Types of Assessment
4.3 Establishing and communicating evaluation criteria
Diagnostic Assessment
Diagnostic assessment evaluates students’ prior knowledge before a learning activity takes place. This type of assessment method is also known as “pre-assessment.” Examples of diagnostic assessment include:
- Blogs
- Discussion Forums
- Journals
- One Minute Paper
- Quizzes
- Student Reflections
- Thought Pieces
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment evaluates the application of knowledge for the learner, identifying areas of difficulty for students and offers feedback for future efforts. Feedback is made in formal, written reports, by appointment or through digital media. Examples of formative assessment include:
- Case Studies
- Fieldwork
- Group Project
- Lab Report
- Model
- Oral Report
- Progress Report
- Portfolio
- Research Report
- Written Report
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is the culminating evaluation of student work at the end of a term or course. Unlike formative assessment methods, students do not receive feedback regarding their progress with summative evaluation. Examples of summative assessment include:
- Exam
- Peer-Evaluation
- Portfolio
- Self-Evaluation
- Term Project
- Term Test
Objective & Constructed Tests Questions
An Objective Test consists of factual questions requiring extremely short answers that can be quickly and unambiguously scored by anyone with an answer key. A Constructed Test is a type of open-ended, short answer series of questions that demonstrates cognitive knowledge and reasoning. The following articles address the importance of creating Objective and Constructive questions to measure different learning goals of student achievement.
Objective Questions
- Creating Better Multiple-Choice Tests for Online Courses
- Designing Better Quizzes Ideas for Rethinking Your Quiz Practices
- Examining Your Multiple Choice Questions
- Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Multiple Choice Questions
- Tips for Writing Good Multiple Choice Questions
Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) Development/Test Analysis Resources:
- May 25, 2017 MCQ workshop facilitated by Dr. Anthony Marini (Martok Assessments Inc) Access MCQ workshop video here
- ~4 hour MCQ workshop video legend:
- Review of MCQ questions in the handout below- 0:00 to 59:51
- Aligning Assessments and Learning outcomes- 59:51 to 1:52
- MCQ guidelines- 1:52 to 1:59
- Higher Order Questions- 1:59:30 to 2:38
- Evaluating Assessments (Item Analysis)-2:38 to 3:20
- Strategies for taking MCQ’s- 3:20 to 4:03:04
- Guidelines for Writing Multiple Choice Question Handout (*Draft PDF referred to in the first hour of the MCQ workshop video)-posted with permission from Dr. Anthony Marini. Please do not copy, distribute, print, or download.