Assessing Student Performance

1. Assessing Student Performance Chapter 11

2. What is assessment? • The process of gathering and organizing information from multiple sources about a student. • Used by teachers, students, and parents to make educational decisions about students; to give feedback to students about their progress, strengths, and weaknesses; and to judge the effectiveness of the curriculum and instruction.

3. Definitions • Measurement--The process of obtaining scores on tests. • Evaluation -- • Examination and interpretation of the collected information to determine its value. • When data are collected over time and from a variety of situations, the judgements made can help teachers improve instruction and learning.

4. Content Standards • Physical education content standards describe the knowledge and skills of the discipline. • Performance standards specify "how good is good enough." • Performance benchmarks describe student progress toward performance standards.

5. Assessment is done primarily for two reasons • To enhance learning and instruction • To monitor and report student achievement

6. The Assess–Plan–Teach–Assess Spiral • Planning, instruction, and assessment are essential and interdependent components of students’ learning. • Assessment provides information to determine appropriate amounts of time needed for students to succeed. • Assessment helps teachers evaluate their effectiveness.

7. Pre-assessment • Reveals students’ knowledge, skills, fitness, interests, and attitudes. • Provides information needed to plan lessons and units. • Students who possess skills can do more challenging activities. • Students who lack skills can receive help to improve performance.

8. Well-constructed Assessment • Informs students of course objectives and teacher expectations for learning. • Challenges students to “put it all together. ” • Provides feedback to students about their progress. • Motivates students to work longer on their own. • Promotes retention of skills.

9. Formative Assessment • Used throughout a unit to evaluate and improve instruction. • The primary purpose of formative assessment is assessment for learning

10. Monitoring and Reporting Student Achievement • Assessment clarifies standards for various levels of education. • Assessment provides evidence to students, parents, teachers, and administrators that standards have been reached. • Students who are held accountable spend more time on task and take responsibility for their own behavior.

11. Summative Assessment • Takes place at the end of instruction. • Is comprehensive and allows the teacher to determine student achievement of content standards and objectives. • Is often formal, involving skills tests and written tests. • The primary purpose of summative assessment is assessment of learning.

12. Norm-referenced Assessment • Tells how well a student performs compared with others of the same age, gender, class, grade level, school, or geographic area. • Based on the normal curve, which assumes normal distribution of achievement. • Does not tell how students should perform.

13. Criterion-referenced assessment • How well a student performs in comparison with a predetermined and specified standard of performance. • Ideally, given enough time, all students should achieve the standards. • Used to determine those who are qualified to do something, such as fly planes or perform lifesaving rescues.

14. Concerns about Criterion-referenced Assessment • Grade inflation • Standards arbitrarily set too high or too low.

15. Traditional Assessment • Written, skills and fitness tests • Do not measure student ability to apply their knowledge and skills. • Traditional assessments have their place in education, but too often teachers use them inappropriately

16. Traditional Written Tests • Written tests can be ineffective when teachers only ask questions about knowledge and facts. • Students memorize information to pass the test and then quickly forget it • Too often the information tested comes from a handout and students are not held accountable for learning that took place during the unit.

17. Suggestions for developing written tests: • Develop a table of specifications. • Construct a study guide. • Write test questions. • Edit questions to ensure appropriate content and comprehension level. • Organize questions by item types and write instructions. • Proofread tests before copying them.

18. Skill tests • Measure student ability in a closed environment • Students who do well on skills tests may not know how to use these skills during game play or other types of application assessments • Skill tests should be viewed as formative rather than summative assessments

19. Authentic Assessments • Are congruent with the principles of effective learning, and motivation. • Provide meaningful information about student progress and achievement. • Focus on significant outcomes related to the completion of life’s relevant tasks. • Have high personal relevance; students make choices about and control their own learning.

20. Examples of Authentic Assessments • The ability to utilize skills in a game situation. • The ability to assess physical fitness, develop an appropriate fitness plan, and engage in fitness activities necessary to achieve fitness. • The ability to use the principles of motor learning to learn new skills.

21. Characteristics of Authentic Assessment • Students perform, create, produce, or do something, applying concepts to significant, meaningful real-life contexts. • Students know in advance the criteria used to evaluate performance. • Students learn to reflect upon and evaluate their own work. • Students present their work publicly.

