Updated: Mar 2000 | Assessment Introduction

Assessment - Introduction

All government schools:... 2. use the Outcomes and Standards Framework: to monitor individual student learning and plan for improvement. to assess and report individual student achievement. to report school performance and demonstrate accountability... Curriculum Assessment and Reporting: Policy and Guidelines, (1998), p. 3

Assessment of student learning in an outcomes-focused approach centres on describing individual students' learning progress.

It is a process of gathering, analysing and interpreting information, and describing student performance in relation to stated learning outcomes.

Using assessment information, teachers make:

	on-balance judgements about the levels of students' performance.
	informed reports to students and their parents about learning progress.
	planning decisions to direct future curriculum provision.

In an outcomes-focused approach, assessment needs to be ongoing rather than occurring at the end of a program of work.

Figure 21. - developed by The Arts Learning Area, highlights the central role of assessment in the teaching-learning cycle of an outcomes-focused approach.

Assessment should:

	identify students' achievements and the extent of their progress in relation to the outcomes.
	improve students' learning.
	allow students to set goals for their learning.
	motivate students to learn because their learning is personalised.
	improve the effectiveness of teachers' planning and instruction.
	allow schools to plan for improvement and set realistic priorities.
	broaden home-school links that will enable parents to assist with their children's learning.

Identification of students at educational risk is part of monitoring individual student learning and planning for improvement. Assessment of student learning using an outcomes-focused approach will also assist in the identification of these students and in designing learning opportunities for them.

The Curriculum Framework for Western Australian schools identifies five key principles of assessment: Valid Educative Explicit Fair Comprehensive Curriculum Framework, (1998), pp. 37-39

According to Ruth Sutton (1994), the art of assessment is to find the best fit between purpose, validity, reliability and manageability.

The understandings that support authentic assessment processes are based on:

	Different assessment techniques allow students to demonstrate different knowledge, skills, understandings and abilities. A practical exercise provides different information from a written one.
	Assessment criteria must be clear. Are you evaluating process or finished product? Do the students know and understand the criteria?
	Different assessment methods affect students in different ways. Students should be given the best possible opportunities to show what they can do and understand. Many are able to explain knowledge more effectively in speech than in writing. Setting a 'knowledge test' in only a written form may disadvantage some children.
	Assessments need to incorporate judgements from a range of sources.
	Classroom management techniques and the learning environment should encourage student achievement. Learning materials should be largely self-explanatory and accessible.
	Time needs to be found and managed for planning assessment tasks, reviewing assessment routines and reviewing record-keeping procedures.
	Students must be involved in planning assessment and evaluation. Have the students had the opportunity to negotiate the curriculum?
	Quantity of assessment is not a real substitute for quality, and quality assessment takes time to plan and do. Setting achievable targets for assessment, reaching them, and moving on probably produces better results than trying to do everything at once.
	In the final analysis, the teacher's on-balance judgement about a student's level is an informed and professionally-derived judgement. The on-balance judgement takes into account the relative weight of the evidence collected, and the range of contexts, frequency, consistency and degree of independence shown by students in demonstrating outcomes.

Assessment is an ongoing process and must be reviewed in conjunction with the quality of curriculum provision and the reporting of student achievement to parents.

An important consideration will be to align and develop cohesion among curriculum provision, instructional practices and assessment, so that stated outcomes are achieved by students.

In reviewing assessment, teachers, working individually and in groups, need to review:

	classroom approaches to assessment.
	the school assessment policy.

Fig 22 - Assessment : Where to Start?