Types of Assessment in Education and Its Importance

Assessment refers to the action of assessing or judging something. Assessment in education means to use a variety of tools and methods to evaluate the educational needs of the students. Assessment is a tool in a teacher’s hand to assess the performance of a student in the class.

Assessment is essential for teachers as well. It is to know how effective are their teaching methods.  Assessment in education is developed to measure various aspects. Including to gather the evidence about student’s previous knowledge and planning lessons accordingly. It includes end-term exams and weekly tests to judge the student’s performance.

Types of assessment  in education

Formative assessment

Formative assessment in education is a handy tool. It refers to the evaluation of the process. A formative assessment is also known as ‘Assessment for learning”. This type of assessment takes place during the activity to improve learning. Its purpose is to provide feedback to students and teachers. It also gives a chance for improvement for students.

Formative assessment consists of tests, assignments, projects, viva, practical, unit test etc.

Summative assessment

A summative assessment is a tool to measure the end product. It refers to the evaluation of the product. A summative assessment is also known as “Assessment of learning.” This type of assessment takes place at the end of the academic term. Its purpose is to evaluate the student’s achievement. It includes assigning grades to pupils and ranks them according to their performance.

Criterion-referenced assessment

This type of assessment focus on measuring the performance of student against specific criteria. But there is no involvement in comparing the achievement with other person’s performance. Some of the examples are :

1. Sheila got 95 marks in social science
2. Ronan wrote an essay in 30 minutes

Norm-referenced assessment

Norm-referenced assessment measures the student’s performance in comparison to other students. The measurement act relates to some norm or group. The measurement is not made in terms of criteria. Some examples are:

1. Rani scored first in class in mathematics test
2. Soman surpasses 70% of students of his class in mathematics.

Ipsative assessment

This assessment in education holds a prominent place. It is because a student’s performance is measured not in reference to criteria. Nor is it estimated in comparison to other student’s performance. Infact, a student’s performance is measured against their past performance. It helps a student to oneself by judging your performance and improving it. It is beneficial as it does not affect a student’s self-confidence.

Diagnostic assessment

This type of assessment allows teachers to determine student’s strengths, weaknesses, and knowledge before starting giving instruction. It is beneficial for both teachers and students. It will enable teachers to plan preparation according to the problems faced by the students. It provides remediation to students facing doubts. It will help in making lessons clear and avoiding student’s boredom.

Importance of assessment in education

Assessment is a significant part of education. Only teaching and learning would not be enough to meet educational goals. Proper feedback, the judgment of performance, and remedial strategies would only make education successful. Importance of assessment in education are:

Provide feedback

Evaluation is necessary to provide student’s feedback on their learning. It will help students and teachers make a judgment about their strengths and weakness. It will bring about change in the student’s education.

Progress evaluation

The assessment provides an opportunity for students to evaluate their learning progress. A teacher gets to know about effective teaching methods. Also, students would get to know about how well the students are doing in academics.

Setting standards

An assessment allows the teacher to set standards for performance. It means a teacher needs to identify what performance demonstrates the understanding and knowledge of students. It makes it easy to judge the performance of students.

Motivation for performance

Students are motivated when given responsibility for their learning. They tend to search for solutions to improve their performance. And also manage to discover what else they would like to learn.

Therefore, assessment is necessary to provide feedback to both students and teachers. It gives them a chance of improvement. After all, a functional assessment opens up the door to success and a bright future.