Assessment, evaluation, testing and grading

A summary

According to Scanlan (2012), there exists a limited conception of the term assessment among many teachers. He pointed out that it is considered as simply “…giving students tests and assigning them grades” (p. 1) while its real meaning involves more than that and has significant importance in the teaching/learning process.

As a general definition, he indicated that assessment is a process that consists of making a judgment of worth of any entity. In the case of the education field, he referred to educational and learner assessment. The first was described as a process that “involves gathering and evaluating data evolving from planned learning activities or programs” (also known as evaluation), and the second defined as a particular type of educational assessment designed with different purposes such as motivating and directing learning, providing feedback to student and providing feedback to teachers and instructors.

After describing the different types of assessment, Scanlan noted the distinction between assessment and evaluation stating that “…it is often said that we assess students and we evaluate instruction” (p. 3). This means that assessment is done during the students learning process in order to improve their performance and evaluation is carried out with the aim of judging the worth of educational activities.

In order to conclude, the author indicated that grading can be considered a component of assessment since it is a judgment of the quality of a student performance, and also described that it is most of the times a formal, summative, final and product oriented judgment (Scanlan, 2012,p. 4).