ASSESSMENT

Prepared by Krupa Mathew.M

INTRODUCTION

• The word ‘assess’ comes from the Latin verb

‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit with’.
• In assessment one is supposed to sit with the learner.
• This implies it is something we do ‘with’ and
‘for’students and not ‘to’ students (Green, 1999).
• Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the
learning community (class, workshop, or other
organized group of learners), the institution, or the
educational system.
WHAT IS ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION
 Evaluation is the process of determining to what extent
the educational objectives are being realized.
 Assessment is the process of documenting, usually in
measurable terms, knowledge, skill, attitudes, and
beliefs.
 Assessment in education is the process of gathering,
interpreting, recording, and using information about
pupils’ responses to an educational task.
(Harlen, Gipps, Broadfoot, Nuttal,1992)
PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION
• To determine the level of knowledge &
understanding in students.
• To diagnose the strengths & weakness of
students
• To encourage students learning by measuring
their achievement.
• To provide information to students for
overcoming learning difficulties.
• To estimate the effectiveness of the instructional
media used.
• To help students acquire the attitude & skills or self-
evaluation.
• To ascertain if the teaching strategies are effective or
not.
• To improve curriculum in light of recent advances.
 TYPES OF ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION
PARAMETER FORMATIVE SUMMATIVE

Meaning It is ongoing assessment of the It is final assessment of the student’s

student’s achievement. achievement

Purposes To monitor the progress of students & To finally assign the grades
provide feedback for improvement.....

Frequency Carried out quite frequently ranging Carried out monthly, biannually,
from daily to weekly annually or at the end of a semester

Content focus Detailed focus on content. General & broad content scope

Methods It include classroom questioning, daily It include project evaluation, term

assignments, regular formal/informal examination & final external
observation, class tests & internal examination.
assessments.
 Selection of
students

