EDF4430 >  CHAPTER 3 HIGHLIGHTS

ESTABLISHING HIGH-QUALITY CLASSROOM ASSESSMENTS

Classroom assessment consists of:

Determining purpose & learning targets

Systematically obtaining information from students

Interpreting information collected &

Using the information

What is high-quality assessment?

Criteria- concerns about how assessments influence learning and provide fair and credible reporting of student achievement & how information influences students

High-Quality assessments provide results that demonstrate and improve targeted student learning & inform instructional decision making.

Criteria for establishing High-Quality Classroom Assessments (Fig. 3.1, Pg. 52)

            Clear and appropriate learning targets

            Appropriateness of assessment methods

            Validity

            Reliability

            Fairness

            Positive Consequences

            Practicality and Efficiency

Clear and Appropriate Learning Targets: include both what students know and can do and the criteria for judging student performance. Are targets  at the right level of difficulty to motivate students? Balance among different types of targets? Consistent with goals? Clear criteria?

Appropriateness of assessment methods: matching learning targets with different assessment methods.  Fig. 3.2, pg 54, fig. 3.3 pg. 56

            Selected –response

            Constructed-response

            Performance assessments

            Essay

            Oral questioning

            Teacher observations

            Self-assessments

Validity: a characteristic that refers to the appropriateness of the inferences, uses and consequences that result for the assessment.  It is concerned with the soundness, trustworthiness or legitimacy of the claims or inferences that are made on the basis of obtained scores.  Is the interpretation made from test results reasonable?  Is the information that I have gathered the right kind of evidence for the decision I need to make or the intended use?

Validity has to do with the consequences of the inferences, not the test itself.

How is validity determined?  By professional judgment.  There are 3 types of evidence:

Content-related: extent to which the assessment is representative of the domain of interest. The inference from the test is that the students demonstrates knowledge about the unit. (test blueprint, fig. 3.6 table of specifications, instructional validity) fig. 3.7

Criterion-related: to have evidence that a particular assessment is providing the same result as another assessment of the same thing. (conduct several assessments of the learning targets, try not to rely on a single assessment).

Construct-related: The extent to which assessment is a meaningful measure of an unobservable trait or characteristic.

            Theoretical

            Logical

            Statistical

Suggestions for enhancing Validity  (Fig. 3.8, pg. 64)

Ask others to judge the clarity of what you are assessing

Check to see if different ways of assessing the same thing give the same result

Sample a sufficient number of examples of what is being assessed

Prepare a detailed table of specifications

Ask others to judge the match between assessment items and the objective of the assessment

Compare groups known to differ on what is being assessed

Compare scores taken before to those taken after instruction

Compare predicted consequences to actual consequences

Compare scores on similar, but different traits

Provide adequate time to complete assessment

Ensure appropriate vocabulary, sentence structure and item difficulty

Ask easy questions first

Use different methods to assess the same thing

Use only for intended purposes.

(to be continued…Reliability….)