Ch. 4 Key Vocabulary Flashcards
Achievement Test
Standardized test designed to efficiently measure the amount of knowledge and/or skill a person has acquired, usually classroom knowledge. Normed test
Alternative Assessment
Alternatives to traditional, standardized, norm-referenced traditional paper and pencil testing. Ex: answer open-ended question, perform demonstration or skill, produce work, etc.
Analytic Scoring
Type of rubric scoring that separates the whole into categories of criteria that are examined one at a time. Useful diagnostic tool.
Anecdotal Records
A type of informal evaluation. Observations of student performance to see patterns of growth over time.
Assessment
Process of observing learning, describing, collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting information about a student’s or one’s own learning. Traditionally used to determine placement, promotion, graduation, or retention. In school reform is essential tool to evaluate effectiveness of changes in the teaching-learning process.
Authentic Assessment
Meaningful and valuable tasks, part of the learning process. Goal is to gather evidence that students can use knowledge effectively and be able to critique their own efforts. Evaluates by asking for the behavior that learning is intended to produce, “real-world” context.
Benchmark
Student performance standards, actual measurement of group performance against an established standard at defined points along the path toward the standard.
Cognitive Objective
A learning objective that has three main components: the condition, behavior, and degree.
Competency Test
A test intended to establish that a student has met established minimum standards of skills and knowledge and is thus eligible for promotion, graduation, certification, or other official acknowledgement of achievement.
Constructive Response Questions
Question that requires students to construct or create something to answer the question rather than choosing from a given list.
Criterion-referenced Test
A test in which the results can be used to determine a student’s progress toward mastery of a content area. Performance is compared to an expected level of mastery in a content area rather than to other students’ scores. Scores have meaning in terms of what the student knows or can do, rather than how the test-taker compares to a reference or norm group. Criterion-referenced tests can have norms, but comparison to a norm is not the purpose of assessment.
Curriculum Alignment
The degree to which a curriculum’s scope and sequence matches a testing program’s evaluation measures.
Essay Test
Test that requires students to answer questions in writing; responses can be brief or extensive.
Evaluation
Both qualitative and quantitative descriptions of progress towards and attainment of project goals; using collected information (assessments) to make informed decisions about continued instruction, programs, and activities.
Formative Assessment
Assessment occurring during the process of a unit or a course.
High-stakes Testing
Any testing program whose results have important consequences for students, teachers, schools, and/or districts. Such stakes may include promotion, certification, graduation, or denial/approval of services and opportunity.
Holistic Method
In assessment, assigning a single score based on an overall assessment of performance rather than by scoring or analyzing dimensions individually. The product is considered to be more than the sum of its parts, and so the quality of a final product or performance is evaluated rather than the process or dimension of performance.
Item Analysis
Analyzing each item on a test to determine the proportions of students selecting each answer; can be used to evaluate students strengths and weaknesses; may point to problems with the test’s validity and to possible bias.
Journal
Students’ personal records and reactions to various aspects of learning and developing ideas. A reflective process often found to consolidate and enhance learning.