Decision for Feedback of

successor students

SCOPE OF
ASSESSMENT/
EVALUATION
Certification of Feedback to
competency teacher

Motivation of Incentive to
learning activities learning
 CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF ASSESSMENT
TECHNIQUE/METHOD
•Clear & Comprehensive
•Congruent with educational objectives
•Objectivity
•Practicability
•Constructed on wide curricular content
• Relevance
• Concise & Precise
• Adequate &Appropriate
• Understandability
• The power of discrimination
• Validity of assessment instrument
• Reliability of assessment in instrument
 CLASSIFICATION OF ASSESSMENT TOOLS
AND TECHNIQUES
Assessment of knowledge Assessment of skill Assessment of
attitude
 Essay type questions  Observation checklist  Likert
Extended response  Rating scale attitude
essay Restricted  Anecdotal record scale
response essay  Cumulative records  Semantic
 Short answer questions  Writing clinical differential
 Fill in the blank type assignment Critical scale
Statement completion incident record
Labelling a diagram Practical examination
 Short answer in 5- 10  Viva voce (Oral
words Examination)
ESSAY TYPE QUESTIONS
Essay type questions are a test containing questions
requiring the students to respond in writing. It
emphasizes recall rather than recognition of the correct
alternative
Features of essay type questions
 Questions are used both as formative & summative
assessments.
 They require a great deal of thought & planning.
 Students prepare their own answers.
 They evaluate knowledge areas alone.
 No single answer can be considered through or
correct.
 The examinee is permitted freedom of response
 ADVANTAGES
1. Assess critical-thinking
skills in learners.
2. Provide an opportunity to
assess the problem solving
& decision making ability in
learners.
3. Helps evaluate thinking,
recall, analysis & synthesis
of facts.
4. Provide very limited scope
of guessing answers.
DISADVANTAGES
1. It difficult & time consuming
to grade the answer.
2. Evaluation is subjective;
different teachers may mark
the same answer differently.
3. There is a scope of lot of
subjective biasness.
4. These questions provide
practice in poor or unpolished
writing.
SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
• SAQ the answer has to be generated and
supplied by the learner rather than chosen from
a number of options provided.
Purposes of SAQs
1. Useful to assess the recall ability of students.
2. Used to assess students in a classroom while a
lecture is in progress
3. Useful in formative assessment.
 ADVANTAGES
1. Provide the opportunity to
cover a much wider content
of the syllabus.
2. Can be administered to a
large group of students
3. Useful to assess the recall of
information. Provide less
scope for guesswork.
4. Require less stationary.
DISADVANTAGES
1. They are not particular
suited for testing higher
cognitive & noncognitive
outcomes
2. They can lead to cheating
within a group of students
3. Difficulties in scoring if
not worded carefully.
4. Provide no scope to assess
the writing ability.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
• MCQs are the form of assessment where respondents
are asked to select the best possible answer out of
choices from a list.
• Scoring in MCQs is easier as compared to essay type
& short answer type questions but the other side of
the coin is that it is equally difficult to construct good
quality MCQs & there is a high chance of cheating &
guesswork practices.
 ADVANTAGES
1. Easy to use & administer.
2. Can cover a large content
area of syllabus.
3. Easy to check answers.
4. High reliability & validity.
5. No scope of subjective
biasness.
6. Allow more adequate
sampling of content
DISADVANTAGES
1. No useful to test highest
level of cognitive domain.
Difficult to construct good
MCQs.
2. More suitable format for
cheating in students.
3. Time-consuming process to
construct good MCQs.
4. Inappropriate for measuring
skilled performance.
OBSERVATION CHECKLIST
A checklist is a simple instrument consisting
prepared list of expected items of performance or
attributes, which are checked by a evaluator for their
presence or absence.
Characteristics of a Checklist
1. Observe one respondent at one time.
2. Clearly specify the characteristics of the behavior to
be observed.
3. The observer should be trained how to observe
4. Use checklist only when you are interested in
calculating a particular characteristics
 ADVANTAGES
1. Checklists allow inter-
individual comparisons.
2. They provide a simple
method to record
observations.
3. They are adaptable to
subject matter areas.
4. They are helpful in
evaluating procedure work.
5. Decreases the chances of
errors in observation.
DISADVANTAGES
1. It not indicate quality of
performance.
2. Only limited component
can be evaluated.
3. It has limited use in
qualitative observations.
4. Checklists are not easy to
prepare.
RATING SCALE
• Rating is the term used to express opinion or judgment
regarding some performance of a person, object, situation &
character.
• Rating scale refers to a scale with a set of opinion, which
describes varying degree of the dimensions of an attitude or a
phenomenon being observed.
• It could be a 3-point, a 5-point or a 7-point rating scale
Types of Rating Scale
1. Descriptive Rating Scale
Provide for each trait a list of descriptive phrases from
which the rater selects the one most applicable item
being rated, selected usually by means of a check mark.
Graphic Rating Scale
A straight line, may be
represented by
descriptive phrases at
various points. To rate
the subject for a
particular trait a
check mark is made at
the particular point
Numerical Rating Scale
In which numbers are assigned to each trait. The rater
merely enters the appropriate number after each name to
indicate judgment of the person
 Common content of appraisal in rating scale
Quantity of work Quality of work
Reliability Judgment
Accuracy Ability
Volume of work Dependability
Initiative Neatness
cooperative Willingness
 ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
• Rating scale are easy to • It is difficult or dangerous to
administer. fix up rating about many
• It less time-consuming. aspects of an individual.
• It can be easily used for a • Misuse can result in a
large group. decrease in objectivity.
• They are also used for
quantitative methods.
• They are used to evaluate
performance & skills &
product outcomes
PRACTICAL EXAMINATION
• Practical examination is concerned with the
assessment of practical performance skills &
practice competency acquired by a student
during the course of a particular programme.
Purposes of Practical Examination
 To assess the practical skills
 To assess the development in affect domain
 To assess the student’s problem solving skills
 To assess the recording & reporting skills
 To assess multiple performance task such as assessment,
planning, implementation, communication
 ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
• It provide an opportunity to • It not considered an
assess the skills & objective method of
competency. assessment.
• It provide an opportunity to • It time consuming process.
the examiner for assessing It not feasible for large
the use of group.
compartmentalized • Sometime it considered as
knowledge. unethical to expose patients
• An examiner also get an for examining students
opportunity to assess the
communication &
interpersonal skills.
OBJECTIVE STRUCTURED CLINICAL EXAMINATION

