Assessment Types

Portfolio assessment

is a collection of work that is used to make judgments about student achievement.

Standards

are a predetermined level of accomplishment that students are expected to meet or exceed. Standards may be high or low and do not necessarily imply a high level of thinking or a single pathway to meet a minimum level.

Informal assessments

are embedded into instruction and are less high risk than formal assessments. If the teacher records a score, it seldom weighs heavily enough to affect the students' final grade. Examples of informal assessments include direct observation by the teacher as well as student checklists, performances, peer and self evaluations, and discussions.

Formal assessments

are planned events that are scored and contribute to a student's grade. Typically, they require a written response such as a traditional test or essay.

Criterion-Referenced Assessment

compares an individual's performance to a specific standard or learning objective. This informs the students and teacher about how well the students performed on specific goals rather than how their performance compared to a norm-referenced group. In a true criterion-referenced assessment, it is possible that all, none, or some of the students will demonstrate proficiency on a particular standard.

Performance-based assessment

gathers data through a systematic observation and measure of student prowess by evaluating that data based on predetermined criteria.

Biased assessment

includes the presence of some characteristic that may unfairly influence the students' scores.

Benchmark

is a detailed description of the current performance level of a student in reference to a curricular unit specific to that grade or age level. Benchmarks can also be used as checkpoints to monitor student performance through a unit of study or over time. Examples of students' work may serve as an example of a benchmark.

Ipsative assessment

is a measure that compares a student's personal best with subsequent assessments over the same event or topic.

Rubric

is a specific set of standards or criteria that define for both the teacher and students the range of acceptable and unacceptable performance. Rubrics typically assign a value to each level of proficiency.

Subjective assessment

is a type of assessment where there is more than one correct answer, or more than one way to express the correct answer. Essay or constructed response questions are typically subjective.

Objective assessment

is a type of assessment where there is only one correct answer. Objective assessments can be either formative or summative. There are many different types of objective questions, such as true/false, fill in the blank, multiple choice, selected response, and matching. The popularity of objective assessments has grown recently because they are easily machine-scored.

Summative assessment

is the deliberate collecting of data at the end of a learning unit to determine student achievement or to satisfy accountability demands.

Peer assessment

is the evaluation of learning by one's own peers.

Validity

is the extent to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure and the extent to which decisions made on the basis of test scores are accurate.

Self assessment

is the process of evaluating one's own level of mastery.

Formative assessment

is the repeated collecting of information that monitors students' learning as part of a class or program to improve and personalize instruction to improve the students' learning.

Norm-referenced assessment

is where student performances are compared to a larger "norm group." The purpose of a true norm-referenced assessment is to sort students and not measure their achievement in comparison to a standard or criterion.

Authentic assessment

measures students' performance on real life situations, problems, and tasks.

Reliability

refers to the degree to which the results of an assessment are consistently able to get the same measure for student knowledge and skills. Reliability is also an indication of the consistency of scores and raters across time.