22. Advantages of Authentic Assessments • They measure what students should know and be able to do in real-life situations. • They emphasize higher order thinking skills and collaboration. • Students become actively engaged in learning and assessment. • Students judge their own work.

23. Concerns about Authentic Assessment • Valid assessments and rubrics (scoring keys) are difficult to create. • More time is needed for grading. • Authentic assessments do not mesh well with our current grading system.

24. Concerns about Authentic Assessment • Fewer tasks are used to sample the content, so validity may suffer. Using multiple assessments can overcome this deficiency. • For reliability, rubrics must be specific, which may decrease student creativity.

25. Assessment is difficult due to large class sizes, heavy teaching loads, lack of facilities and equipment, and peer pressure. Thus, assessment must be carefully planned for the greatest economy in time and energy.

26. Skill Assessment Techniques • Skills Tests • Checklists • Task sheets • Self-Checks • Rating sheets • Developmental level • Biomechanical principles • Task complexity

27. Game Play Assessment Techniques • Tournament results--singles round robin, challenge courts • Scores, Times, Distances–bowling, track and field, swimming • Subjective assessment of performance--by teacher or students • Incidence chart--number or percentage of successful trials in game play

28. Health-Related Physical Fitness Assessment Techniques • Fitness Tests such as Fitnessgram. • Fitness Journals • Class projects and assignments • Portfolios--documentation of fitness scores, goals, and improvement.

29. Cognitive Assessment Techniques • Written Tests • One-Minute Test, Non-graded test • Take-home test • Written assignments • Reflective writing and journals • Concept maps • Oral presentations/demonstrations • Individual and group projects

30. Concept Maps • Make a list of concept terms. • Students tape or write terms on their papers in an arrangement that makes sense to them, with related terms placed close together. • Students connect related terms and add linking terms to the connecting lines.

31. A Concept Map

32. Officiating • Cognitive knowledge can be assessed by watching a student officiate • Students learn to officiate by studying rules and making the appropriate call from a written list of situations or by viewing video excerpts of game play • Video can be stopped at intervals to make the call • After students gain competence, they can officiate real games

33. Affective Assessment • Used to determine • Attitudes toward physical education--enjoyment, challenge, self-expression • Responsible personal and social behavior in physical activity settings • Understanding and respect for differences among people in physical activity settings • Effectiveness of techniques hinges on trust between teacher and students.

34. Affective Assessment Techniques • Interviews, questionnaires, reflective papers, journal entries • Checklists, rating scales, inventories • Provide information about the student or the object of the instrument. • Students indicate agreement or disagreement with statements, interests. • Students document sports etiquette. • Teacher observation

35. Determine the purposes of assessment. Select appropriate assessment techniques. Develop rubrics. Administer and score the assessment tasks. Steps in Assessing Student Learning

36. Each objective should be written in performance terms, with an observable behavior, criteria, and conditions. Assessments should reflect appropriate achievement expectations for students of their developmental level. Step 1–Determine the purposes of assessment

37. Step 2–Select appropriate assessment techniques • Review unit objectives. The verb in performance objectives describes what students will be expected to do to demonstrate achievement. • Characteristics of Effective Tests • Validity • Reliability • Objectivity • Easy to use

38. Creating Authentic Assessment Tasks • Determine the content standard or objective to be assessed. • List possible assessment techniques. • Create tasks for students to demonstrate their understanding and skills. • Provide directions for completing tasks.

39. Creating Authentic Assessment Tasks • Provide a model of expected behaviors. • Describe how assessments will be evaluated and converted to grades. • Choose instructional strategies that prepare students to complete the tasks. • Plan how students and/or peers will assess their work.

40. Step 3–Develop rubrics and scoring keys • Rubric–a description of the elements for judging student performance on specific outcomes or assessment tasks, together with scoring standards for each element. • Rubrics are used to indicate each student’s progress and achievement.

41. Step 4–Administer and score the assessment tasks • Tell students what the objectives are and the criteria for success for each learning objective. • Give students feedback on whether the criteria have been met and if not, how to revise and complete the task. • Integrate assessment tasks with instruction whenever possible.

42. Step 5–Evaluate and revise the assessment techniques • Do assessments agree with performance objectives? • Are directions and vocabulary appropriate? • Are assessment results reliable? • Does the technique contribute to improved teaching-learning practices?

43. Assessing Student Performance Chapter 11