PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT

PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT


In order to assess fairly, our assessment tools should be submitted to the following principles of assessment to determine if they are effective or not. 

VALIDITY

Does the assessment measure what we really want to measure?

In order to explain this principle, I will mention two keywords that are important for me: Honesty and justice. We MUST assess what we say we are going to assess, not anything else. If we apply assessments that our students can simply guess or answer them because they know them by heart, but we say we are assessing skills different than memorization, then we are not being honest. On the other hand, if we establish higher standards at the moment of evaluating, and those standards have not been communicated to the students, then we are not being fair. 

RELIABILITY

Is all work being consistently marked to the same standard?

It means that if we, for example, apply a test to our students and we have marked a specific standard for it, any evaluator would obtain the same results from it, no matter what. 

PRACTICALITY

Is the procedure relatively easy to administer?

To be practical a test must have a reasonable price; it shoul not be difficult to administer and it can´t take super long time to solve it. 

WASHBACK

Does the assessment have positive effects on learning and teaching?

If you are teaching only for the tests, you are wasting your time. We should teach for life, for the future, but at the same time, our students should be able to use that information they know to answer tests properly and obtain good results. If the content we are teaching have a meaning to them, they will  not forget it and they will be able to apply it both to life and to tests.

AUTHENTICITY

Are students asked to perform real-world tasks?

If our teaching is not meaningful; if it is focused on unreal things, let´s froget about our students getting engaged. We have to give a meaning, a purpose to each assessment moment. The students should be able to associate, connect the content or information they are learning with real life. They need to feel that what they are learning is useful for solving real life problems. LET´S KEEP IT REAL!