Lesson 2: Purpose of assessment
Page 1
Before any assessment is carried out, teachers should understand why they should assess, what should be assessed, when it should be assessed and how to do the assessment. This will depend on whether the assessment is formative or summative.
Purpose of formative assessment
Formative assessment is used to:
Determine the extent to which learning objectives and competencies are being achieved and to identify which schools need pedagogical advice and which learners need strategic and remedial interventions
Monitor progress and provide feedback
Diagnose or detect learning errors as a result of a wrong idea, or a misconception
Decide on the next steps in terms of progression
Keep records and measure progress
Identify learners who are gifted and talented in order to provide enrichment work; and those who are struggling and need support in terms of remedial instruction
Motivate learners to learn and succeed, i.e. encourage learners to read, or learn more, revise, etc. Teachers need to consider various aspects of the instructional process including appropriate language levels, meaningful examples, suitable methods and teaching aids, appropriate pace, appropriate assignments, etc.
Check the effectiveness of teaching methods in terms of variety, appropriateness, relevance, or need for new approaches/strategies
Provide feedback to learners, parents, and teachers
Help learners to take control of their own learning
In the competency-based curriculum,
formative or continuous assessment should be criterion-referenced. This means that formative assessment should
compare performance against instructional objectives, i.e. concerned with
mastery of knowledge, skills, and attitudes; and the resultant performances. As
such, formative assessment measures a learner’s ability with respect to a
criterion or standard. For this reason, it is used to determine what learners
can do, rather than how much they know, or how they compare with peer groups.
Therefore, formative assessment is used to see how well learners have mastered
knowledge, skills, and attitudes as specified in the instructional objectives.
Purpose
of summative assessment
Summative assessment is mainly concerned with an appraisal of work in terms of units of work completed and attempts to ascertain if the goals of the unit, course or program have been achieved. It, therefore, comes at the end of the unit, course or program. Summative assessment is also used for selection, guidance on future courses, certification, promotion, curriculum control, and accountability.
This is the end of Lesson 2.