Assessments help to evaluate students’ learning, knowledge, skills, etc. We’ll discuss the seven effective assessment methods that help improve learning outcomes and promote better performance at schools.
Assessments are necessary for various reasons. They are a measurement method to determine if the candidates/ students/ employees/ etc., have the required knowledge or if they can deliver the expected performance. Schools, colleges, universities, and educational institutions conduct assessments at different levels. They have entrance exams to select worthy applicants to study in their establishments. Each class has multiple tests, assignments, and exams throughout the education year to track the knowledge gained and learning abilities of each student. A final exam is conducted at the end of the educational year to shortlist students who can proceed to the higher class.
Naturally, educational institutions use different types of assessment methods based on their requirements. For example, a class test has a different purpose than a term exam. The assessment method varies accordingly. This is beneficial for students and teachers. Students can understand where they need to improve, and teachers can measure the learning abilities of the students and help them do better.
Let’s check out the seven assessment methods for teachers to promote smart learning outcomes and a few reliable assessment tools to streamline the process.
What are the 7 Types of Assessments in Education?
Check out some effective assessment techniques and examples that help teachers track the learning abilities and progress students make in an educational year. Using more than one type of assessment method allows teachers to consider varied parameters and measure a range of students’ abilities (retention & memory, application, comprehension, analytical, soft skills, problem-solving, crisis management, etc.).
Diagnostic Assessment
Diagnostic assessments are conducted at the beginning of an educational year, a new course, or even a new lesson/ topic. This assessment method intends to understand how much the students already know about the topic or to determine the best course or level for them to join. For example, a benchmark is set when schools conduct entrance exams. Only those students who clear the minimum level are shortlisted for the next round or approved to join the school. Similarly, teachers can conduct a quick diagnostic assessment before teaching a new topic to measure the awareness and knowledge of students and adjust the lessons/ pacing accordingly.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessments are low-stakes exams or tests that give immediate results. These can be conducted once a week or so to ensure the lesson plans and syllabus are aligned with the required outcome. A few examples of formative assessments are quizzes, concept maps, role-playing, etc. This instantly shows whether students have gained the required knowledge. The feedback and students’ performance are used to correct teaching methodologies and lessons. This allows teachers and students to work together to achieve the expected long-term results. The best part is that such quizzes can be quickly created using an online test quiz maker.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessments are used to determine how much of the course content the students were able to learn/ understand. These can be called unit tests or monthly tests. As the name suggests, summative assessments sum up whether the students have reached the predetermined benchmark/ standard. A few examples are written tests with different types of questions like Multiple Choice Questions, fill in the blanks, short answer, and long answer questions. It’s easy to generate content with AI using a test generator tool like PrepAI. Provide the input content/ topic and create a summative assessment test paper in a few minutes. The tests can be conducted online or offline.
Peer Assessment
Peer assessments can be formative or summative but include students in a more active role. Apart from teachers and online quiz generators, students will read each other’s work and critique it. This can be done anonymously to limit conflict, or it can be turned into a group exercise where teachers moderate how students give and receive feedback. For example, students can be asked to write, speak, or present a short assignment. The others will provide their insights (good and bad) on the assignment. This teaches students to work in teams and accept feedback from peers. Teachers can help students present their feedback properly and accept opinions that don’t align with theirs.
Norm-Referenced Assessment
Norm-referenced assessments can be formative or summative. The students are measured against one another and ranked in order of achievement (from highest to lowest). It’s a common assessment method that helps identify students who deliver consistent results and perform better than their peers. Most educational institutions used to follow this method and still do. The competitive exams are norm-referenced since ranks are allocated to the candidates based on their marks/ scores. This method is useful when there are limited spaces for an opportunity, and only the best students can be selected.
Ipsative Assessment
In ipsative assessments, students don’t compete with each other. Their results are not measured against one another. Instead, each student competes with themselves. In this assessment method, the results of the current test and measures against the results of the previous test and the feedback are compared to determine if the student has made the necessary corrections/ effort. Formative and summative assessments can be used for this purpose. The same quiz can be conducted after a short gap to measure if the student made an effort to improve the score.
Criterion-Referenced Assessment
As the term suggests, the criterion-referenced assessment method is where the students’ performances are measured against a predetermined standard. This is a useful method when following a learning or outcome-based education model in schools. Since the outcome is already finalized and the curriculum is designed to achieve this, the assessments conducted are also created to measure if the students have given the required performance or not. For example, entrance exams and competitive exams have cut-off marks. Such criteria or cut-off marks can be set when conducting tests through online quiz generators. Skill-based and technical exams have benchmarks where anyone who doesn’t get the minimum score is automatically disqualified.
What are the Different Tools and Techniques in Assessment?
Several assessment tools for teachers can be used to implement different types of assessment techniques during the educational year. The following are some techniques and tools that help teachers.
Techniques:
- Tests (Written and Verbal): Tests tend to cover more course material and evaluate students without bias. Tests can be online, offline, written, verbal, or in mixed forms.
- Quizzes: Quizzes are short and casual ways to test knowledge. These can be graded or ungraded and can also be a surprise. Quizzes also include a fun element that tests don’t.
- Exams: An exam has higher stakes than a test and is conducted at the end of a term or educational year. The results determine the next step in the student’s life.
Other assessment techniques are memory matrix, concept sharing, puzzles, etc.
Tools:
A few assessment tools examples are as follows:
PrepAI:
PrepAI is an NLP (natural language processing) powered quiz generator online tool developed by DataToBiz. Built on Bloom’s Taxonomy framework, it can generate questions that test the six levels of the thinking order. The tool accepts multiple input formats and allows users to conduct assessments for themselves and others.
Socrative:
Socrative is a real-time test generator that provides instant insights into the students’ performance. It is used to create quizzes, polls, surveys, exit tickets, etc. There’s a mobile app for students and teachers to access from smartphones and perform various fun activities. The activities can be personalized too.
Kahoot:
Kahoot is a game-based learning platform or a gamification site that makes learning more fun and engaging. It can be used by teachers, students, and parents to create a range of quizzes, activities, tests, etc., in a quick time. It also has an online community for teachers to exchange notes and activities.
Final Words
Other trends like gamification, mobile learning, cybersecurity, hybrid universities, adaptive learning, etc., will also have a significant impact on the education industry in 2025 and beyond. Educational institutions don’t have to make major investments at once to embrace EdTech. They can start small by integrating eLearning platforms with AI tools like question generators from text, student management software, etc., to initiate the process and slowly add more Edtech tools to their systems.
