Module 10

OHT 2

Definitions of Assessment

• Assessment is an all embracing term. It covers any of the situations in which some aspects of a student's education is in some sense, measured, whether this measurement is by the teacher, an examiner or indeed the pupil him or herself. It is concerned with how well the pupil has done. Evaluation is whether it was worth doing in the first place. Evaluation cannot take place without assessment ...
  
  

  Assessment is often equated with tests and examinations. This is misleading since neither are essential to assessment.

  (Lloyd-Jones, R. and Bray, E. (1986) Assessment: From Principles to Action, Macmillian, London, p.1)
  
  

• Educational assessment is an omnibus term which includes all the processes and products which describe the nature and extent of children's learning, its degree of correspondence with the aims and objectives of teaching and its relationships with the (classroom) environments which are designed to facilitate learning.

  (Satterly, D. (1989) Assessment in Schools, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, p.3)
  
  

• ... assessment in education can be thought of as occurring whenever one person, in some kind of interaction, direct or indirect with another, is conscious of obtaining and interpreting information about the knowledge and understanding, or abilities and attitudes of the other person.

  (Rowntree, D. (1977) Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them? Harper Row, London. p.4)
  
  

• Nor should we hesitate to turn the definition in upon itself and think of the person finding out about himself - self assessment.

  (Rowntree, D. (1977) Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them? Harper Row, London, p. 4)