Including Students in the Assessment Process

• Including students in the process encourages them to self-assess.
• Teachers should:
• Provide examples of “good” and “poor” products
• Make evaluation criteria explicit
• Allow students to compare self-ratings with teacher-ratings
• Encourage self-reflection via the use of daily journal entries

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Evaluating Assessment Tools

• An item analysis can be done to determine if certain items are measuring the knowledge or skill we intended to measure:
• Item difficulty measurements
• Item discrimination measurements

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

Taking Student Diversity into Account

• Some things to keep in mind:
• Students often suffer from test anxiety.
• Gender and ethnic differences may impact assessment performance independently of their actual learning and achievement.
• Assessment instruments must comply with the federal mandates regarding students with special needs.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

The “Big Picture” of Assessment

• Our assessments will indirectly affect students’ learning and achievement.
• Our instruments and practices should match our instructional goals and objectives.
• Remember RSVP.
• Our scoring criteria should be as explicit as possible.
• Students’ errors provide valuable information about where their difficulties lie.
• We should continually evaluate our instruments.

• Copyright © 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 All rights reserved.

• Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

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