Standardization of Test

Learning was long thought to be an accumulation of atomized bits of knowledge that are sequenced, hierarchical, and need to be explicitly taught and reinforced. Learning is now viewed as a process of constructing understanding, during which individuals attempt to connect new information to what they already know, so that ideas have some personal coherence. Individuals construct this understanding in many different ways, depending on their interests, experience, and context.

Educators have traditionally relied on assessment that compares students with more successful peers as a means to motivate students to learn, but recent research suggests students will likely be motivated and confident learners when they experience progress and achievement, rather than the failure and defeat associated with being compared to more successful peers (Stiggins, 2001). 

Stadardized Tests

According to The Glossary of Education Reform, "A standardized test is any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students. While different types of tests and assessments may be “standardized” in this way, the term is primarily associated with large-scale tests administered to large populations of students, such as a multiple-choice test given to all the eighth-grade public-school students in a particular state, for example."

Revised Bloom's Taxonomy in the Cognitive Domain

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom and other educational psychologists developed a classification system of levels of cognitive skills and learning behavior. The classification they created is often referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy. The word taxonomy means classifications or structures. Bloom's Taxonomy classifies thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. The classifications are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

In the mid-nineties, Lorin Anderson, a former student of Bloom, revisited the cognitive domain in the learning taxonomy and made some changes, with perhaps the two most prominent ones being, 

(1) changing the names in the six categories from noun to verb forms, and (2) slightly rearranging them.

The new classifications are: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

• Remembering: Exhibit memory of previously learned material by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts, and answers.
• Verbs: Defines, describes, identifies, knows, labels, lists, matches, names, outlines, recalls, recognizes, reproduces, selects, states

• Understanding: Demonstrate understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas.
• Verbs: Comprehends, converts, defends, distinguishes, estimates, explains, extends, generalizes, gives an example, infers, interprets, paraphrases, predicts, rewrites, summarizes, translates.

• Applying: Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way.
• Verbs: Applies, changes, computes, constructs, demonstrates, discovers, manipulates, modifies, operates, predicts, prepares, produces, relates, shows, solves, uses.

• Analyzing: Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations.
• Verbs: Analyzes, breaks down, compares, contrasts, diagrams, deconstructs, differentiates, discriminates, distinguishes, identifies, illustrates, infers, outlines, relates, selects, separates.

• Evaluating: Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria. 
• Verbs: Appraises, compares, concludes, contrasts, criticizes, critiques, defends, describes, discriminates, evaluates, explains, interprets, justifies, relates, summarizes, supports.

 

• Creating: Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions.
• Verbs: Categorizes, combines, compiles, composes, creates, devises, designs, explains, generates, modifies, organizes, plans, rearranges, reconstructs, relates, reorganizes, revises, rewrites, summarizes, tells, writes.

 

PRINCIPLES OF HIGH QUALITY ASSESSMENT

Assessment plays an important role in the process of learning and motivation. The types of assessment tasks that we ask our students to do determine how students will approach the learning task and what study behaviors they will use. In the words of higher education scholar John Biggs, “What and how students learn depends to a major extent on how they think they will be assessed.” (1999, p. 141).

        

Classroom assessment involves teachers investigating what and how their students are learning as teaching takes place, typically through short questions given out at the end of each class, as opposed to seeing the outcomes of student learning at the end of teaching when there is no longer the opportunity to change teaching practice. 

Assess comes from the Latin verb ‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit with’.  In assessment, one should sit with the learner. This implies it is something we do with and for students and not to students (Green, 1998).

Assessment should possess qualities efficiently reflect students’ performance. It is very important for teachers to adhere to the principles of high quality assessment since these are means for obtaining data and information about each student’s extent of learning. If these are not present, then the evaluation and assessment would be questionable. It will also not give clear answers as to whether or not instructional objectives and goals are met. 

