1.

Introduction
An effective assessment task is one which assesses students' attainment
of the learning outcomes. Unit learning outcomes are what students are
expected to know, understand or be able to do in order to be successful in
a unit. They begin with an action verb and describe something observable
and measurable. You can find out more about learning outcomes in
other resources on the Learning and Teaching Centre website, and in the
Evaluation Resource: Developing Your Unit - Clear Goals and Standards.

2. Key to successful learning: aligning assessment with

learning outcomes
One of the keys to successful learning is the aligned curriculum (Biggs,
2003): this means that learning outcomes are clear, learning experiences
are designed to assist student achievement of those outcomes, and
carefully designed assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate
achievement of those outcomes. This concept is illustrated in Figure 1:

1. The learning outcomes are clear.

2. The learning experiences (face-to-face and virtual) are designed to help

students achieve those learning outcomes.

3. The assessment tasks allow the students to demonstrate their

achievement of those learning outcomes.

More information on curriculum alignment can be found in the Evaluation

Resource: Developing your unit - Organising Your Unit.
 3. Reviewing your assessment strategy
Begin by thinking about your current assessment practice. The questions
below will help guide your reflection.

How do you currently assess your students? List the methods you use.
Is each assessment worth doing and can/do you explain to your students
why?
Can you explain how the assessment methods you currently use are
matched to the expected learning outcomes?
What skills and capabilities do you want your students to leave your
unit/course with?
Approximately how much does each assessment process cost students
and staff in terms of time taken and resources used?
Do you feel you might be over assessing? How do you know?
What criteria do you use? Are they yours, or can you involve students
themselves in formulating them?
Do the students know the criteria? Do they really understand them?
Is the feedback you give your students clearly related to your assessment
criteria?
How well does the feedback students receive on assessed work help them
to know how they are doing?
How much practice and guidance do students get in the chosen
assessment methods?
What assessments do students enjoy and why?
How do you know that the students find your assessments useful?
In what ways do the assessments help your student learn?
Review your assessment strategy regularly. It can be even more productive
when done in partnership with your students and colleagues.

4. Designing assessments which allow students to

demonstrate their achievement of the learning outcomes
Assessing learning can profoundly shape the educational experiences of
students. One of the challenges of effective assessment is to ensure that
there is a close alignment between the learning goals, the teaching and
learning activities aimed at meeting learning goals and the assessment
tasks used to assess whether learning goals have been met. Current best
practice includes assessment which is aligned to learning goals which
focus not only on content knowledge but also on process and capabilities.

5. Key assessment terms

Table 5.1: Key assessment terms

ASSESSMENT The collection of information about the nature and extent

procedure used to estimate learners learning. The term is
meaning "to sit beside").

MEASUREMENT Representation of assessment information by a number o

Answers the question, How much?

EVALUATION The making of judgments about the value of a grade and/

learning outcomes. Answers the question, How well?

ASSESSMENT An instrument or systematic procedure by which assessm

TASK
FORMATIVE Ungraded assessment task used before or during learnin
ASSESSMENT diagnosis and/or to provide feedback about learning prog
which does not contribute grades towards the final result.

SUMMATIVE Graded assessment task used following learning which c

ASSESSMENT
VALIDITY Degree to which the assessment task measures what it is

RELIABILITY Degree to which the assessment task consistently yields

NORM- Uses the performance of a group of learners to rank orde

REFERENCED curve'. Number of learners who can receive distinctions, c

CRITERION- Establishes the criteria for performance and any learner m

REFERENCED associated grade. Every student can potentially achieve t

STANDARDS- Establishes the criteria for performance as well as articula

BASED performance that is associated with a grade. Grades are
level of performance they have achieved.

AUTHENTIC Assessment tasks which test whether a learner is able to

ASSESSMENT outcomes in a situation which is as close as possible to a

6. Common assessment tasks

There are many different assessment tasks you can use to assess your
students. The following will help you choose the right assessment task.
Remember that whatever assessment task you decide to use, it should be
clearly aligned with the learning outcomes and teaching and learning
activities in your course.

6.1 Short form test

Short form tests are also known as objective tests. They include multiple
choice, completion (or cloze), true-false and matching types, of which
multiple choice is the most commonly used. A multiple choice test item
consists of a statement, called the stem, and several alternative
statements, one of which is the correct answer, while the others are
distracters.

