CH-11 STRATEGIES FOR FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Assessment allows both
instructor and student to monitor progress To wards achieving learning objectives,
and can be approached in a variety of ways. Classroom assessment can include a
wide range of options from minute papers, where students write down the
important “take home” messages of the lesson, to administering comprehensive final
exams. A good way to think of assessment is to consider formative assessment
and summative assessment.
11.1 STRATEGIES FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
11.1.1 Learning Profiles
Generally in our
schools the academic achievement of the pupils is reported by progress reports
having marks or grades. But this is rather unsatisfactory way of communicating
to him the significance of this evidence for his own use and for other users.
The important thing as
for as the student is concerned is the meaning of his record rather than the
raw mark itself. For a standardized test score, it is even more true that we
need to provide the pupil with an interpretation rather than the raw-scores.
Student’s Profile
Learning profiles can
be used to differentiate topics, method of learning. and manner of demonstrating
learning in a classroom. A student's learning profile is the complete picture
of his/her learning preferences, strengths, and challenges and is shaped by the
categories of learning style, intelligence preference, culture, and gender.
Carol Ann Tomlinson. renowned expert on differentiation, describes these four
categories as:
1. Learning Style
2. Intelligence Preference
3. Culture
4. Gender
There are many ways to
accommodate students’ preferred Ways of learning. Looking for a good learning fit
for students means, at least in part. trying to understand how individuals
learn and responding Appropriately. Although a teacher cannot accommodate for
each of these a tegories all the time, it is important to understand that
within any Class, a wide range of
learning preferences, strengths, and challenges Will be present. Additionally,
learning profiles are dynamic; they change in response to ongoing experience.
It is the responsibility of the teacher to create an environment and learning
experiences with enough flexibility for each student to feel welcomed, engaged,
and productive. Learning profile has following objectives:
Help school staff build relationships with
students and understand things from their timetabling perspective. can inform
planning, classroom layout,
enable students to
participate and contribute in all classroom learning.
Learning Profile Include
An initial review of
your child’s cognitive, social, family and emotional history
A standardized
cognitive (intelligence) test
A standardized
academic (achievement) test
Other relevant
assessment tools (e.g. working memory)
A detailed assessment report
Tailored learning
recommendations for school and home —based on your child’s learning profile
AND a comprehensive
feedback session to answer all your questions
The combined results
from these tests provide insights that cannot be obtained by using any single
test. Be.
Steps for Learner Profile
Following are the steps involved in learning
profile construction:
1. STEP :1
Determine who the learner is:
The learner profile
identifies smart goals, Hobbies and interests, Strength and struggles, learning
styles, reflection and preferences from each learner.
2. STEP 2:
Determines what the
learner does:
How the learner navigates their education.
Designed to allow for
learners choice.
lt is customized for each learner and offers
them independence as they need making learning more purposeful.
3. STEP 3:
Evidence of learning:
Establish how the
learner grows,
Benefits for Students
A learning profile gives
students this opportunity
1. To tell who they
are.
4. There is also
correcting the perceptions that people have about them or their disability.
3. Tell us about your
desires and passions.
4. Be able to speak or participate in class Good
relationship with Learning profiles are created by the
student, and are
usually assisted by those who know him or her well.
11.2 STUDENT PORTFOLIOS
A student portfolio is
a compilation of academic work and other forms of educational evidence assembled
for the purpose of:
1. Evaluating
coursework quality, learning purposes and academic achievement.
Determining whether student have met learning
standards or other academic requirements of courses, grade-level promotion and
graduation.
3. Helping students
reflect on their academic goals and progress.
4 Creating 2 lasting
achieve of academic work products. accomplishments and other documentations.
The compiling.
reviewing and evaluating student work overtime
provides a richer, deeper and more accurate picture of what Student “has
learned and is able to do than more traditional measures,
According to King ore
(199.3): Portfolio is a systematic collection of student work selected to
provide information about student's and motivation, level of development and
growth over time, |r is purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the
student's efforts and achievements in one or more areas. Construction of
Student Portfolio Process
It includes the
following points:
1. Identify the areas
of skills that the student is to develop,
2. From these skills
areas, develop specific learning outcomes for the student to achieve.
3. Identify
performance indicators that establish that the student has achieved their learning
outcomes and indicate the evidence that the student need to collect.
