"Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning."
The process of gathering information about students' abilities, learning style, behavior, and potential problems in order to make informed decisions about interventions.
Definition and Purpose of Assessment and Evaluation: Understanding the difference between assessment and evaluation and the purposes behind each process.
Methods of Assessment: Overview of the different methods of assessment that can be used in school psychology, including standardized testing, observations, interviews, and rating scales.
Testing Principles and Procedures: Detailed information about testing principles and procedures, including reliability and validity.
Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Testing: Understanding the difference between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing, and when each is appropriate to use.
Assessing Intelligence: Understanding intelligence testing and the different types of intelligence tests that are commonly used.
Assessing Achievement: Understanding achievement testing and how it can be used to measure progress and identify academic strengths and weaknesses.
Behavioral and Emotional Assessment: Overview of the different methods used to assess behavior and emotion in children, including behavioral observation, self-report measures, and rating scales.
Response-to-Intervention (RTI): Understanding the RTI model and how it can be used to identify and address learning difficulties.
Individualized Education Programs (IEPs): Understanding the process of creating and implementing IEPs.
Assessment for Special Populations: Understanding the unique assessment needs of special populations, including students with disabilities, English Language Learners (ELLs), and gifted students.
Data Analysis and Interpretation: Understanding how to analyze and interpret assessment data, including understanding standard scores, percentiles, and grade-level equivalents.
Communication of Assessment Results: Understanding how to communicate assessment results effectively to parents, teachers, and other professionals.
Ethics and Professional Standards: Understanding the ethical and professional standards that guide assessment and evaluation practices in school psychology.
Legal Issues in Assessment and Evaluation: Understanding the legal issues that may arise during assessment and evaluation, including confidentiality, informed consent, and compliance with federal and state laws.
Technology in Assessment and Evaluation: Overview of the role of technology in assessment and evaluation, including computerized adaptive testing and web-based assessments.
Formative Assessment: An assessment technique that is done during the learning process to evaluate student understanding and to provide feedback to enhance comprehension.
Summative Assessment: An assessment technique done after the learning process to evaluate student understanding of the whole curriculum.
Benchmark Assessment: An assessment technique that measures the students' knowledge and skills against a standard set in a specific subject.
Diagnostic Assessment: An assessment technique that identifies areas where the student needs assistance or has knowledge gaps.
Standardized Tests: Tests that use a standard set of criteria to ensure consistency and reliability among different evaluators.
Performance-based Assessment: An assessment technique that evaluates the students' ability to perform a task or complete a project.
Self-Assessment: Self-reflection on one's own learning and understanding of a subject.
Peer Assessment: Evaluation of a student's work by their peers.
Informal Assessment: Observation, collecting information about a student's performance in a natural setting.
Portfolio Assessment: A collection of student work over time that demonstrates their learning progress throughout the year.
Authentic Assessment: An assessment technique that evaluates the student's knowledge and skills in real-world contexts.
Alternative Assessment: An assessment conducted using non-traditional evaluation methods such as projects, presentations, and performance tasks.
"Assessment data can be obtained from directly examining student work to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or can be based on data from which one can make inferences about learning."
"Assessment is often used interchangeably with test, but not limited to tests."
"Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole (also known as granularity)."
"The word 'assessment' came into use in an educational context after the Second World War."
"As a continuous process, assessment establishes measurable and clear student learning outcomes, providing a sufficient amount of learning opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implementing a systematic way of gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student learning matches expectations."
"Assessment is an important aspect of the educational process which determines the level of accomplishments of students."
"The final purpose of assessment practices in education depends on the theoretical framework of the practitioners and researchers, their assumptions and beliefs about the nature of the human mind, the origin of knowledge, and the process of learning."
"...using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude, and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning."
"Assessment data can be obtained from directly examining student work to assess the achievement of learning outcomes..."
"Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole..."
"Implementing a systematic way of gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student learning matches expectations."
"Assessment establishes measurable and clear student learning outcomes."
"...providing a sufficient amount of learning opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implementing a systematic way of gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student learning matches expectations, and using the collected information to inform improvement in student learning."
"Assessment is an important aspect of the educational process which determines the level of accomplishments of students."
"The final purpose of assessment practices in education depends on the theoretical framework of the practitioners and researchers..."
"Assessment... determines the level of accomplishments of students."
"Using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude, and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning."
"The final purpose of assessment practices in education depends on the... assumptions and beliefs about the nature of the human mind, the origin of knowledge, and the process of learning."
"As a continuous process, assessment establishes measurable and clear student learning outcomes, provides a sufficient amount of learning opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implements a systematic way of gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence..."