Assessment of Learning

The importance of assessment

Reece and Walker (2003, p. 44) says, ‘assessment is the process of

obtaining information about how much the student knows…’ Also as

assessors need to measure and evaluate the information gained so that

judgements can be made regarding the students’ progression and

achievement throughout the course of study as Reece and Walker (2003, p.

44) states ‘…evaluation involves using that information to form

judgements which, in turn, are to be used in decision making. ’

Assessment needs to have reliability and also validity as states Dunn,

Morgan, O’Reilly, Parry (2004, p.17) ‘It is important for all stakeholders in

the assessment process that the measurement of performance is valid

and reliable.’ There is no point assessing a student with invalid

questionnaires. As Dunn et al (2004, p.17) states ‘Assessment is said to be

valid when it measures what it is supposed to measure.’ It must also take

place at appropriate intervals throughout the duration of the course and be

structured in a way that aids the student’s progression. As states Gronlund in

Curzon (2004, p. 388)

The assessment should take place at the appropriate time, which

will be determined by the rate of progress of the learner and the

duration of the course.

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There is an extremely wide range of assessment instruments as states Race

(2005) ‘The Art of Assessing’.

‘Assessment can take many forms, and it can be argued that the

greater the diversity in the methods of assessment, the fairer

assessment is to students.’

When assessing students a variety of tasks for the students should be

implemented to give an overall picture of the students’ progression as states

Race (2005) ‘The Art of Assessing’. ‘The art of assessing therefore needs

to embrace several different kinds of activity.’

My Chosen Assessment Instrument

It can be a very difficult task to assess students’ work on a vocational Art and

Design course without setting a practical test. As Race states (2005) ‘The Art

of Assessing’.

‘Many areas of study involve practical work, but it is often much

more difficult to assess such work in its own right; assessing

reports of practical work may only involve measuring the quality

of the end product of the practical work, and not the work itself.’

With the learners being new to the specific specialist area of choosing I felt

that this methodology would be an inappropriate strategy to be implemented

at this early stage. Portfolio assessment would also be too early to assess,

although as Brown, et al (1996, p.106) states ‘Portfolios provide a valuable

method of assessing what students have achieved…’

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The method of assessment I chose to formulate was a multiple-choice

questionnaire. I not only wanted to analyse the answers but also to evaluate

how the learner made marks, wrote their name, put pen/pencil to paper and to

what level of psychomotor skills they are capable of, in an assessment

context. Furthermore assessing the cognitive aspect of problem solving and

memory recall, by tying together the health and safety aspects involved within

the workshop area with the particular ways of dealing with materials and their

individual qualities. In conjunction with the technical data they have acquired

through informative demonstrative and practical exercises.

‘Even with considerable development time, it is hard to use

multiple choice items to assess creativity and synthesis and other

complex, integrative and constructive skills‘ (Miller et al, 1998) in

(Fellenz 06)

Bearing this in mind I would evaluate that the Multiple Choice Questionnaire

relating to terminology and subject specific questions are of a relevant content

regarding the criteria of the unit objectives.

Validity and Reliability

‘When we speak of assessment tasks being valid, we are referring

to assessment tasks that actually measure the performance of the

intended learning outcomes specified...’Dunn et al (2004, p.17)

Regarding the assessment tool that I implemented, I believe it to be of valid

content as the questions relate directly to the intended learning outcomes of

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the course, as in units one to five of the ‘Qualification Content’. As for the

reliability of the formatting of the assessment instrument, I could have made it

a more reliable tool as in Fellenz (2004, p.706) states ‘multiple-choice item

submitted must consist of a stem with one correct and three incorrect

answer options’. Although opinions may differ and it may be argued as how

many distractors should it contain? Where Brown, et al (1996, p.90) states ‘A

multiple-choice question has three main ingredients: the ‘stem’, ‘which

sets the context, ‘key’, which is the best option or the correct one, and

‘distractors’, which are options containing faults or errors. And does not

state how many.

Unfortunately, I have discovered through the implementation of the quiz that

my delivery of the questionnaire was unreliable. The biggest mistake I made

was when my mentor asked me whether I wanted to give the quiz out formally

or informally and I chose the informal delivery because I did not want to stop

the lesson in mid flow.

However I found after I handed my quiz out to the students, by going round

placing the quiz down in front of each student, asking them to fill them out and

hand them in by the end of the session, not everybody handed the quiz

sheets back, this left me with the task of having to chase up students. A time

consuming scenario, that could have been, avoided.

I am aware now, that when I am assessing students in future with a Multiple

choice Questionnaire (MCQ) I will deliver the aims and objectives formally

well in advance stating the time and date they will be presented with a

formative assessment instrument.

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When marking the quiz, I was able to analyse, evaluate and formatively

assess the learners’ level of cognitive memory recall data, the psychomotor

skills in ‘relation to the appropriate sensorimotor activities…effective

coordination of mind and muscle.’ Curzon (2004, p.290) and also the

‘Valuing…recognition of the intrinsic worth of a situation.’ Curzon (2004,

p.165). In relation to the affective domain, to conclude all the aspects of

Bloom’s taxonomy has been identified. Verbal and written one to one formal

feedback to the students had been finally implemented.

Equal Opportunities

The format for my assessment instrument was initially developed after much

consideration, regarding the factors I had to consider, concerning that

students with specific learning difficulties may have problems if they where

required to write and construct full sentences to answer predetermined

questions. So being fair to the students, I formulated a multiple Choice

Questionnaire that could be answered quite easily by either circling or placing

a tick at the side of the answer of their choice. There were only one or two

students who omitted to answer all questions correct. The answers were

soon cleared up and understood through the one to one feedback. Although it

did prove to me that the distractors worked.

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Conclusion

I have realised through reflecting on this assignment that the need to have

assessment at structured intervals, with questions pertaining to the required

learning outcomes do and have to be delivered at the most appropriate time

with relevant and valid modes of assessment strategy. The need to

experiment, work in groups build up a pool of questions that can be tapped

into, try out and test the assessment tools on colleagues to get a good

rounded idea of what works and what doesn’t work.

It is also a more reliable methodology to have two or more varied methods of

assessment working in unison with each other with relevant feedback. ‘ It is

possible to combine…multiple choice question with a short essay

question…asking candidates to tick the preferred response and to

explain their choice in a ‘mini essay’… Curzon (2004, p.402).

Although it does not have to stop there,

I am therefore concluding my reflection on assessment, in the knowledge that,

reliable and valid assessment tools do not have to remain static they should

be given the room to evolve and adapt like the differentia ional qualities of the

diverse needs of the student.

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