4. Collect evidence
that demonstrate the student has met the performance indicators.
5. Organize this
evidence in a portfolio so assessors can easily understand how the evidence
relates to each performance indicator.
Items that might be
included in the Portfolio:
Photographs of Projects,
Artistic creations, Reports Classroom tests, work samples, self-recording
graphs, Error and miscue analysis summaries, computer-generated products, Awards and honors, Audio and Video
recordings; student, family and, teacher observations and interviews.
11.3 ERROR ANALYSIS
The words “error” and
“uncertainty” are used to describe the same concept in measurement. It is unfortunate
that the term, “error’ is the standard scientific word because usually there is
no mistake or error in making a measurement. Frequently, the uncertainties are dominated
by natural irregularities or differences in what is being measured.
Brown (1987) according
~The fact that learners do make errors red these errors can be observed .
analyzed and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the
learner led to a surge off learners’ errors, called Error Analysis.”
Richards et.al.
(1985:96) states: “Error analysis the study of errors made by the second and
foreign language learners.”
Crystal (1987: 112)
comments: “...error analysis is a technique for identifying. classifying and systematically
interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign
language. using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.” Considering
above definitions, we can say that- error analysis 1s an activity to identify,
describe, interpret, evaluate and prevent the errors made by the learners.
Types of Error
All measurements have
errors. Errors may arise from three sources:
(a) Careless errors:
These are due to mistakes in reading scales or careless setting of markers,
etc. They can be eliminated by repetition of readings by one or two observers.
(b) Systematic errors:
These are due to built-in errors in the instrument either in design or calibration.
Repetition of observation with the same instrument will not show a spread in
the measurements.
They are the hardest
source of errors to detect. Systematic Errors classified into three
categories:-
1. Instrumental
Errors: These errors arise due to three main reasons. 1. Due to inherent
shortcoming in the instrument. Example:- If the spring used in permanent magnet
instrument has become weak then instrument will always read high. Errors may
caused because of friction, hysteresis, or even gear backlash. 2. Due to misuse
of the instruments. 3. Due to loading effects of instruments.
2. Environmental
Errors: These errors are due to conditions external to the measuring Device including
conditions in the area surrounding the instrument. These may be effects of
Temperature, Pressure, Humidity, and Dust, Vibrations magnetic or electrostatic
fields.
3. Observational Errors:
There are many sources of observational errors: Parallax, i.e. Apparent
displacement when the line of vision is not normal to the scale. Inaccurate
estimate of average reading. Wrong scale reading and wrong recording the data.
Incorrect conversion of units between consecutive reading.
(c) Random errors: These
always lead to a spread or distribution of results on repetition of the
particular measurement, They may arise from fluctuations in either the physical
parameters due to the statistical nature of the particular phenomenon or the
judgment of the experimenter, such as Variation in response time or estimation
in scale reading.
Difference between Errors and Mistakes
In order to analyze Learners’
errors in a proper perspective, it is crucial to make a distinction between a
“mistake” and an “error”.
Errors are due to
deficient competence so they tend to be systematic and not self correctable.
Whereas mistakes or lapses are due to performance deficiencies and arise from
lack of attention, slips of memory. anxiety possibly caused by pressure of time
etc. They are not systematic and readily ‘identifiable and self correctable.
Errors are assumed to reflect the level of COMPETENCE achieved by a learner;
while mistakes are PERFORMANCE limitations that a Earner would be able to
correct.
When a student says
“he” instead of “she”, it is probably an error, showing that the student has not
mastered this distinction in English. Sometimes it is not easy for us to tell
the differences between errors and mistakes. For example, when a student gets a
poor score in a test, was he merely careless (making mistakes), or does he
perhaps not know the language (making errors)? As a good test, one of its
characteristics is that most of the wrong answers from the students are really
errors, showing us what the students have not yet mastered. rather than
mistakes caused by poor directions, confusing questions, etc.
Sources/Causes of Errors
In his “A
Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis”, Richards a (1971:19-22) shows the
four main causes of errors.
. Overgeneralization:
Richards says that “Overgeneralization covers instances Where the learner
creates a deviant structure on the basis of his experience of other structures
in the target language.” A learner may write “She walked fatly to catch the
bus” because he already knows “He walked quickly to catch the train”
1.