High quality assessment is not just about giving grades to students. At its best, high-quality assessment provides actionable information to inform curriculum and instruction decisions and allows for a real-time change of course to meet students' needs. The first step is to plan and design relevant, standards-based assessments that are used at many different stages of learning. From there, teachers should approach the resulting data with flexibility and continuously adjust strategies accordingly.

The following are principles of high quality assessment:

1. CLARITY OF THE LEARNING TARGET

Assessment can be made more precise, accurate and dependable of it what are to be achieved are clearly stated and feasible, Learning targets involve knowledge, reasoning, skills, products and affects stated in behavioral terms. Learning targets are something which be observed through the behavior of the students. 

2. APPROPRIATENESS OF ASSESSMENT METHOD

If the learning targets are clarified, teachers can easily identify appropriate assessment methods. For example, assessment of ability that requires demonstration of the ability must be assessed using a method that students are able to demonstrate that ability . Another example is on students writing maybe more appropriate if the learning target is for students are asked to justify their stand on a certain issue rather than responding to multiple choice questions about writing. Another example is performance assessment which is a type of assessment that requires students to actually perform, demonstrate, construct, and/or develop a product or a solution under defined conditions and standard. Performance assessments imply active student production of evidence of learning - not multiple-choice, which is essentially passive selection among preconstructed answers . Another example, if students are to identify characteristics of a particular object, then a multiple-choice test may be the best way to measure that outcome.

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH QUALITY ASSESSMENT

• Validity of the Test. Remember that something valid is something fair.A valid test is one that measures what it is supposed to measure. To ensure validity of the test, consider the following questions:
• What do students think of the test? Is the test too difficult to understand? Is it easy? 
• Am I testing the students the way I taught them? Remember that the kind of test should be based on how it was taught.

               Test can be made more valid by making it more subjective or more open.

• Reliability of the Test. Reliability is the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring procedure yields the same result on repeated trials. This means that giving the same test to the same students is assumed to yield consistent results. This means that something reliable is something that you can trust. A reliable test is a consistent measure of what it is supposed to measure. The following questions can help you assess reliability of the test.

• Can we trust the results of the test
• Would we get the same results if the tests were taken again and scored by a different person?

• Fairness. The concept that assessment should be 'fair' covers a number of aspects which the following:
• Student Knowledge and learning targets of assessment
• Opportunity to learn
• Prerequisite knowledge and skills
• Avoiding teacher stereotype
• Avoiding bias in assessment tasks and procedures

• Positive Consequences. Learning assessments provide students with effective feedback and potentially improve their motivation and/or self-esteem. Moreover, assessments of learning gives students the tools to assess themselves and understand how to improve. Positive consequence on students, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders 

• Practicality and Efficiency.  Learning assessments provide students with effective feedback and potentially improve their motivation and/or self-esteem. Moreover, assessments of learning gives students the tools to assess themselves and understand how to improve.

• Something practical is something effective in real situations.
• A practical test is one which can be practically administered.
• Will the test take longer to design than apply?
• Will the test be easy to mark?
• Tests can be made more practical by making it more objective (more controlled items)

• Ethical Practice in Assessment. Conforming to the standards of conduct of a given profession or group.Ethical issues that may be raised

• Possible harm to the participants. 
• Confidentiality. 
• Presence of concealment or deception. 
• Temptation to assist students. 

References:

1.     Frey, B. (2014). Modern Classroom Assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE 

2.     ________ (2003) .Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximize Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 

3.     Kibby, M. (2003) Assessing students online. The University of New Castle. Retrieved May 20, 2020 

4.     from http://www.newcastle.edu.au/discipline/sociol-anthrop/staff/kibbymarj/online/assess.html

5.     Timmis, S., Broadfoot, P., Sutherland, R., & Oldfield, A.(2016). Assessment. British Educational Research Journal. Vol 42, No, 3, June 2016, pp. 454 – 476. DOI: 10.1002/berj.3215