Course: Educational Measurement and Evaluation (6507)

Semester: Autumn, 2022                                                                              Level: MA/M.Ed.

Assignment No.2

Q.1 Discuss some of the popular observational techniques. Present a criticism over the use and credibility of self reported data and its techniques.

Student Assessment

Tests, examinations and continuous assessment can provide valuable data for action research. For your teaching course, you have to set up a method of student assessment and your students have to be assessed, so you might as well make use of it in your project.

You should, however, be clear about the nature of the information you can obtain from examination results or assessment grades. Comparison of one set of results with another often has limited validity as assignments, examinations, markers and marking schemes are rarely held constant. In addition most assessment is norm referenced rather than criterion referenced. (Linked with permission from CRESST,UCLA in USA.)

You also need to be very clear as to what is being assessed. Examination grades may bear little relationship to specific qualities you could be investigating. For example, if the theme of an action research project is encouraging meaningful learning, then the examination results would only be of value if they truly reflect meaningful learning. They would be of little value if they consisted of problems which could be solved by substituting numbers into a remembered formula, or essays which required the reproduction of sections from lecture notes. So think carefully about the qualities which you wish to test and whether the assessment is a true test of those qualities.

 

Q.2 What kind of difficulties are faced by examines during test administration process? Give some suggestions to overcome the problems during test administration.

Testing was first introduced as a policy mechanism in China 210 B.C. By the 18th century, written examination was introduced to supplement oral mode of testing, especially in Mathematics. Later in the same century, assessment of quantitative marks was introduced to reduce the bias of qualitative judgement about an examinee’s level of performance across the oral disputation and written portion of the examination. The development of the quantitative marks was the first step in the development of the field of psychometric as we know it today. The advent of the Psychological Testing Movements in the 19th century brought about the belief that testing could be more than assess what people learn because test could be used to assess the mental ability of the examines. In the first 10 years of the 20th century, the short-answer supply mode appeared and high 1914, Kelly invented the multiple choice item. This development was in response to studies which showed that marks assigned to essay questions were highly unreliable and partly in response to the growth of the scientific management movement’s application to education.. The movement required that the growing number of children could be tested to measure a district’s efficiency.

 

Q.3 Discuss the functions of marking and reporting students’ performance at school level. Highlight the weaknesses in our examination system at secondary level.

Purpose of Grading

Purpose for Grades: Grades serve as a powerful tool.

·         Communicate achievement status to student, parents and others

·         Provide information and feedback that students can use for self-evaluation and growth

·         Encourage student growth mindset and progress in learning

·         Help identify students for available educational opportunities (courses or programs)

·         Evaluate the effectiveness of curricular, instructional and assessment practices

·         Identify how well a student meets the prioritized standards in a grade level or course. 

·         Provide an official record of performance. 

·         Accurately reflect student achievement as related to academic standards and College and Career Readiness Standards & be consistent with external assessments

Grading and Feedback: Students learn best through a system of clear learning targets, quality formative assessment, developmental feedback, and the opportunity to respond to that feedback in order to guide their effort toward higher levels of understanding. 

 “Self-efficacy has an effect size of .82 relative to students’ academic performance. This translates to an expected 29 percentile point gain.” – Marzano, Pickering, & Heflebower, The Highly Engaged Classroom (2010). 

“Characteristics of sound feedback include that it should be frequent, give students a clear picture of their progress and how they might improve, and provide encouragement.” – Robert J. Marzano, Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work (2006)

 

Q.4 How minimum competency testing can be useful at lower grades leves? Explain the benefits of using criterion references grading system in our education system.

MINIMUM COMPETENCY TESTING

Teachers face mounting public concern that education meet minimum standards of quality and produce evidence to show that these have been achieved. In many states and localities the form taken for demanding that these expectations be met is minimum competency testing. Rising costs of education in the face of revenue shortages, the publication of a number of studies showing declining test scores, and a growing concern that all young people leave high school equipped with basic academic skills, have added a tone of urgency to these demands.

The American Federation of Teachers believes that public expectations that the school produce at least minimum results deserve a responsible reaction from educators. We are sympathetic to public concern for the present academic performance of the children we teach in terms of their hopes for future success.

We believe that testing is one way to approach the performance issue, but that it must be used carefully and with strict limitations. We reject the myopic view of the National Education Association calling for a moratorium on the use of standardized norm-referenced tests as extreme and irresponsible. We are also critical of massive testing programs designed to determine high school graduation or grade promotion with test results alone. Since tests are a means to an end–the goal of quality education–they cannot be used as if they were an end in themselves.

Within this framework, the AFT endorses the following principles in relation to the use of minimum standards in testing programs:

Q.5 How the measure of dispersion (standard deviation and variance) may help to interpret the classroom performance in the context of high and low achievers?

Dispersion?

Dispersion refers to the ‘distribution’ of objects over a large region. The degree to which numerical data are dispersed or squished around an average value is referred to as dispersion in statistics. It is, in a nutshell, the dispersion of data. A vast amount of data will always be widely dispersed or firmly packed. Data that is widely dispersed – 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, With tiny data grouped densely – 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4….

Understanding Dispersion

The term “dispersion” refers to how dispersed a set of data is. The measure of dispersion is always a non-negative real number that starts at zero when all the data is the same and rises as the data gets more varied. The homogeneity or heterogeneity of the scattered data is defined by dispersion measures. It also refers to how data differs from one another.

Measures of Dispersion

As the name suggests, the measure of dispersion shows the scatterings of the data. It tells the variation of the data from one another and gives a clear idea about the distribution of the data. The measure of dispersion shows the homogeneity or the heterogeneity of the distribution of the observations