Incomplete
application of rules : It involves a failure to fully develop a structure thus
learners are observed to use declarative word order in questions such as “you
like to play “ instead of do you like to play
2.
False
concepts hypothesized : It arises when the learners do not comprehend a
distinction in target language, for example the use of was as the marker of the
past tense as in the sentence one day it was happened
3.
Ignorance
of rule restriction : It involves the application of rules to contexts where
they do not apply an example is he made me to laugh through extinction of the
pattern found with the majority me to laugh through extinction of the pattern
found with the majority of verbs that take infinitival complements for example
he asked wanted invited me to go.
11.4 ASSESSMENT RUBRICS
11.4. Meaning and Definition
Merrian Webster
Dictionary lists the meaning of rubric as, “an authoritative rule.” And “a
guide listing specific criteria for grading or Scoring projects or tests.” Thus
rubric means a rule or guide.
According to Andrade
(2005): “A rubric is any set of criteria that describe the varying degrees of
excellence or levels of development in an activity, process or product.” It is
a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an
assignment or piece of work.
In education
terminology, rubric means “a scoring guide used to evaluate the quality of
student’s constructed responses” — according to Parham James (1997).
Rubric usually contain
evaluative criteria, quality definitions for those criteria at particular
levels of achievement and a scoring strategy.
They are often
presented in table format and can be used by teachers when marking and by
students when planning their work.
11.4.2 Characteristics of Rubrics
1. Rubric is an
evaluation tool that describes quality of work On a gamut (range) from
excellent to poor.
2. Rubrics can be
both: Assessment for learning and assessment of learning.
3. A rubric is a
flexible tool that can be used to measure student learning related specifically
to a department's objectives. Because rubric provide descriptions of each score
level it is easier for different faculty to
use a rubric to grade is easier for different faculty Consistently across
students.
4. It allows us to
directly evaluate performance on programmne level student learning outcome.
5. It is general
enough that it can be used for different assignments.
Types of Rubrics
There are three main
types of rubrics.
(i)
Analytic :
Evaluate the product or performance.
(ii)
Developmental
: Designed for students or teacher to determine progress to wards a goal.
(iii)
Holistic :
Focus is on students demonstrating achievement and does not provide specific
feedback.
11.4.3 Additional tips
for Rubric development and use
1. Rubrics can be used
to track student performance across time (e.g. across the semester, across an
academic programme)
2. Rubric should be
shared with students make sure students understand the categories and the
expected levels of performance that represent high quality.
3. When developing
rubrics for specific tasks or assignments, include categories or criteria that
reflect the specific knowledge or knowledge applications required for
successful completion of the task or assignments.
4, Obtain student
feedback to continue to improve the rubric
categories, the ranger or levels of performance, and the 4 descriptions
of each level.
4.
Consider
including criteria in the rubric that reflect important aspects of the Process
needed to successfully complete the task or assignment.
For example if
critical evaluation of the literature is necessary in order to complete a task
or assignment add a criterion that reflects the extent to which students could
perform that critical evaluation.
11.4.4 Steps for developing a rubric
Following steps to be
taken for it :
Step-1: Clearly define
the assignment
(i) What’s the student
expected ta produce?
(ii) What are the
common expectations across instructions?
Step-2: Consider what
student learning outcomes will be assessed,
(i) Often with a
culminating project. students are expected to demonstrate several of the
department’ programme outcomes,
(ii) For example, for a
senior seminar paper, outcomes related to writing and critical thinking may be
assessed as well as More discipline-specific outcomes.
step-3: Determine the
key criteria that you are interested in. For example, for the senior seminar
paper, what writing aspects of Writing will be assessed?
(i) Coherence
(ii) Organization
(ii) Mechanics
Step-4: Cleary define
those key criteria
(i) What do you mean
by organization?
(ii) What does
organized writing look like?
Step-5: Establish
clear and detailed descriptions for each performance level for each criteria.
(1) Determine what the
different levels of performance look
like within each criteria.
(ii) Use sample papers
of high, mid or low performers to help
(iii) It is usually
easiest to begin by describing the highest level of performance.
(iv) Using specific
language for the descriptions of performance levels increases the chances that
multiple faculty members will apply the rubric in a similar manner.
Step-6: Try out the
rubric on a few students with several rates to see if the rubric works and gets
consistent scoring from multiple rates.
