PGT 202E

BASIC EDUCATIONAL
MEASUREMENT & EVALUATION

LECTURE 1

Ahmad Zamri bin Khairani

Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Pendidikan,
Universiti Sains MAlaysia
 Overview

 Defining ‘test’, ‘measurement’,

‘evaluation’ and ‘assessment’
 Importance of measurement,
evaluation and assessment in
education
 Types of Assessment
 Principles of Assessments
 Current Issues and Trends
 introduction

 Succesful teaching requires teachers to

gather meaningful information and
make decisions based on the gathered
information
 Shavelson and Stern (1981): Teachers
make one decision about students in
every 2 or 3 minutes
 The decisions……
 In order to answer the above
questions, teachers need to
What learning
objectives do I need
to cover today?
have useful information
 The useful information should
be acquired using sound
What kind of
activities that are
assessment procedures and
suitable for this
chapter?
practices
 Teachers may spend up to
one-half of their time in their
Is my teaching going classrooms (Stiggins,
well?
Conklin, & Associates, 1992)
 measurement

 Process of assigning numbers to certain

attributes or construct.
 e.g. Ali scores 75% in spelling test.
 The number is usually called scores that
describe the degree the students are
acquiring the attribute
 Measurement of educational attributes is
neither easy nor straightforward, and no
standard instruments are available
 evaluation

 Evaluation is a process of assigning

value judgment on student’s performance
 Ali scores 75% in spelling test. Ali is an
exceptional student.
 In order to put together a good
evaluation, teachers need to assess and
measure several times to determine the
true performance of the students
 test

 Test = tool or instrument used to describe

and understand an attribute
 Testing can be defined as processes,
procedures or practices of using a test
 An attribute refers to a construct such as
students’ reading and writing skills,
motivation levels, and comprehension
levels
 assessment

 Assessment is a broad term that includes

measurement, evaluation, and testing
 It is defined as a process of gathering
information for making decisions to
facilitate teaching and learning
 Assessment occurs at various levels
through various procedures
 Assessment..ctd
 Teachers assess students’ understanding
at the end of each session using quizzes
 Teachers assess progress at the end of an
academic year through year-end
examination
 In addition, teachers will also be able to
assess students’ achievement after 5 years
of schooling through the national-level
examination i.e. Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia
(SPM)
 Assessment..ctd

 Assessment procedures also differ in

terms of difficulty
 Assessment of spelling ability is rather
straightforward compared to assessment
of understanding of a passage or a novel
assessment

evaluation

measurement

test
Importance of Assessment in Education
 Assessment determines whether the purposes of
education were achieved or not
 More specifically, when assessment works, it
improves learning and teaching as well as
establishing quality learning environment

12
Assessment is Essential for Learning
 One of the most important roles of
assessment is to provide informative
feedbacks to student during teaching
and learning
 The feedbacks enable the student to
constantly evaluate their learning
especially their level of understanding.

13
Assessment is Essential for Learning
 Therefore it is important that
assessment is done consistently and
continuously to provide information on
the level of understanding of the
students
 Besides, it is also important to plan
assessment so that students will be
able to monitor their learning strategies
as well as practicing their acquired
knowledge, skills, and abilities. 14
Assessment is Critical for Effective Teaching
Ken Bain (2004) concludes that two
important characteristics of best
college teachers as:
(1)they begin with questions on
student’s learning objectives
(2)they systematically assess their own
teaching and make appropriate
adjustments

15
Assessment is needed for Quality Learning
Environment
 One of the key aspects of quality
learning environment is learner-
centred teaching where teachers
emphasize on not only what the
students learn but more
importantly, how they learn.
 As such, teaching and assessing
are intertwined (Huba & Freed
2000). 16
Assessment is needed for Quality Learning
Environment
 Teaching & learning are done
continuously and interrelated as to
provide guidance on how to
acquire knowledge, skills and
abilities
 Students are allowed to make
mistakes and they learn from the
mistakes
17
Current Trends in Educational Assessment
Traditional Trends Current Trends

Assessing learning Assessing both the

outcomes process as well as the
learning outcomes

Knowledge, skills, and Comprehensive

abilities are assessed in assessment of
isolation knowledge, skills, and
abilities
Using one method of Using multiple method 18
assessment of assessment
Current Trends in Educational Assessment
Traditional Trends Current Trends
Using primarily paper Using performance
and pencil test assessment
One answer for each Multiple answers for
items each question are
possible
Assessment is done by Assessment by both
the teachers teachers and students
themselves
Assessment is done by Assessment is done
phases continously 19
Issues of Assessment

 Assessment produces anxiety,

therefore, their true performances
are affected
 Hence, it is important that the test is
prepared thoroughly
 Taking practice exercises may also
reduce the students’ test anxiety.

20
 Results from testing often been used
to group or label students
 Grouping is a major concern in
education because it shapes how
other perceives students
 For example, when students are
grouped as below average, it
affects how teachers perceive them
- they have less expectations of the
students.
21
 The students may also not receive
the same opportunity in any school
program
 More importantly labelling may have
negative effects on how students
view themselves.

22
 Teachers need to realize that test
only measures certain limited sample
of students’ ability while student
change and improvement develop
over years
 Keeping the groups as tentative and
flexible, such as regrouping students
for different subjects may hinders the
negative effects

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 Inappropriate interpretation of
test scores may result in
unwarranted generalization
 Below average students might
develop low sense of efficacy
over their low test scores
 Nevertheless, when properly
interpreted, tests have the
potentials to facilitate students’
realization of their strengths and
weaknesses with the aim of 24
improving their self-image.
 POINTS TO PONDER
 Even though testing, and to a
certain extent assessment, pose
some negative consequences, the
absence of them is considered more
harmful
 Without testing, decisions on
important issues in teaching and
learning would be meaningless and
illogical.
25
 POINTS TO PONDER
 Furthermore, it would be difficult to
encourage students to improve
without demonstrating their strength
and weaknesses
 In addition, rewards or motivation
are less extended on merit and
performance but are rather based
on other weak criteria or even
favouritism of students.
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Thank You