POST TWELVE - Assessment

The definition of assessment is the following; process of developing in manageable terms, knowledge, skills, attributes and beliefs. It is an on-going process arising out of the interaction between teaching and learning.

An asessment can be a mix of modular, end of course and periodic.

End Assessment: Summative; summarises learning upto that point.
On-Going: Formative; carried out during course e.g. self/peer assessment.

Without assessment teaching is not possible because there is no evaluation of whether or not students have actually learnt anything. They are also in place to improve students learning and teachers teaching as both respond to information assessment it provides.

An assessment can be either objective/subjective or informal/formal. Formal assessments are often in the form of examinations, assignments and coursework. They often provide feedback in the form of a numerical grade. Informal assessments can appear in the form of discussions or self/peer assessment.

A subjective assessment, is topic bases and does not have one correct answer. An example of this is an examination question where you can justifiy your viewpoint. On the other hand an Objective assessment is built up of right and wrong answeres, for example a multiple choice quiz.