Appropriateness of Assessment Methods

Assessment methods have to be appropriate all the time. This is not a choice but a must in order to make assessment valid. You cannot have a pen-and-paper test on a competency that goes: The learners express orally their stance on West Philippine Sea row.

1. Written-Response Instruments

This includes objective tests (multiple-choice, true or false, matching type or short answer test), essays, examinations, and checklists.

Examples:

  • Objective test – appropriate for the various levels of the hierarchy of educational objectives.
  • Essay – when properly planned, can test the students’ grasp of high-level cognitive skills particularly in areas of application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

2. Product-Rating Scale

These scales measure products that are frequently rated in education such as book reports, maps, charts, diagram, notebook, essay and creative endeavor of all sorts.

Example:

  • Classic “Handwriting” Scale–is used in the California Achievement Test, Form W. Prototype handwriting specimens of pupils are moved along the scale until the quality of handwriting sample is most similar to the prototype handwriting.

3. Performance Test

One of these is the performance checklist which consists of the list of behaviors that makes up a certain type of performance. It is used to determine whether or not an individual behaves in a certain way when asked to complete a particular task.

Example: Performance Checklist in Solving a Mathematics  ProblemBehavior

  1. Identifies the given information
  2. Identify what is being asked
  3. Use a variable to replace the unknown
  4. Formulate the equation
  5. Performs algebraic expressions
  6. Obtain the answer
  7. Checks of the answers make sense.

4. Oral Questioning

An appropriate assessment method when the objectives are:

  • to the students’ stock knowledge; and
  • to determine the student’s ability to communicate ideas in a coherent verbal sentence.

5. Observation and Self-Report

These are useful supplementary assessment methods when used in conjunction with oral questioning and oral test.

Reference

Santos, Rosita. (2007). Assessment of learning 1. Quezon City, Metro Manila. Lorimar Publishing Inc.