Assessment: A Refresher and Overview

1. What is assessment, anyway?

There is nothing more contentious, emotional, and impactful than assessment and evaluation. Tests, assignments, feedback, and grades are ubiquitous in schools, colleges, and universities, and for better or worse, our practices tend to be based on age-old tradition and habit. But this FLO Micro Course will challenge you to examine what we do and why we do it.  You will be encouraged to interrogate the practices we are all so familiar with, so we may better understand them, and ultimately improve them. Let's start unpacking some definitions.

Here is a nice definition from Barabara Walvoord, an assessment guru and professor at University of Notre Dame, Indiana: 

"Assessment and Evaluation is the systematic gathering of information about student learning and the factors that affect learning, undertaken with the resources, time, and expertise available, for the purpose of improving learning." 

This definition seems comprehensive and clear, but I am left asking the following questions:

• What information will be gathered?
• What student learning is targeted? How do you observe, study, and qualify/quantify this learning?
• What factors are you interested in? What factors can you hope to influence in this course?
• How much resources, time, and expertise is available?
• Is improving learning the only purpose?

STOP & THINK - How would you answer these questions about the assessment in your courses?

Walvoord also contends that assessment should end with action beyond just submitting scores or grades to the registrar!

STOP & THINK - Does all your assessment result in action? By whom?

But not all assessment definitions focus on learning. For some educators, it is understood that assessment and evaluation should be rigorous and accurate, and permit meaningful distinctions among students by applying a uniform standard of performance. It should be fair to students and candid to those who are entitled to information about students. 

This provides another perspective, one more focused on the summative aspect of assessment and evaluation. But again, I have questions:

• What do we mean when we say, "rigorous"? And, why are we so obsessed with rigor anyway? 
• When is it important to distinguish (or rank) student achievement, and when is it not?
• What constitutes "fair" assessment?