UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS

DISCUSSION ISSUE ON ASSESSMENT

(REPORT)

SME 3023
TRENDS AND ISSUES IN EDUCATION FOR
MATHEMATICAL AND SCEINCE
SEM. 1 SESSION 2014/2015
LECTURER: DR. MOHD.FAIZAL NIZAM LEE BIN ABDULLAH

GROUP MEMBERS:
NAME

MATRIC NUMBER

1. SIM WEI NA

D20121058475

2. SIVA SHANGARY BALASUBRAMANIAM

D20121058479

Assessment
Introduction
Assessment is probably the most important thing we can do to help our students learn.
Assessment for learning directly influences student learning by reinforcing the
connections between assessment and instruction. Furthermore, Assessment is changing as
the nature of teaching and learning in post-compulsory education changes.

Situation
Diagram 1: Situation (Nitko & Brookhart, 2005)
The brief situation above show assessments being used early in the persons life. Most of
us recall more easily the assessments applied to us later in our lives, as older children,
and as adults.
Abus situation also illustrates the assessment result can contribute to a decision,
but everyone concerned may not interpret the results in the same way. In this situation,
although Abus parents may have been right to have his repeat kindergarten, there is no
way of knowing what would have happened had he gone straight to first grade, because
he didnt.
Decision involve using different kinds of information. Sometimes test scores play
a major; at other times, less formal assessment play a dominant role. In Abus case, both

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Assessment
informal (teachers observation, interview) and formal (readiness test, intelligence test,
projective test) assessments were administered.
Distinction among the terms assessments, test, measurement, and evaluation
Assessment is to refer to judgments of students work. To ensure the educational
assessments run meaningfully, here are the set of guiding principles.
1. Be clear about the learning targets you want to assess.
Before you can assess a student, you must know the kind(s) of student knowledge,
skill(s), and performance(s) about which you need information.

2. Be sure that the assessment techniques you select match each learning target.
The assessment techniques selected should be as practical and efficient to use as
possible, but practicality and efficiency should not be the overriding
considerations.

3. Be sure that the selected assessment techniques serve the needs of the learners.
Assessment techniques should provide learners with opportunities for determining
specifically what they have achieved and specifically what they must do to
improve their performance.

4. Whenever possible, be sure to use multiple indicators of achievements for each

learning targets.
Use multiple format assessment in order to emphasize learning target. Getting
information about a students achievement from several assessment modalities
usually enhances the validity of assessment.

5. Be sure that when you interpret the results of assessments you take their
limitations into account.
Assessment in school cannot completely reproduce those things we want students
to learn in real life. The information we obtain, even when we use several
different types of assessments, is only a sample of a students attainment of a
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learning target. This is because the information from assessment contains
sampling error due to the factors such as a students physical and emotional
conditions.
There are two types of assessment, formative and summative assessment. Formative
assessment is generally carried out throughout a course or project. The goal of formative
assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used
by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. While,
summative assessment is generally carried out at the end of a course or project. The goal
of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit
by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Below are the differences between
formative and summative assessment.
Formative Assessment

Summative Assessment

Judgment about quality of students

Judgment about the quality of students

achievement while they are still in the

achievement after instruction is complete

process of learning and are made so we

and are made so we can report their

can guide their learning.

achievement to parents and school

authorities.

The worth of schools, curricula, materials,

The value of schools, curricula, materials,

and programs while they are under

and programs after they are completed;

development that result in suggestions for

these evaluation suggest whether they

ways to redesign, refine, or improve them.

should be continued, adopted, or used

Examples:

Examples:

i.

Draw a concept map in class to

i.

Final Examination

represent their understanding of a

ii.

Final Project

topic.
ii.

Submit one or two sentences

identifying the main point of a
lecture.
Table 1: Formative Assessment vs Summative Assessment

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Test is defines as an instrument or systematic procedure for observing and describing one
or more characteristics of students using either a numerical scale or a classification
scheme. Test is a concept narrower than assessment. However, not all test use numerical
scales. It may other systematic observation procedures such as observe students attitude.
Measurement is defines as a procedure for assigning numbers (Score) to a specified
attribute or characteristic of a person in such a way that the numbers describe the degree
to which the person possesses the attributes. Assessment may or may not provide
measurement. Assessment is a broader term than test and measurement because not all
types of assessments yield measurements.
Evaluation is the process of making a value judgment about the worth of someone or
something. Evaluation may or may not base on information obtained from test and other
assessments.

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Diagram 2: Relationship Diagram between assessment, tests, measurement and

evaluation (Nitko & Brookhart, 2005)

Assessment Purposes

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Diagram 3: Educational Assessment Usage (Nitko & Brookhart, 2005)

Assessment is a process for obtaining information that is used for making decisions about:
i.

Educational Policy

ii.

Curricula, Programs, and Schools

iii.

Students

Educational policy decisions are made at the district, state and national levels. While,
decisions about schools, curricula, materials, and programs may be made during their
development or after they have been completed.
As a teacher, we need make many decision about students. These decision are important
to every students in terms of:
1.

Managing Instruction
Planning instructional activities, placing students into learning sequences,
monitoring students progress, diagnosing students learning difficulties,
modeling learning targets, giving feedback to students and parents, deciding
on ones own teaching effectiveness, and assigning grades to students.

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2.

Placing Students into Programs

Assigning students to different levels of the same general type of instruction,
education, or work. For example, first grade students with low scores on a
reading readiness test, they must be placed into appropriate educational levels
and taught to read.

3.

Classifying Students
Assigning students to different categories, such as by type of disability. For
example, educational legislation concerning persons with disabilities has
given a legal status to many labels for classifying children with disabilities
and strongly encourages classifying them into one of few designated
categories. These categories are unordered (blindness is not higher or lower
than deafness), so these are classification decisions rather than placement
decision.

4.

Counselling and Guiding Students

Assisting students in exploring, choosing, and preparing for different careers;
helping them adjust to home, school, and peer stress, which is part of normal
growth and development.

5.

Credentialing, certifying Students

Deciding whether students meet standards of competence for a certificate that
entitles them to apply for employment. Student certification decisions may
focus on whether a student has attained minimum competence or obtained a
high standard.

Conclusion:
Teaching and learning require the continuous gathering of informations for making
decisions. Assessments are prerequisite to decide educational decisions.

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References
Brown, S (2004). Assessment for Learning. Retrieved from
http://www2.glos.ac.uk/offload/tli/lets/lathe/issue1/articles/brown.pdf

Nitko, A. J, & Brookhart, S. M. (2007). Educational Assessment of Students. Upper

Saddle River, N J: Prentice Hall

Taras Maddalena (2005). Assessment summative and formative - some theoretical

reflections .Retrieved from
http://www.pgce.soton.ac.uk/IT/Teaching/Assessment/Tarras.pdf

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