• OSCE is a modern type of examination to assess

clinical skill performance & competence in skills
such as communication, clinical examination, medical
& nursing procedure/prescription, exercise
prescription, joint mobilization techniques &
interpretation of results.
DEFINITION
• OSCE is an assessment tool in which the components
of clinical competence such as history taking,
physical examination, simple procedures,
interpretation of lab results, patient management
problems, communication, attitude etc. are tested
using agreed check lists & rotating the student round
a number of stations some of which have observers
with checklists
PRACTICAL SKILLS ARE ASSESSED IN NURSING USING OSCE

 Interpersonal & communication skills

 History Taking skills
 Physical Examination
 Mental Health Assessment
 Clinical decision making & clinical problem solving
 Interpretation of clinical findings
 Management of a clinical situations
 Patient education
 Acting safely in an urgent clinical situation
 Basic & advanced nursing care procedure practice
Organizing the OSCE

• The OSCE examination consists of about 10-15 stations, each of which

requires about 4-5 minutes.
• The number of stations & time spent on each station may vary based on needs
of evaluation.
• All stations should be capable of being completed in the same time.
• The students are rotated through all stations & have to move to the next station
at the signal.
• As the stations are generally independent, students can start at any procedure
stations & complete the cycle.
• Using 15 stations of 4 minutes each, 15 students can complete the examination
within 1 hour.
• Each station is designed to test a component of clinical
competence.
• At some stations, called the procedure stations, students are
given tasks to perform on patients or simulators.
• At all such stations there are observers with agreed upon
checklist or rating scales to score the student’s performance.
• At other stations called response stations, students respond to
questions of the objective type or interpret data or record their
findings of the previous procedure stations
ADVANTAGES
• More valid than the traditional approach to clinical
examinations.
• Examiner can decide in advance what is to be tested.
• Examiners can have better control on the content.
• More reliable.
• The use of checklist by examiners
DISADVANTAGES
• Students knowledge & skills are tested in
compartments.
• Demanding for both examiners & patients.
• Examiners are require to pay close attention to
students repeating the same tasks
• Maintaining uniform difficulty level is not always
possible
LIKERT SCALE
• The Likert Scale was named after a psychologist Rensis
Likert, who developed it in 1932 as a psychological concept
measurement scale.
• Likert Scale is a composite measurement scale used to
measure attitude, values & feelings of the people that involve
summation of scores on the set of positive & negative
declarative statements regarding measuring variables to which
respondents are asked to indicate their degree of agreement or
disagreement
5 point Likert scale for HIV/AIDS
SCORING OF Likert scale
Uses of a Likert Scale
• It is basically used to measure the attitudes, values &
feelings of the people about specific concept such as a
situation, people, place, object, programme, practice,
policy & so on.
• This scale is used to have quantified measurement of
the qualitative attributes of people such as feelings,
values & attitude.
• It may also be used to assess the opinion of the people
about a particular abstract concept
ADVANTAGES
 It is relatively easy to construct this scale.
 It is considered more reliable & valid tool to measure
psychological variables.
 It easy to administer. It is less time consuming.
DISADVANTAGES
 The respondents may feel forced to answer the question.
 Difficulty in justifying the selection of the number of
categories.
 Casual approach of respondents in these scale may provide
misleading data
SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE

• Semantic differential questions measure people’s attitude

towards stimulus, words, objects & concepts. 
• This question type consists of a series of contrasting adjective
pairs (e.g. good-bad, beneficial-harmful) listed on opposite
ends of a bipolar scale.
• Semantic differential scale is a type of rating scale designed to
measure the connotative meaning of objects, events &
concepts.
• This connotations are used to derive the attitude of the objects,
events & concepts.
Semantic Differential Scale to assess the attitude
of student nurse towards patient Experience
ADVANTAGES
 A convenient method to assess beliefs, attitudes & values in quantitative form.
 Easy to administer.
 Provides reasonable, valid & reliable quantitative data.
DISADVANTAGES
 It is difficult to select the relevant concepts that are appropriate for any given
investigations.
 It is time consuming.