Comparing Assessment Types

-



An open-ended assessment requires students to provide their own answers to an assessment question.  This type of assessment is best suited to ensuring students can use their own words to explain their knowledge on a subject.

Selected-response assessments require a student to select the correct answer from provided answer choices.  There is a possibility that students can guess and receive a correct answer, thus making the test slightly less reliable than other assessment options.

A performance assessment challenges students to show their knowledge in a non-standard way.  The assessment itself (when designed correctly) allows students to demonstrate knowledge by performing or creating something.  A student can successfully perform a dramatic monologue to showcase knowledge on reading stage directions.  A student can participate in a debate to showcase knowledge on creating an effective argument.

 

Which is best? 

The answer to which assessment type is best depends on the individual teacher, the student, and the subject matter.  An Art class likely would be best served by utilizing performance assessments to see if students are able to produce the different types of art techniques studied.  A history final that covers a large amount of facts in a short test period will likely benefit from a selected-response test in order to challenge student memory on a large number of facts in a test period.  An English course may be best served by an open-ended assessment to allow a teacher to assign an essay response that encompasses concepts studied for a literary work or genre.  Allowing students to use their own words to describe their understanding of the subject matter would be done best using an open-ended response.  Different subjects and even different topics within different subjects can help determine which type of assessment fits each scenario best.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Overall Thoughts on Assessments

-
Image
               In the post COVID-19 classroom environment, it is more important than ever for teachers to recognize the time and energy required of students to complete assignments and perform on assessments.  There are many different ways that student progress can be measured, depending on learning modality.  Standardized tests help schools assess overall progress at the completion of a course of study  Behavior assessments help parents and teachers evaluate behaviors that are seen in the classroom.  This type of assessment can help identify learning disabilities, behavior disorders, or otherwise identify socio-emotional needs of students.  Parent-teacher conferences are wonderful ways to include parents in the educational journey, although convincing parents to attend is sometimes challenging.  Overall, it is incredibly important that teachers use every tool in their arsenal  to strengthen the learning env...
Read more

What are Effort Grades?

-
Image
             Effort based grades consider how hard someone works or how much of an attempt has been made to complete work.   Participation based grades instead consider whether an action was completed.   Some similarities between effort grades and participation grades are the fact that the work does not have to be perfect in order to be worthy of earning credit. A difference between the two systems is how each grade is used to measure quality.   If an assignment required a group project building a PowerPoint presentation, a participation based grade might consider whether the PowerPoint was completed and if all group members were physically present for each step of the process.   Alternatively, an effort based grade might consider the quality of the effort expended by each individual member.   If a member was a hard-worker, even if the project result was not perfect, an effort based grade could score that effort accordingl...
Read more