Assessments are More than Exams

What is an assessment? The word is thrown around constantly, but unfortunately, many people, me included misuse or misdefine the word altogether. An assessment is "the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something."

Screenshot of the dictionary definition of the word “assessment” from Oxford Languages. It defines assessment as a noun meaning “the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something.” An example sentence provided is “the assessment of educational needs.” Similar words listed include evaluation, judgment, gauging, rating, estimation, and appraisal.

Nowhere in that definition does it state that it is an exam, a test, a quiz, an oral report, or a metric to be used to shun or ridicule. In fact, even the synonyms listed provide a great example of what an assessment truly is. At its core, it is evaluating the knowledge or skill of someone or something. When someone assesses a situation, they are figuring out all the relevant information in its current state to determine how they should proceed. Thus, when an educator assess someone from a learning context, why should it be different? I think I finally get what one of my classmates meant when they said, "Assessments are just the starting points, not the end." Even behaviorists like Skinner believed that, "tests should be used frequently to ensure mastery be fore proceeding to the next objective". (Shepard, 2000, p. 5)

Once an assessment—no matter the form—has been completed, we tend to mark it as the final step in the learning process. But should it be?

Learning itself is a fluid process. It is ongoing, ever-changing, informal and formal, and filled with different opportunities to build upon that knowledge—to fine-tune it. As they currently stand, assessments in learning place far too much emphasis on whether the learner can produce the right information, in the right context, at the right time; and if they cannot, they fail. Sometimes, they are seen as an afterthought or used as some arbitrary method to determine if the learner paid enough attention while 'learning', or if they successfully memorized large amounts of information, rather than if the content was presented in such a way that not only fostered understanding and mastery but retention and transfer.

From a cognitivist perspective, transfer is the idea that knowledge learned and mastered in one context can be applied in a different context. Truly understanding a concept to be able to use it in new situations and real world scenarios (Shepard, 2000).

One of the most widely used products to get into college in the United States is an assessment. The SAT is a standardized test that has been used as a barometer for college for decades. However, the SAT is one example where the lack transference to the real world, college, is limited. While there is value in knowing root words and how to break down an unknown word—and using prior knowledge to determine a definition can be helpful—the problem is, once the test is over, the information that student "learned" for the test likely gets forgotten. There is no lasting retention, nor is there usually any transfer involved. Standardized tests do not come close to measuring transfer.

While writing this, I realized I have focused on end-of-unit assessments—exams, quizzes, and tests. I recognize my bias, and I think it is paramount that we all do the same. Unfortunately, assessments have been reduced to a single form, which is nowhere near indicative of the learning process. We need to reassess assessments: how they are given, the content they cover, the format they take—the whole nine yards.

References:

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14.