Methods of Assessment
Two key principles of any assessment is that the assessment is based upon agreed criteria which the student is aware of and that assessment is a continuous process in which a single incident should not 'make or mar' any final judgement (University of Nottingham 2002).
The assessment process has both a formative and summative component.
Formative assessment is diagnostic in nature and is concerned with the development of the student, with identifying strengths and weaknesses, and with providing the student with feedback on their progress during the learning process. It contains a continuing and systematic appraisal of a student to determine the degree of mastery of a given learning task and to help the student and teacher to focus on the particular learning necessary to achieve mastery. Continuous assessment generally means intermittent assessment, but the focus is on the needs of individual student, not in terms of pass or fail, but in terms of whether the learning outcome criteria have been met or not. It should also identify the strengths of the students performance and areas that require improvement. The nature of formative assessment is essentially diagnostic (Marsh et al. 2005).
The Food Forum (2000) believes it is important that formative assessment:
- is embedded in the teaching and learning process of which it is an essential part
- shares learning goals with students
- helps students to understand and recognise the standards to aim for
- provides feedback which helps students to identify what they should do next to improve
- has a commitment that every student can improve
- involves both teacher and students reviewing and reflecting on performance and progress together
- involves students in self-assessment
Summative assessment - is a final assessment which occurs at the end of an experience and is decision making in nature. It consists of an assessment of the extent to which a student has achieved the outcomes/objectives for a work-based placement as a whole, or a substantial part of it, contributing to the grading of a student.
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ACTIVITY What tasks and areas of learning in the workplace can you use as formative assessment? What tasks and areas of learning are summatively assessed? |
Assessment can also be categorised as either criterion or norm referenced type of assessment. In criterion-referenced assessment particular abilities, skills or behaviours are each specified as a criterion which must be reached.
Gray (2001) states that in recent years the focus of interest in work-based learning has moved onto competency standards, sometimes defined as occupational and employment-related standards. This means that placement outcomes are defined in terms of outcomes to be achieved by students. In turn, assessment is linked to the criteria expressed in the competency standards. A number of implications flow from this. Firstly, assessment takes on a problem-centred rather than merely a knowledge-based orientation. To prove competency means having to demonstrate the attainment of skills and attitudes, not just having to write about them. Secondly, assessment becomes not merely a means of judging knowledge and performance, but an integral part of the learning process itself. Consequently, the emergence of performance-based assessment suggests that we are moving towards assessment that is:
- Standards or criterion-referenced. Judging outcomes against these pre-defined standards is relatively straightforward;
- Direct and authentic, related directly to the work situation. This has the potential for motivating learning, since learners can see a direct relevance between what is learnt and what is assessed.
The driving test is the classic example of a criterion-referenced test. The examiner has a list of criteria each of which must be satisfactorily demonstrated in order to pass - completing a three-point turn without hitting either kerb for example. The important thing is that failure in one criterion cannot be compensated for by above average performance in others; neither can you fail despite meeting every criterion simply because everybody else that day surpassed the criteria and was better than you (Oxford Centre for Staff Learning and Development 2006).
Norm-referenced assessment makes judgments on how well the individual did in relation to others who took the test and are often used in conjunction with this is the curve of 'normal distribution' which assumes that a few will do exceptionally well and a few will do badly and the majority will peak in the middle, normally judged as average. This approach is rarely used in work-based assessment.
A number of specific types of assessment can be used in the assessment of work-based learning.