TECHNIQUES OF ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION

Assessing students’ performance is an integral part of the teaching-learning process. For this, you need to adopt various techniques of evaluation. Choice of evaluation techniques should be aligned with the learning objectives. Students learn information at different pace. You, as a teacher, have to find out the extent of students’ learning and the interventions required for facilitating rather than to master the desired content. When you assess your students, you collect information about their level of performance where as in evaluation; you compare a student’s achievement with other students with a set of standards.

Evaluation is integrated into all aspects of the curriculum, thus providing both students and teachers useful and relevant data to gauge progress of students. Not only teachers but also students play an important role in assessing their own learning progress. While assessing students, you need to keep the following points in mind:

·         Which technique should I use to get the adequate feedback?

·         How will I apply this technique in my class?

·         Will the assessment technique provides adequate information about what students are learning in classrooms?

·         Does the technique focus on various variables that can be changed to promote better learning?

·         Are the results derived from the use of a particular evaluation tool easy to analyze?

·         How will I know that the technique is useful or not to assess students?

·         What effort should I make to arrange better teaching-learning practices based on the information I received?

·         In the subsequent section, we will discuss about the various techniques of evaluation. The various techniques of evaluation are summarized in the following:-

Ø  Concept Tests

Ø  Assignments

Ø  Self-report techniques

Ø  Techniques of Reflective Journal

Ø  Assessment and Seminar

Ø  Evaluation Debates

Ø  Project work

Ø  Club Activities

Self-report Techniques

Self-report techniques are data gathering tools where respondents provide information about themselves. There are various self-reporting techniques such as interview, diaries, questionnaire, reflective journal, etc. These techniques are widely used to assess various traits or attitudes possessed by the individuals. Though these are subjective techniques, they provide means for extracting the hidden treasure of one’s own behaviours and patterns of personality. Let us discuss in detail about the various self-reporting techniques such as interview, focus group discussion, questionnaire and reflective journal.

Interview:

An interview is a data collection method through which an interviewer asks questions to an interviewee on a particular topic. It can be semi-structured or structured and may use different media (e.g., phone, e-mail, and in person). In semi-structured interview, the interviewer has an idea about the types of questions but the order and way of asking questions may vary. A structured interview on the other hand, is a specified set of questions that are asked in the same order during each interview. Interviewing is considered as an interpersonal encounter. Establishing rapport is an important element in interviewing. Keeping impartiality to the responses given by the interviewee is important; otherwise it leads to bias responses.

During interviewing, you may know whether the student understands a particular concept. The student may be asked to give a personal explanation of a specific concept and to use that concept to solve a problem. Through this technique, besides getting information, it is also possible to observe a student’s body language and facial expressions. For assessment purpose, interview may serve the following functions:

Ø  To identify the areas of difficulty and gaps in understanding a concept among students,

Ø  To understand how students are able to apply their knowledge in new situations,

Ø  To examine how students’ understanding change with teaching-learning process,

Ø  To obtain verbal feedback about teaching techniques, new concepts, etc.

Through the feedback received from students, you may be able to refine your teaching along with assessing the understanding level of students.

Assignments

Assignments are teacher-assigned task that students are expected to complete during or after the school hours and enable to assess students’ understanding. It is essential to keep in mind that class-appropriate assignments may be chosen for your students. For first-or second class students, hands-on-activities are more preferable than paper-and-pencil assignments. The time required for assignments should be set based on the age of the children. If you want to give a comprehensive project as an assignment, consider breaking it into manageable sections with due dates. The types of assignments you give should motivate the students. Through this technique, you can find out students’ perspective, their interest and learning levels. The students’ progress in learning, their understanding and critical thinking can also be assessed through assignments.

Observation Technique

As prospective teachers, you might have observed students while they solve problems, interact with peers in different learning situations or in the playground. It provides insight into student learning and growth. Observation is used as a technique to evaluate various aspects of behaviour in controlled or uncontrolled situations. Through observation, behaviour is captured in a particular situation.

It is a means of first-hand information as experienced at a specific moment. It is pre-planned and purposeful activity that provides immediate recording of events. With the help of observation checklists, teachers could record information quickly. The reliability of observation can be increased by repeated observation or through observation done by many individuals. While preparing observation checklist, the following points may be kept in mind:

Ø  Write down the criteria to be observed

Ø  Inform students about the criteria to be observed

Ø  Determine the specific outcomes to assess

Ø  Develop a data gathering system such as checklist or rubric or anecdotal points

Ø  Target observation on one or two specific outcomes

Ø  Record the date of observation

Ø  Share observation details with individuals or target groups

Ø  Use the collected information to modify your instruction.

Observation is an important technique of collecting information about people because people do not always do what they say. This statement is equivalent to the maxim in behavioural and social sciences that ‘attitudes and behaviour are incongruent’. Generally there are two types of observation: i) Participant observation, and ii) Non-participant observation.

i. Participant observation: In participant observation, the observer becomes a member of the group. The participant observer plays a dual role such as becoming a member of the group and observing the participants carefully. This kind of observation provides reliable results. An advantage of this technique is that, for ethical reasons, the researcher can request permission to collect and record data as needed. In addition, the researcher can obtain feedback about his/her observations and tentative conclusions from the participants.  A weakness is that the participants might not behave naturally because they are aware that they are being observed.

ii. Non-participant observation: In non-participant observation, the observer observes the group passively from a distance without his/her presence in the group. Non-participant observation helps in recording and studying the behaviour of a particular person or group in detail. It is considered as an unobtrusive method of data collection to study focused aspects of a setting in order to answer specific questions within a study.

Project Work

Project work allows students to think beyond the limits of classroom and develop among them various skills, behaviours, inquisitiveness and confidence. Providing learning environments that allows students to question, analyze, evaluate leads them to higher-order thinking. The learning that occurs during the process of project work assesses the skills of collaboration, problem-solving, decision making, and communication. As a teacher or prospective teacher, you can also assess work quality and understanding of students throughout the project-building process.

 Seminar and Report as Assessment Techniques

Seminar is an activity where the social skills of students can be enhanced. It can be done individually or in group. The goal of the group may be predetermined by the facilitator or decide by the individual or the group collaboratively. The use of seminar as an assessment tool can be done at three phases: pre-seminar stage, seminar stage and post seminar stage. During pre-seminar stage, students can ponder over the topic, drafting a good seminar topic and think how to present. During the seminar stage, students present the topic and in post-seminar stages they reflect on their ideas in the presence of an audience and finally a seminar report will be prepared. Seminar report is used as a self-assessment tool or as a group assessment tool. While doing self-assessment, a student examines the feedback given by others and how his/her paper could be improved for the next time. The facilitator’s assessment indicators may consist of the following:

Ø  Understanding of concept

Ø  Critical thinking and reasoning

Ø  Ability to build new knowledge

Ø  Self-confidence and self-discipline

Ø  Presentation style

After the seminar presentation, assessment of the reports can be made based on the following indicators:

Ø  Clarity of presentation

Ø  Accuracy of report writing

Ø  Organization of the report

Ø  Analysis of team work (if the reports are made in group)

Generation of new ideas

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