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Align your assessment with your learning outcomes
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Use clear and consistent criteria and rubrics
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Vary your assessment methods and sources
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Review and revise your assessment methods regularly
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Here’s what else to consider
Assessment is a crucial part of teaching and learning, but how can you ensure that your methods are reliable and valid? Reliability refers to the consistency and accuracy of your assessment results, while validity refers to how well your assessment measures what it claims to measure. In this article, you will learn some practical tips to improve the reliability and validity of your assessment methods, whether you use tests, essays, projects, portfolios, or other forms of evaluation.
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- Kylie Dawson Deputy Principal at St Heliers School
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- Courtney McDaniel early educator | occasional artist | doctoral student
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- Vibha Soni Digital Writing Coach - Empowering Writers Through Self-Discovery and Expert Guidance To Land Their Dream Jobs |…
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1 Align your assessment with your learning outcomes
One of the first steps to make your assessment methods more reliable is to align them with your learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are statements that describe what your students should be able to do, know, or demonstrate by the end of your course or unit. Your assessment methods should match the level and type of learning outcomes you have set, and measure the relevant skills and knowledge. For example, if your learning outcome is to apply a theory to a case study, you should use an assessment method that requires analysis and problem-solving, not just recall or comprehension.
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- Vibha Soni Digital Writing Coach - Empowering Writers Through Self-Discovery and Expert Guidance To Land Their Dream Jobs | Content Creator| Mentor | Author | Public Speaker | LinkedIn Top Voice
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To design or create assessment methods, we must follow some standards: -> Find out the learning objectives -> Subject type and grade-> Level of exams-> Consider tools like rubric
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2 Use clear and consistent criteria and rubrics
Another way to enhance the reliability of your assessment methods is to use clear and consistent criteria and rubrics. Criteria are the standards or expectations that you use to judge the quality of your students' work, while rubrics are tools that describe the levels of performance for each criterion. By using criteria and rubrics, you can communicate your expectations to your students, guide them in their learning process, and provide them with constructive feedback. You can also reduce the subjectivity and bias in your grading, and ensure that you apply the same standards to all your students.
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3 Vary your assessment methods and sources
A third tip to improve the reliability of your assessment methods is to vary them and use multiple sources of evidence. By using different types of assessment methods, such as formative and summative, objective and subjective, individual and group, you can capture a more comprehensive and balanced picture of your students' learning. You can also use multiple sources of evidence, such as self-assessment, peer assessment, feedback from other instructors or experts, or external benchmarks, to triangulate and validate your assessment results. This way, you can reduce the impact of any single method or source that might be unreliable or invalid.
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- Courtney McDaniel early educator | occasional artist | doctoral student
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I’ve found that using multiple types of activities and learning tasks help give an accurate representation of a student’s skill set and abilities. For example, sitting down for an activity works for some students and they can focus well, but this isn’t true for all students. In a unit about honeybees, students worked on lettering sheets, listened to stories about bees, and viewed pictures of bees and hives. One student was disengaged in these particular activities. However, when playing a pollination game where students used pipettes to transfer water to classroom plants, he was actively engaged. I was able to better assess his abilities in this activity.
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4 Review and revise your assessment methods regularly
A final suggestion to make your assessment methods more reliable is to review and revise them regularly. You should monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of your assessment methods, and collect feedback from your students, colleagues, and other stakeholders. You should also compare your assessment results with your learning outcomes, and identify any gaps or discrepancies. Based on your review and feedback, you should revise your assessment methods as needed, and make sure they are aligned with your curriculum, pedagogy, and context.
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5 Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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- Kylie Dawson Deputy Principal at St Heliers School
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So often assessment relies on implicit knowledge. A multi choice test requires the learner to know the mechanics of answering a multi choice question. A maths test can be extremely wordy with the problems it is asking to solve. Before an assessment is truely reliable at measuring what you want it to measure, there must be explicit instruction around the assessment itself, to remove the potential bias and assumptions, that can impact the outcomes for learners.
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