TUTORIAL ASSESSMENT

1. Explain the purpose of assessment?

Critical to educators is the use of assessment to both inform and guide instruction. Using a
wide variety of assessment tools allows a teacher to determine which instructional strategies are
effective and which need to be modified. In this way, assessment can be used to improve
classroom practice, plan curriculum, and research one's own teaching practice. Of course,
assessment will always be used to provide information to children, parents, and administrators.
In the past, this information was primarily expressed by a "grade". Increasingly, this information
is being seen as a vehicle to empower students to be self-reflective learners who monitor and
evaluate their own progress as they develop the capacity to be self-directed learners. In addition
to informing instruction and developing learners with the ability to guide their own instruction,
assessment data can be used by a school district to measure student achievement, examine the
opportunity for children to learn, and provide the basis for the evaluation of the district's language
programmers.

Assessment instruments, whether formal tests or informal assessments, serve multiple

purposes. Commercially designed and administered tests may be used for measuring
proficiency, placing students into one of several levels of course, or diagnosing students
strengths and weaknesses according to specific linguistic categories, among other purposes.
Classroom-based teacher-made tests might be used to diagnose difficulty or measure
achievement in a given unit of a course. Specifying the purpose of an assessment instrument
and stating its objectives are an essential first step in choosing, designing, revising, or adapting
the procedure an educator will finally use.

2. State five advantage of subjective question.

Short-answer questions

Advantages

o Quick and easy to grade

o Quick and easy to write
 Disadvantages
o Encourage students to memorize terms and details, so that their understanding
of the content remains superficial

Essay questions
Advantages
o Offer students an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge, skills, and abilities in
a variety of ways
o Can be used to develop student writing skills, particularly the ability to formulate
arguments supported with reasoning and evidence

Disadvantages
o Require extensive time to grade
o Encourage use of subjective criteria when assessing answers
o If used in class, necessitate quick composition without time for planning or
revision, which can result in poor-quality writing

3. Explain the meaning of holistic marking.

A holistic rubric is the most general kind. It lists three to five levels of performance, along
with a broad description of the characteristics that define each level. The levels can be labeled
with numbers (such as 1 through 4), letters (such as A through F) or words (such as Beginning
through Exemplary). What each level is called isnt what makes the rubric holistic its the
way the characteristics are all lumped together.

Bailey describes another type of scoring related to the holistic approach which she refers
to as primary trait scoring (Bailey, 1998: 187). In primary trait scoring, a particular functional
focus is selected which is based on the purpose of the writing and grading is based on how
well the student is able to express that function. For example, if the function is to persuade,
scoring would be on how well the author has been able to persuade the grader rather than
how well organized the ideas were, or how grammatical the structures in the essay were. This
technique to grading emphasizes functional and communicative ability rather than discrete
linguistic ability and accuracy.
4. Evaluate the effectivenesses of reporting methods in primary schools.

Has clear, direct links with outcomes

The assessment strategies employed by the teacher in the classroom need to be directly
linked to and reflect the syllabus outcomes. Syllabus outcomes in stages will describe the
standard against which student achievement is assessed and reported.

Is integral to teaching and learning

Effective and informative assessment practice involves selecting strategies that are naturally
derived from well-structured teaching and learning activities. These strategies should provide
information concerning student progress and achievement that helps inform ongoing teaching
and learning as well as the diagnosis of areas of strength and need.

Is fair

Effective and informative assessment strategies are designed to ensure equal opportunity for
success regardless of students' age, gender, physical or other disability, culture, background
language, socio-economic status or geographic location.