Assessment and Evaluation Methods Flashcards

Which of the following is an example of criterion-referenced assessment?

Answer: Determining whether a student can read at a 5th-grade level

Criterion-referenced assessments measure performance against a fixed standard or set of skills, not against other students.

An instructor creates a test based on a table of specifications. What is the main purpose of this table?

Answer: To align test questions with instructional objectives and content areas

A table of specifications maps test questions to learning objectives and content, ensuring the test covers instruction proportionally.

Which type of question format is MOST effective for assessing higher-order thinking such as analysis or evaluation?

Answer: Extended response (essay)

Extended response items require students to organize, analyze, and articulate complex thinking, which aligns with higher-order cognitive demands.

A student's portfolio contains writing samples, self-reflections, and project drafts collected over a semester. This is an example of:

Answer: Authentic/portfolio assessment

Portfolio assessment collects varied student work over time to show growth, effort, and achievement across multiple dimensions.

Which term describes the degree to which test scores are free from random error and inconsistency?

Answer: Reliability

Reliability measures how consistently a test produces the same results across different times, raters, or forms.

On a multiple-choice test, every student selects the same wrong answer for one question. This most likely indicates a problem with:

Answer: Item construction or content coverage

When nearly all students miss the same item, it often signals a misleading question, a content gap in instruction, or a flawed distractor.

Which statistic tells a teacher how spread out student scores are on a test?

Answer: Standard deviation

Standard deviation quantifies how much individual scores vary around the mean, indicating the spread of the distribution.