11.4.5 Advantages of Scoring Rubrics
1. Rubrics help to
measure highest-order skills or evaluate complex tasks.
2. If helps in clarify
vague, fuzzy goals.
3. It helps students
self improve.
4. It helps the
students to understand their expectations.
5. Rubrics make
scoring more accurate, unbiased and faster.
6. Rubrics make
scoring more accurate unbiased and consistent.
7. reduces arguments
with students.
8. It improver
feedback to faculty and staff.
9. Rubrics can inspire
better student performance.
11.5 STRATEGIES FOR SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Summative evaluations
are often high stakes and we lo assess student learning at the end of the
learning journey, an compares their progress to the course criteria or learning
goals. Generally, summative assessments have a high value, which means that
they account for a large portion of the grade or mark. Some examples of summative
assessments are:
·
a final
paper
·
a final
test/project/essay
·
a research
project
·
A recital
or presentation
·
An exam
·
a midterm
exam
·
Standardized
tests
The information
gathered from summative assessments is often used when applying to the
following grade or course. Both teachers and students may use summative assessments
guidelines for the next steps in the learning journey. Summative Assessment
Recommendations It is imperative that summative assessments align with the
learning objectives and success criteria of the course as they are generally weighted
more heavily in terms of total grade. Some summative assessment recommendations
for teachers are as follows: Using a
rubric to outline performance range: Rubrics or tables can be used to outline
expected criteria for the assignment, including details on what below expected
level, meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations would look like. Giving
the rubric to the students before the assignment would offer guidelines to
completion and allow them to evaluate their own work.
Concise essay questions:
As the formative assessment would stem from the question itself. It is
important that they are well-Structured, clear, and allow students the
opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge. Good essay questions would offer
them the ability to be creative while expressing their understanding of the
topic.
Prioritize comprehension:
Summative assessments should offer the opportunity to demonstrate a broad
understanding of the course, including making connections, synthesizing
information, and expanding on the main ideas of the course’s content.
Clear guidelines and
criteria: The framework for a final summative assessment should be clearly
defined, including the date, time, and criteria for grading. It should also
include how long and how deep the responses to the questions need to be, and
how students who require support will access it.
Blind grades: A common
technique to reduce marking bias is to offer blind grading, which can be done
in a few ways. Having the students write their name on the back of the last
page, marking the same question for all students, or assessing the same section
all at the same time helps the instructor focus on the quality of the answer
and keep grades fair.
11.6 PREPARATION OF TOS OR BLUE PRINT
There are several
steps involved in the construction of achievement test. The first step in planning
a test is to identify the instructional objectives. Knowledge objective is
considered to be the lowest level of learning, whereas, understanding,
application of knowledge are considered higher levels of learning.
The second step in
planning a test is to make the “Design”. The Design specifies weightages to
different (a) Instructional objectives,
(b) Types (or forms)
of questions, (c) Units and sub-units of the course content, (d) levels of
difficulty. It also indicates about the options in the question paper. The
design is termed as an instrument which reflects major policy decisions of the
examining agency or an individual.
Blue Print: The Third
step is to prepare the “Blue print”. The policy decisions, as reflected in the
design of the question paper, are translated into action through the Blue print.
It is at this stage that the paper setter decides as to how many questions are
to be set for different objectives and under which unit/topic, a particular
questions is to be set further he picks up various forms of questions.
Therefore in the blue
print the paper setter decides how all the questions are to be distributed over
different objectives and content areas
as to obtain the weightages decided in the design the there dimensions
of the blueprint consists of content areas in horizontal rows and objectives
and forms of questions in vertical columns.
11.6.1 Meaning and Definition of Blue Print
1. Dictionary meaning
of the term ‘Blue print’ is “a detailed plan of action”. As above described,
the test blueprint is a action plan of the ‘design’ of the question paper.
A test blueprint, also known as test
specifications, consists Of a matrix, a chart, representing the number of
questions to be included in the test within each type and level of objectives.
3. A ready
reference/an array of nature of questions of a question-paper is called Blue
print of the question paper. A layout of nature of questions in respect of
knowledge, understanding, application, marks, topics, estimated difficulty
level, etc. is called Blue print of the question
paper.
The blueprint identify
the objectives and skills that are to be tested and the relative weight on the
test given to each. The blueprint can help to ensure that desired coverage of
topics and level of objectives had been obtained. After the preparation of
blueprint, the task of writing the test items can be started.
