Assessment and Evaluation

Assessment can be defined in multiple ways, (a) research done in a classroom to provide useful feedback to help improve teaching and learning (“Assessment and Evaluation”, n.d.) or (b) feedback from the student to the teacher about his/her learning. Evaluation applies “methods and measures to judge student learning and understanding of the material for purposes of grading and reporting” (“Assessment and Evaluation”, n.d., p. 1).

Hence both represent feedback to the students about their learning. Though we need to know that in the assessment process, students’ data is systematically documented to measure whereas evaluation emphasizes students’ grades (Knowly, 2020).

When I was a student

My school, when I was a student, was traditional and the only assessments I have known are standardized testing. We had unit tests and examinations. The objective was grade to decide if we were ready to move to the next level or not. Hence, assessment was summative in nature and only used to assess how much a student knew (“Rethinking classroom assessment”, 2006). It was very comparative and humiliation in front of the class was the way to get better grades for the students. I did well in math and languages and was spared the ridicule in those classes. But the rest were hard to bear. My performance never improved in those subjects and hence I’d say the assessments did not meet the objective. They led to evaluation of students as good, average or fail. Being in school and going through the rigors of being tested made me and most of my fellow students feel as though we had no sense of individuality, but all required to be the same as we were expected to produce answers that satisfied a particularly defined standard (Next School, 2016).

As per (Knowly, 2020), assessments measure a student’s knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs, and through that teacher in turn work at improving the student’s learning. Evaluation sums up what has been learned and this is entirely based on performance after a certain period as a grade. My school was evaluation based in totality! I wish it was different. I wish that the teachers used formative assessments to help us learn better. I wish they let us work with other kids in the class for if teachers focus more on cooperative learning, students will be focused on working in teams to solve problems and learn positive interdependence (Schreurs and Dumbraveanu, 2014).

“Thinking about assessment from the perspective of purpose rather than method puts the emphasis on the intended end result”, (Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind. 2006).