Types of assessments

There are different types of assessments used, and each aimed towards a different approach to assess the students. For instance, assessments vary from diagnostic/formative to summative, informal to formal, norm referenced to criterion referenced, process to product, learner judged to teacher judged, internal to external, inclusive to exclusive, and liberal to technicist (Marsh, 2001). But in Maldives we can see only three types of assessments and they are Formative, summative and diagnostic.

Formative assessment is the type of assessment that provides data about students’ progress. Assessment that is interwoven with, or conducted in parallel with, learning, where regular feedback is used to form, shape or guide students learning, and to shape the teaching program is Formative assessment (Fe, 2009). After each assessment students will be given feedback, so the assessments help the students as a guide to adjust their learning. The data helps to develop or form the final curriculum product and helps students to adjust to their learning tasks through the feedback they receive (Marsh, 2001).

 Summative assessments are taken place where an assessor intends to find the final achievement of the students. Assessment that is used at the end of a stage of learning to sum-up or summaries what the student has achieved to that point in time is summative assessment (Fe, 2009). It’s also seen that almost all the schools used summative assessments in the form of term tests. But in some cases we have seen as summative assessments because after the test reviews, the areas in which students are weak in the test are not re-taught.

Diagnostic assessment is the type of assessment that deliberately seeks to identify where students’ prior, or current, understandings and competencies are, and to drive the actions of the student or teacher to move the student forward in their learning (Fe, 2009)

References

EST 207. (2009) Lecture Notes. FE. Maldives

Marsh. C, (2001), Teaching studies of society and environment (3^rd ed.), Prentice-Hall, Sydney.