Programme 3

Construct Assessment Tasks

In education, assessment has different meaning under different context, e.g. programme assessment, institutional assessment, etc. In this Programme, we confine the meaning of Educational Assessment to the measurement, documentation and interpretation of student learning outcomes.

Under this operational definition, Educational Assessment is still a complex topic: the process of facilitating student learning is an interactive process between teachers and students. In an effective teaching, it is important for a teacher to have feedback, on whether students are engaged in learning from her/his teaching as a measure of her/his effectiveness of teaching and also as reference for adjusting and enhancing her/his teaching process.

The process of obtaining feedback is an assessment process. There are different tools to meet the needs of different situations: the most primitive one is eye-contacts with students to see whether they are engaged in the learning process from their facial expression; to questioning, exercise, project, presentation, written assessment, etc.

This programme is an introductory programme to a common assessment tool: the construction of written assessment tasks (generally referred to as paper and pencil tests).

Two modules, of 6 hours each, are planned:

  • Module A provides basic knowledge and concepts in constructing quality assessment tasks, i.e. the theory of constructing assessment tasks; and

  • Module B will be a workshop where participants will go through the process of constructing assessment tasks, i.e. the practice of assessments.

Participants are strongly urged to take both modules to have better understanding about constructing written assessment tasks.


Modules
Module 3A:
What is educational Assessment and the most common assessment tool: written tests
Aim:
To introduce to participants the meaning of Educational Assessment and basic concepts of assessment tools

Learning outcomes:
After completing the module, participants will be able to:
  • Describe different functions of assessment in education
  • Recognize the spectrum of item types in assessing student learning and the format, strength and weakness of each cluster of item types
  • Describe the rationale and formats of two item types: one from objective type items and one from performance based items
  • Recognize the quality indicators of an item (item difficulty and item discrimination) and of a test (reliability and validity).

Module 3B:
Constructing assessment task in practice
Aim:
To provide participants with hands-on experiences in constructing a written assessment (paper and pencil tests)

Learning outcomes:
After completing the module, participants will be able to:
  • Assess whether written assessment is a good choice to assess the learning outcomes of the curriculum to be assessed
  • Construct the specifications of written assessment
  • Select and construct items according to the specifications
  • Design scoring rubrics
  • Tryout and analyze the quality of the items/test
  • Interpret the results for improvement


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