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Diagnostic Assessment Formative Assessment is the process by which on-going judgments are made, in many different ways, about

pupils work in order to help them progress; Summative Assessment is the final test of how well a pupil has learnt a block of work. Diagnostic Assessment involves making judgments as to how a pupil is performing against a predetermined set of criteria. This kind of assessment must be linked to further work which will tackle problems identified. There is thus an overlap between formative and diagnostic assessment. Internationally, there are moves to implement formal, standardized, objective types of diagnostic assessment; it is also possible to view it in a more informal way. It must be remembered, however, that no diagnostic test is 100% accurate. Teachers should balance a test result against their own professional judgment of aptitude. Key Elements of Diagnostic Assessment The nature of diagnostic assessment: It must be linked to pre-determined learning objectives It should be systematically built in to the curriculum It should identify next steps for the pupil Pupils should be involved in the identification of learning needs in this process The teacher should modify the course and/or teaching approaches in light of the assessment information However the assessment is done, care should be taken to ensure that it is adequate in scope, valid, reliable, practical and acceptable to those involved Testing should be fair, taking account of equal opportunities issues A tests instructions and administration must be clear and not distort results Diagnostic assessment may test key skills taught in the curriculum or it may test key skills of a more basic or absolute nature, which the curriculum is expected to develop Pupils should understand why and how they are to be tested Informal diagnostic assessment can take place in the classroom in various ways: However, it does provide opportunity for flexibility, with different types of questioning being possible, such as one-to-one oral questioning Some schools have made use of testing corners in classrooms or test folders for such assessment work

Key element

Objective

Action Some examples and suggestions With a teacher of another subject or another class, discuss the ways in which diagnostic assessment is embedded in your teaching. How do different approaches respond to the evidence generated by diagnostic assessment?

The nature of diagnostic assessment

It should be systematically built in to the curriculum

Formal approaches

Many proprietary tests exist to assess skills

Research the kinds of tests available. Internet searches can help here and Learning Support teachers may have knowledge of certain tests. Educational psychologists may have information on tests and may be able to comment on their reliability.

Informal approaches

This type of assessment must also be systematic and follow the principles outlined above

Consider the sorts of diagnostic assessments which you make use of in the classroom. Match these against the principles outlined in the section of this document, The nature of diagnostic assessment. To what extent does your assessment match with these principles?

Ways in which diagnostic assessment can be used

Data may be used to help pupils identify targets

Consider the extent to which you involve pupils in identifying targets. Can you structure things so that it is the pupil who identifies the target - eg by offering the pupil a list of possible targets and having him/her identify the one(s) considered most appropriate? Does your documentation allow pupils to keep a record of such targets and record progress?

STANDARDIZE TEST Standardized tests take the form of a series of questions with multiple choice answers which can be filled out by thousands of test takers at once and quickly graded using scanning machines. The test is designed to measure test takers against each other and a standard, and standardized tests are used to assess progress in schools, ability to attend institutions of higher education, and to place students in programs suited to their abilities. Many parents and educators have criticized standardized testing, arguing that it is not a fair measure of the abilities of the test taker, and that standardized testing, especially high-stakes testing, should be minimized or abolished altogether. Standardized tests can either be on paper or on a computer. The test taker is provided with a question, statement, or problem, and expected to select one of the choices below it as an answer. Sometimes the answer is straightforward; when asked what two plus two is, a student would select four from the list of available answers. The answer is not always so clear, as many tests include more theoretical questions, like those involving a short passage that the test taker is asked to read. The student is instructed to pick the best available answer, and at the end of a set time period, answer sheets are collected and scored. There are some advantages to standardized tests. They are cheap, very quick to grade, and they allow analysts to look at a wide sample of individuals. For this reason, they are often used to measure the

progress of a school, by comparing standardized test results with students from other schools. However, standardized tests are ultimately not a very good measure of individual student performance and intelligence, because the system is extremely simplistic. A standardized test can measure whether or not a student knows when the Magna Carta was written, for example, but it cannot determine whether or not the student has absorbed and thought about the larger issues surrounding the historical document. Studies on the format of standardized tests have suggested that many of them contain embedded cultural biases which make them inherently more difficult for children outside the culture of the test writers. Although most tests are analyzed for obvious bias and offensive terms, subconscious bias can never be fully eliminated. Furthermore, critics have argued that standardized tests do not allow a student to demonstrate his or her skills of reasoning, deductive logic, critical thinking, and creativity. For this reason, some tests integrate short essays. These essays are often given only short attention by graders, who frequently vary widely in opinion on how they think the essay should be scored. Finally, many concerned parents and educators disapprove of the practice of high-stakes testing. When a standardized test is used alone to determine whether or not a student should advance a grade, graduate, or be admitted to school, this is known as high-stakes testing. Often, school accreditation or teacher promotion rests on the outcome of standardized tests alone, an issue of serious concern to many people. Critics of high-stakes testing believe that other factors should be accounted for when considering big issues including classroom performance, interviews, class work, and observations.

Summative assessment (or summative evaluation) refers to the assessment of the


learning and summarizes the development of learners at a particular time. After a period of work, e.g. a unit for two weeks, the learner sits for a test and then the teacher marks the test and assigns a score. The test aims to summarize learning up to that point. The test may also be used for diagnostic assessment to identify any weaknesses and then build on that using formative assessment. Summative assessment is commonly used to refer to assessment of educational faculty by their respective supervisor. It is imposed onto the faculty member, and uniformly applied, with the object of measuring all teachers on the same criteria to determine the level of their performance. It is meant to meet the school or district's needs for teacher accountability and looks to provide remediation for substandard performance and also provides grounds for dismissal if necessary. The evaluation usually takes the shape of a form, and consists of check lists and occasionally narratives. Areas evaluated include classroom climate, instruction, professionalism, and planning and preparation. Summative assessment is characterized as assessment of learning and is contrasted with formative assessment, which is assessment for learning. It provides information on the product's efficacy (its ability to do what it was designed to do). For example, did the learners learn what they were supposed to learn after using the instructional module? In a sense, it does not bother to assess "how they did," but more importantly, by looking at how the learners performed, it provides information as to whether the product teaches what it is supposed to teach.

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