11.6.2 Need and Importance of Blue Print
1. To standardized the
question paper.
2. To incorporate the
aim of the test.
3. To incorporate the
aims and objectives of the curriculum.
4. To incorporate the
change in the .
if required
methodology of teaching:
5. To check the
suitability respect of aim and target. text-book and syllabus, !
6. To check the
difficulty level of the question paper.
7. To incorporate the
suitability of the On paper. of the examinees. . € questions to the standard
8. To check the
suitability of the question paper to the subject/topic.
9. To synchronize the
questions paper in consonance with time
10. To define the
scope and emphasis of the test
Il. To relate
objective with the content.
12. To analyze the
question paper on following parameters: Reliability: validity; objectivity and
practicability.
11.6.3 Functions of Blue Print
1. Helps to achieve balance
between instruction and assessment.
2. Helps to ensure
that a test will sample all important content and process areas.
3. Reduces tendency to
test “memory of facts” only.
4. Provides a
structure for communicating with students before and after testing.
5. Provides a structure for analyzing,
summarizing and reporting results.
11.6.4 Dimensions of the Blue Print
1. Weightage to the
Objectives (Learning Outcomes): For a classroom test, all the relevant instructional
objectives should be taken into consideration and given due weightage in the
test. But generally, the teachers take objectives from cognitive domain, like— knowledge,
understanding, Application and skill. Wei gauges to different objectives should
be given on the basis of their relative importance.
2, Weightage of
Content/Subject : Here, different areas (or units) of content. which are taught
to students during instruction need to be given due weightage, according to
their relative importance.
|
S. No. |
Unit/Content/subject |
Percentage of marks |
No. of Questions |
|
1. |
Unit-1 |
10 |
08 |
|
2. |
Unit-2 |
10 |
08 |
|
3. |
Unit-3 |
10 |
08 |
|
4. |
Unit-4 |
15 |
08 |
|
5. |
Unit-5 |
20 |
08 |
|
6. |
Unit-6 |
12 |
08 |
|
7. |
Unit-7 |
08 |
08 |
|
8. |
Unit-8 |
15 |
08 |
|
|
Total |
100 |
65 |
1.
Weightage
to form of Questions : Generally for classroom testing purposes, Essay type,
short answer type and objectives items are used here due weightage to each from
questions should be given on the basis of its suitability to test the learning
out comes and content.
|
S. no. |
Forms of Questions |
Marks for each question |
Percentage of marks |
No. of Questions |
|
1. |
Essay type |
6 |
18 |
03 |
|
2. |
Short answer type objective type |
3 |
30 |
10 |
|
3. |
|
01 |
50 |
52 |
|
|
Total |
|
100 |
65 |
2.
Weightage
to difficulty level of questions : since on a normal class room there types of
students are found such as above average and below average the classroom test
should include the questions of different levels such as easy average and
difficult accordingly weightage to each category of questions should be given.
11.6.5 A Model blue print
After providing
weightages to different dimensions a specimen of three dimensional blue print
along with the weightage tables is given here.
N.B: type SA-Short
answer type & o=objective type questions M=marks Q=number questions numbers
written inside the brackets indicates the number of questions and number
outside the brackets indicate percentage (Number) of marks.
Total number of marks
=100, total number of questions =65.
11.6.6 Perfect/Standard blue print
A blue print will be
said to be perfect/standard if it gives proper weightage to learning out comes.
1.
Objectives
=Knowledge, understanding application and skill.
2.
Weightage=
Changes with the subject to subject of curriculum/topic
3.
Earlier
trend was- Objective Percentage
Knowledge 30
Understanding 50
Application 20
Latest trend from 2008
on wards is knowledge =30% understanding =4% Application =30% skill, reasoning
etc. =10% out of total questions 20% will be HOTS (higher order thinking skill)
type questions in the added objective.
Exercise
1.
What are
the strategies for formative assessment? Explain any one in detail.
2.
What do
you mean by learning profile? Explain its objectives and advantages to
students.
3.
Discuss
the steps of constructing student portfolio? Discuss its advantages in detail.
4.
What is
error analysis ? Elaborate its types.
5.
Define
assessment rubrics Discuss its steps in detail.
6.
Define
blue print. IIIustrate the steps of blue print with suitable example.
