UNIT # 02 EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION (8602)

                                                                 UNIT # 02 

OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT

INTRODUCTION

Objectives are the desired outcomes of an effort. Guided by these specific objectives instructional activities are designed and subsequently assessment is carried out through different methods. The objective are key components for developing a test and guiding principles for assessment.  Bloom’s taxonomy provides a useful way of describing the complexity of an objective by classifying into one of the hierarchical categories from simplest to complex. Therefore, the process of developing a test should begin with the identification of content domain at first stage and development of table of specification at second stage.

What is a Test?

A test is a device which is used to measure behaviour of a person for a specific purpose. A procedure used to establish quality, performance or reliability of something (here the quality of teaching and learning).  Moreover it is an instrument that typically uses sets of items designed to measure a domain of learning tasks.Tests are systematic method of collecting information that lead to make inferences about the characteristics of people or objects. Test should assess content area in accordance with relative importance a teacher has assigned to them.

The main categories of tests are:

 Objective Type

Objective type tests are also called selective-response tests. In this types of tests responses of an item are provided and the students are required to choose correct response. The objective types of tests that are used at elementary level are:

·        Multiple choice

·        Fill in the blanks

·        Matching items

Subjective Type

Subjective questions are questions that require answers in the form of explanations.

Subjective questions include:

·        essay questions

·        short answer

·        Definitions

·        scenario questions, and

·        opinion questions.

Purposes of test

Monitoring Student Progress

A useful purpose of classroom test is to know whether students are satisfactorily moving towards the instructional goals.

 Diagnosing Learning Problems

Identification of students strength and weaknesses.

 It provides the teacher that what is the level of previous knowledge the students possess at the beginning of instruction.

Assigning Grades

The best way to assign grades is to collect objective information related to student achievements and other academic accomplishments.

Classification and Selection of Students

On the bases of test scores students are classified in groups e.g high ability, average ability and low ability groups

 Evaluating Instruction

A teacher teaches a topic. After the completion of topic the teacher gives a test.

The score obtained by students show that they learned the skills and knowledge that was expected to learn.

Objectives and Educational Outcomes

Objectives:

A specific result that a person or system aims to achieve within a time frame and with available resources. A learning objective refers to the statement of what students will obtain through instruction of certain content. An objective describes an intended result of instruction, rather than the process of instruction itself.

Characteristics/ Attributes of the Objectives

Behaviour

 Firstly, an objective must explain the competency to be learned, the intended change in the behaviour of the learners.

Criterion

 Secondly, an objective must clarify the intended degree of In other words objective should not only indicate the change in the behaviour of the students but also the level or degree of that change as well.

 Conditions

Thirdly, an objective should describe the conditions under which the learning will occur.

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Benjamin Bloom established a hierarchy of educational objectives for categorizing level of abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings (Bloom, 1965).  The classification is generally referred to as “Bloom's Taxonomy”.

Taxonomy means 'a set of classification principles', or 'structure'. The followings are six levels in this taxonomy:  Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.

Levels of Domains

Cognitive domain: involves the development of intellectual skills. This includes

Knowledge , Comprehension, Application, Analysis ,Synthesis and evaluation

Affective domain: The affective domain is related to the manner in which we deal with things emotionally such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.

 The five levels of this domain include: receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterizing by value

Psychomotor domain:

 Focus is on physical and kinesthetic skills. The psychomotor domain includes physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill areas.

Domain levels include: Perception, set, guided response, mechanism, complex or overt response, adaptation.
Learning Outcomes

What a student is expected to be able to do as a result of a learning activity.

A learning outcome is a written statement of what the successful student/learner is
expected to be able to do at the end of the module/course unit, or qualification. 

SOLO Taxonomy

Preparation of Content Outline

Content refers to the major matter that will be included in a measuring device. Selection and preparation of content also depends on the type of decisions a teacher has to make about the students. A teacher should know that items selected for the test come from instructional material which a teacher has covered during teaching.

PRINCIPLES FOR TEST CONTENT

·        Purpose of the test (diagnostic test, classification, placement, or job employment)

·        Representative sample of the knowledge, behaviour, or skill domain being measured.

·        Relevancy of the topic with the content of the subject

·        Language of the content should be according to the age and grade level of the students.

·        Developing table of specification.

Preparation of Table of Specification

Table of specification specifies the content of a test.  It is a two-way framework which ensures the congruence between classroom instruction and test content. This is one of the most popular procedures used by test developers for defining the content-domain.   One dimension of the test reflects the content to be covered and other dimension describes the kinds of student cognitive behaviour to be assessed.

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