Are my students learning and/or achieving what is expected? How are they learning? Are there gaps between expected and actual performance? Such questions are at the heart of the assessment of student learning.
Assessment is the process by which information is gathered about student learning and performance, which may be formative (ungraded, reflective) or summative (graded), and which may be collected through direct or indirect means. Educators will want to think through their overall purpose and goals, their activities, measures and instruments, as well as how they plan to analyze and make use of the data they collect.
Educators will also want to think through who is doing the assessment? (What is the point of reference for the assessment?)
Instructor-Referenced: The instructor (co-teachers, teaching assistants etc) grade and/or provide feedback to the students. This is the most common type.
Peer-Referenced: Students provide feedback to each other.
Self-Referenced: Students reflect on their own performance
Outside Assessors: Invited guests (e.g. clients, grant reviewers, industry professionals, invited guests) provide feedback on students’ work.
Note: We distinguish assessment of learning (“Did my students learn/achieve and at what level?”) from evaluation of teaching, instruction and/or curricular processes (“Is what I’m doing working? Do I need to change something in the content, activities, assessments, materials, course design etc to enhance my teaching and/or improve my students learning?”)
Formative Assessment is a means to gauge students’ learning and development, and is usually intended for improvement. Formative assessment can be designed to offer feedback to improve student learning and performance, to motivate students, to diagnose strengths and weaknesses and to help students assess their own work. Formative assessment often involves open-ended tasks and questions designed to elicit student thinking and reveal student understanding. Many formative assessments employ reflection and metacognition (the awareness and understanding of one’s own thinking, or ‘learning about learning.’)
Educators might find it helpful to use Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), which are a collection of quick but meaningful ways to assess learning in a course setting. First envisioned by Angelo and Cross (1993), CATs can be used to provide feedback for students, by allowing them to understand their own knowledge and skills and to gauge their own strengths and weaknesses. They can be used to assess students’ prior knowledge, recall and understanding; awareness of their attitudes and values, skills in analytical, critical and creative thinking, self-awareness as learners. CATs can also be used to provide feedback to the instructor, by allowing them gauge their effectiveness of their teaching approaches and materials (by assessing reactions to class activities, assignments and materials), provide them with tangible ways to help them adjust their teaching, and to gauge their students learning as well as affective measures such as comfort, confidence, self-efficacy, motivation etc.
Resources:
Accountability is at the core of summative assessment. Usually summative assessment measures student performance and is often graded or scored. It is designed to measure achievement (either in comparison to others or against specified criteria), to pass or fail a student, and/or to grade or rank a student. It may also be designed to predict success in future courses or employment.
Point of Reference: Is the assessment intended to be norm-referenced, where performance of one student or set of students is COMPARED to other students? (e.g. curve) Or is it criterion-referenced, where students’ achievement is determined with established measures (e.g. using a rubric)?
A rubric is a tool designed to systematically assess the quality of open-ended student work, and to ensure that the assessment is valid and reliable. While no instrument is without bias (either in how it is created or how it is applied), when designed thoughtfully, rubrics can offer a means to assess student work around clearly stated criteria in ways that are both valid and reliable. Rubrics may be used to provide a final score or grade, to ensure consistency among graders (e.g. teaching assistants), and to clarify and make expectations for student work transparent.
Resources:
Designing Effective Rubrics (pdf)
Collecting the right form of data is critical for meaningful and effective assessment.
Assessments may directly measure student learning, performance and/or achievement, such as through exams, projects, papers, portfolios, presentations, and any similar assignments completed by the student. Direct measures would include rubrics, scoring guides, and other similar instruments designed to systematically collect information. They may also include observations of student behavior, ratings of student skills by supervisors/emplyers, and responses from classroom response systems (e.g. clickers).
Assessments may also be indirect, often focusing on students’ perceptions of their learning and/or performance. Indirect measures might include polls, surveys, focus groups, questionaires, interviews and other forms of self reflection. They also include such measures as course grades/DFW rates, participation/attendance rates, and end-of-term course evaluations.
Resources:
Luce, C., & Kirnan, J. P. (2016). Using indirect vs. direct measures in the summative assessment of student learning in higher education. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(4), 75-91.
Reliability is the extent to which the results of the assessment method can be trusted. The emphasis of the assessment is on the consistency of results and freedom from error (to the extent possible), by maintaining internal consistency and interrater reliability (IRR).
Validity is the extent to which the assessment methods reflect student learning and the learning objectives of the course. The assessment measures the knowledge, skills, and abilities that it is designed to evaluate. The assessment aligns with the learning objectives and content.
Ideally assessments should be both reliable and valid, to the extent that it is practical and feasible.
Resources:
Light, Calkins, & Cox (2009). Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional. Sage.
Constructive (Formative) feedback supports learning when:
Students know the goals (What am I supposed to do with this? What does the instructor consider to be good work?)
Students can make use of it (How will this help me improve in future assignments? In my work overall?)
The focus is on improvement and growth (What can I do to improve?)
Effective feedback contains both:
Verification: Confirmation of overall “correctness" (Could also be understood as "appropriateness," "plausiblity," "accuracy," etc)
Elaboration:
More specific and directive (Addresses the topic, response, or a specific error)
More general and facilitative (Provides examples, offer guidance)
A careful balancing act
Lack of specificity: May reduce motivation
Too specific: May be overwhelming or not transfer to new projects or tasks
Resources:
Nicol, D. J., & Macfarlane‐Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in higher education, 31(2), 199-218.
Alternative approaches to assessment refer collectively to methods that:
Assess learning beyond exams and quizzes (e.g. presentations, portfolios)
Incorporate authentic activies to assess student learning in real-world contexts
Transcend a ‘one size fits all’ approach, regardlerss of individual or context
Promote flexibility, choice, authonomy and relevance
Include flexibilty in modality, weighting of criteria, and timelines/due dates
May include peer and group activities not usually included in graded assessment
Flexibility and choice in assignments can:
Enhance learner engagement and motivation
Foster diverse learning preferences
Advance critical thinking and creativity
Improve performance and learning outcomes
Help students prepare for real-world scenarios
Reduce anxiety and stress
Personalize the learning experience
Resources:
Comparing Traditional and Alternative Approaches to Assessment. (pdf)
Pippitt, K. A., Moore, K. B., Lindsley, J. E., Cariello, P. F., Smith, A. G., Formosa, T., ... & Chow, C. J. (2022). Assessment for learning with ungraded and graded assessments. Medical Science Educator, 32(5), 1045-1054.
Program level assessment tends to fall into two broad types:
Program effectiveness (which relates to issues such as enrollment, retention, graduation, placement and satisfaction)
Student Learning Outcomes (what students will be able to do and know by the end of their time in the program)
Each academic program at RFU has created an assessment plan for program goals including those related to student learning and achievement at the program level. Since the interprofessional healthcare education model is mission-driven at RFUMS, faculty have also mapped the four competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPEC 2016) across the curriculum and have an assessment plan for the IPEC competencies in their program.
Resources:
Hatfield, S. (2009). Assessing your program-level assessment plan. Idea Paper, 45, 1-9 (pdf)