Page 360 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

The table below identifies learning skills associated with assessment.

Developing an Assessment Assessment Skills Table 13.1
Conducting an Assessment
setting criteria Reporting an Assessment
assuring validity introspecting presenting feedback
assuring completeness reflecting complimenting
creating a measurement system accepting feedback
applying criteria
measuring against a standard

When studying for an exam, by using good assessment techniques, you can discover ways to study more
effectively and, at the same time, determine your level of understanding. You could make lists of concepts
you need to learn more thoroughly and those you know you understand. Students who do well in college
are almost always strong self-assessors. They are able to analyze their work and understand their strengths
and what they need to improve so that as they continue to strengthen their performance, the evidence of
their performance (exams, papers, presentations) also increases in quality.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Which Is It?

Though there are critical differences between assessment and evaluation, they do share some things in
common (most notably the use of criteria and measurement). It is also surprisingly easy to start out intending
to perform an assessment and end up performing an evaluation.

A key distinction to remember is that the point of

SII Assessment Evaluation assessment is to improve quality, while the
point of evaluation is to judge quality. If
is ongoing provides closure
Both you keep that in mind, you’ll probably
is positive is judgmental
is individualized require criteria is applied against be able to distinguish assessment
is valuable use measurement from evaluation. But let’s give it a
standards try...look at the list of sentences and

provides feedback shows shortfalls phrases below and try to decide if each

is assessment-oriented or evaluative.

Sentence/phrase Which Is it? Assessment Evaluation
You did better than I expected.  
Your essay is strong and demonstrates comprehensive research.  
Steve’s draft was terrible.  
Your draft could use additional sources.  
...a grade of “A”  
You missed question 7.  
Try doing X instead of Y.  

354 Foundations of Learning