Assessment of student achievement is an important part of the teaching and learning process.

Given at the beginning of a course, assessments help you know where to begin and/or identify areas of remediation that must be addressed. Frequent assessments during the course help you and your students see the progress of learning and help identify problematic areas where students need more help or time. Given at the completion of instruction, assessments tell you how much has been learned by the end of a unit, by mid-semester, or by the end of the term. They provide the basis for making judgments on the grades to assign each student. This chapter provides an overview of assessments, with a focus on tests or examinations typically given in paper/pencil format or on the computer.

• Types of Learning Assessments
  Examinations, written or constructed student creations, performances, purposes of effective assessments, alignment of course components
  
• Paper/Pencil or Computer Examinations (Tests)
  Constructing tests, writing limited-choice test questions, multiple-choice items, true/false items, matching items, writing open-ended test questions
• Step-by-Step Guidelines for Creating Tests
  
• Constructing Performance Tests
  Advantages, disadvantages, general guidelines
• General Tips about Testing
• Helping Students Learn from Tests
  Returning test papers, providing feedback for essays and short-answer tests, dealing with special problems, reviewing limited-choice tests,
• Using Item Analysis to Test Your Test
  Procedures for computing difficulty and discrimination indices
• Cheating on Tests
  Preventing cheating
• Alternative Methods of Assessment
  Advantages, limitations and contextual considerations for essays, term papers, research reviews, reports, case studies, portfolios, projects, performances, peer evaluation, mastery, simulations
• Resources on Testing

 

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