For example:

Formative assessment refers to:

(a) a practice test;
(b) a test used to determine a grade;
(c) a test used to determine prior knowledge; or
(d) a test to monitor learning progress.
Table 6.1: Pros and cons of the Short Form Test

PROS CONS
Measures wide sample of content Difficult to set items which assess more

Easy and quick to score Time consuming to produce

Good for reviewing content Encourages guessing
 Provides formative feedback Restricts creative students

Provides fast feedback Nourishes illiteracy

Items can be reused Poorly constructed questions can give

Marker reliability high Difficult to interpret wrong answers
Hints for writing multiple choice items:

The stem should consist of a single, clear idea. It should make sense
independent of the rest of the question.
Avoid stems stated in negative terms as these are more difficult to
understand and may cause confusion.
Make sure that all the alternatives are grammatically consistent with the
stem and similar in form and length to one another.
Make the distracters plausible by using common misconceptions and
typical student errors.
If you use the alternatives 'none of the above' and 'all of the above' include
them as the incorrect answer about 75% of the time.
The correct answer should appear without pattern and equally often in each
of the alternative positions.

An Essay on Evaluation
and Education
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Education and evaluation are inter-related
processes. Evaluation is as old as the process of
education itself. Education in its wider sense
implies not only acquisition of knowledge, but
also development of abilities, skills, personality
qualities which are important in individuals
personal and social life. The function of evaluation
in education is to provide a systematic assessment
of the development of these qualities as an
outcome of educational endeavour. Since
population education is also an educational
process aiming at inculcating rational attitude and
responsible behaviour among the learners
towards population and development issues and
helping them to take informed decisions, role of
evaluation is of utmost importance. Without the
benefit of evaluation, one is unable to determine
how well the programme has achieved its goal.
Evaluation also serves as the basis for the
improvement of the way activities are carried out.
Evaluation is also an effort at discovering whether
certain activities have led to desired effects or
outcomes.
Evaluation in education means describing
something, in terms of selected attributes and
judging the degree of acceptability or suitability of
that which has been described. The something
which is described can be any aspect of the
educational scene. In broadest sense, the term
evaluation is defined as a systematic assessment
of the value or worth of something. This
something could be a programme or a segment of
a programme, a technique or strategy used,
educational materials or a situation prevalent in a
particular community. It is also defined as the
collection and use of information to make
decisions about an educational programme like
population education programme. Principles of
evaluation in population education are essentially
principles of evaluation in education. It is true
that evaluation in population education is difficult
because population education aims at effecting
behavioural changes in the affective domain to a
greater degree. It has cognitive component only to
the extent that is needed to bring attitudinal
changes. Effort, effect, adequacy, efficiency and
process are the five major aspects that must be
assessed in order to ascertain success or failure f
population education programme. When
programme implementers evaluate effort, they try
to measure the quantity as well as the quality of
available resources. This type of evaluation is
called input evaluation. It involves taking of all
available resources, both human and material
(personnel, money, educational tools, methods or
techniques), and of the activities generated by
these resources. The number of qualified
personnel, logistics required for programme
operation, the number of educational materials
distributed to the target audience the kind of and
number of activities conducted, etc. are some of
the features considered in input evaluation. In
evaluating effect, the main concern is to measure
the results or the outcomes of the efforts made in
terms of intended objectives. In other words,
programme evaluators want to know the extent of
which their objectives have been achieved. This
type of evaluation is referred to as impact or
outcome evaluation.
In evaluating adequacy, the effectiveness of the
programme in relation to the population, it is
intended to serve, is determined. This type of
evaluation is otherwise known as potency
effectiveness. An index of adequacy can be
computed by multiplying the rate of effectiveness
of the number of people exposed to the
programme. The rate of effectiveness is defined as
the proportion of the target population that has
been reached by the programme. For example, if a
population education programme operating in a
particular school reaches 100 out of a total of
1000 school children, the rate of effectiveness of
the programme is 10 per cent. In as much as only
100 students were covered, the programme effect
or impact will actually be felt by only 10 per cent.
To make the index meaningful, it should be
compared with a pre-determined level of
satisfaction.
In evaluating efficiency, programme
administrators make a cost benefit or cost
effectiveness analysis whenever possible. They
study the benefits derived from the educational
activity in relation to the costing of all programme
activities. It is called realized effectiveness. In
process evaluation, the evaluator is interested to
know how and why a programme works or does
not work, or how the different programme inputs
can be used to arrive at desired results. The
problem focused and future oriented nature of
population education programme makes it
necessary to focus its evaluation on higher level
cognitive in additional to the simple recall an
interpretation of population concepts and
statistics.