Assessment

Assessment is broader in scope than measurement in that it involves the interpretation of measurement data. It is essentially concerned with firstly making sense out of measurement data and then assigning a mark, a grade, a rank, or some form of qualitative comment, to that previously collected measurement information. The assigning of a mark may be in quantitative or qualitative terms; quantitatively this may be 81 percent, eleventh percentile, second decile, 81/100; qualitatively this may be 'distinction' or 'credit'.Usually measurement data are interpreted in terms of whether or not an intended level of achievement has been attained. In turn, thisachievement is expressed as a pass or fail or by some as a letter or numerical grade. Thus, in an examination a student's mark of 58 percent may be interpreted pass or a B-level or grade pass.An example of typical assessment in a school would be where a teacher analys student's test score pass of 12/20 to determine whether that student should or fail the test or what grade should be awarded. In determining this assessment, the teacher may consider the performance of other student (norm-referenced assessment) or how well the stated objectives have been achieved by the student concerned (criterion-referenced assessment). In this way the teacher has interpreted the raw data from the test and made an assessment of the student's performance.In the example cited above the student's raw score of 12/20 (measurement) must be interpreted to make sense. It may be interpreted as a pass, a distinction (or an A-level pass) or perhaps even a fail! This will depend upon the use of norm-referenced procedures as well as the student's performance relative to others or the stated criteria. Thus the student may have performed relatively well compared with others and the score of 12/20 may be translated or represented as a 'credit' B-level pass. Alternatively the student may obtained the score in response to a criterion referenced have activity and achieved a sufficient score for an ordinary level or C pass.In some situations, such as curriculum evaluation, teacher evaluation and indeed aspects of product evaluation such as student values and social skills, the measurement data collected may be of a qualitative nature. Such data cannot be interpreted quantitatively (as with test scores), but rather in the context of an educational setting and are expressed in the form of comments. A school, for example may be concerned to assess the moral development of students after several years of school experience. Data based on observation, interviews, questionnaires or some other measurement device could then become the basis of evaluative comments set within the context of that school.