Types of Assessment
Educational assessment is how teachers figure out what students know, what they still need to learn, and how well instruction is working. Different types of assessments serve different purposes at different points in the learning process, and understanding those distinctions is a core part of educational foundations.
Diagnostic, Formative, and Summative Assessments
These three types map onto the timeline of instruction: before, during, and after.
Diagnostic assessment evaluates students' prior knowledge and skills before instruction begins. Teachers use it to identify strengths, weaknesses, and learning gaps so they can tailor their teaching accordingly. Common examples include pre-tests, surveys, and concept maps given at the start of a course or unit. A diagnostic assessment isn't graded in the traditional sense; its whole point is planning, not judgment.
Formative assessment monitors student learning during the instructional process. Think of it as a check-in. It provides ongoing feedback to both students and teachers, allowing for real-time adjustments in teaching strategies. Examples include quizzes, homework assignments, exit tickets, and class discussions. The key feature of formative assessment is that it's low-stakes: it helps students identify areas for improvement while there's still time to act on that information.
Summative assessment evaluates student learning at the end of an instructional unit. It measures achievement against specific learning objectives and is typically high-stakes, meaning it counts toward grades. Final exams, standardized tests, and end-of-unit projects all fall here. Beyond grading individual students, summative data also helps schools evaluate curriculum effectiveness and program outcomes.
A useful way to remember the distinction: formative assessment is for learning, while summative assessment is of learning.
Assessment Referencing
Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Assessments
These two approaches differ in what a student's score gets compared to.
Norm-referenced assessment compares a student's performance to that of their peers. Scores are distributed along a bell curve, and the goal is to rank students relative to one another. The SAT and ACT are classic examples. This type of assessment is useful for identifying students who perform significantly above or below average, but it doesn't tell you much about what a student specifically knows or can do.
Criterion-referenced assessment measures student performance against predetermined criteria or standards. Instead of asking "How did this student do compared to others?", it asks "Did this student meet the learning objective?" Students aren't compared to one another. State standards-based tests and mastery quizzes are common examples. This approach gives clear information about individual student competencies.
|Norm-Referenced|Criterion-Referenced| |---|---|---| | Purpose | Rank students against each other | Measure mastery of specific objectives | | Score interpretation | Relative (percentiles) | Absolute (percentage correct) | | Test design | Items chosen to spread out scores | Items aligned directly with learning objectives | | Reporting | Percentile ranks | Pass/fail or proficiency levels |
Alternative Assessments
Performance-Based and Portfolio Assessments
Traditional tests aren't always the best way to measure what students can do. Alternative assessments aim for more authentic evaluation.
Performance-based assessment requires students to demonstrate skills through real-world tasks or projects rather than selecting answers on a test. Science experiments, oral presentations, debates, and artistic performances all qualify. These assessments target higher-order thinking skills like application, analysis, and problem-solving. The tradeoff is that they take more time to administer and score, and they require well-designed rubrics to ensure consistency.
Portfolio assessment collects and evaluates student work over time. A portfolio might include essays, projects, reflections, and other artifacts that showcase both growth and achievement. Portfolios encourage students to reflect on their own progress and set goals. They also allow for a more holistic evaluation than any single test can provide, since they capture development across weeks or months rather than performance on a single day.
Self and Peer Assessments
Self-assessment involves students evaluating their own work and learning progress. This promotes metacognition, which is the ability to think about your own thinking. Tools like rubrics, checklists, and reflective journals help structure the process. When students regularly assess themselves, they develop greater ownership of their learning and stronger critical thinking habits.
Peer assessment engages students in evaluating the work of their classmates. It builds analytical skills and exposes students to multiple perspectives on the same task. For peer assessment to work well, teachers need to provide clear criteria and guidelines; without structure, feedback tends to be vague or overly generous.
Both self and peer assessment share several benefits:
- They increase student engagement by making learners active participants in the evaluation process
- They build skills students will use beyond school, since real-world work regularly involves self-evaluation and giving feedback to colleagues
- They provide additional feedback channels, which can reduce the bottleneck of the teacher being the sole source of evaluation