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Assessments serve a variety of purposes and take multiple forms depending on what they are measuring and how they are used. They are administered at various stages of a student’s education journey to evaluate a student’s knowledge of specific academic subjects or mastery of skills. Assessment systems can provide data that is valuable for education stakeholders including: Students and families, teachers and school leaders, district and state Leaders.
If you're just getting started with student assessment, check out answers to key questions below, then dive into state and federal assessment policy by downloading our Special Report on the right.
Assessments provide students, families, educators and administrators with a measure of what students know and how well they understand academic material. Some assessments — such as statewide summative assessments — are a significant part of state school accountability systems whereas other assessments — like kindergarten entrance assessments or literacy screeners — are used to evaluate student readiness or monitor progress. Assessments may even serve different purposes for various stakeholder groups. The intended purpose for each assessment influences its design, which informs how families, schools, districts and state leaders can use the results to identify what additional resources and supports are needed for students to thrive.
Instructional Improvement
Teachers measure student progress and mastery consistently throughout the learning process to identify student strengths and areas for improvement to inform instructional design and differentiation.
Student Readiness
Assessments measure student readiness for key transitions, such as the transition into Kindergarten, postsecondary education, military, or the workforce.
Student Mastery
Assessments measure student proficiency in academic standards and mastery of skills or competencies and identify the additional supports students may need from their school.
School Accountability and Improvement
Assessments measure student growth and achievement to inform school accountability determinations, additional resource allocation, and improvement strategies.
Students are assessed before, during and after learning to measure progress towards and mastery of standards and skills.
Diagnostic assessments measure student knowledge and skills before learning to help educators and families identify priority areas and develop appropriate approaches to support student learning (e.g., literacy screeners).
Formative assessments evaluate student progress towards educational objectives during learning, including academic standards, to inform changes to teaching and learning (e.g., unit quiz or related assignment).
Interim assessments evaluate student achievement at intervals throughout a course of study to inform instructional supports and predict student performance on state summative assessments (e.g., district- or vendor-developed benchmark assessment).
Summative assessments measure student mastery of academic standards and skills in specific content areas after learning to inform school ratings, as well as sometimes for grade promotion and course credit (e.g., statewide summative assessment or end-of-course exam).
Through-year assessments combine interim and summative assessments to create a cohesive assessment system including multiple assessments throughout and at the end of the year, which may provide additional data on in-year growth.
Students are assessed in a variety of ways, depending on the theory of action. Assessments may include multiple-choice questions, constructed (or written) responses, and relevant tasks or applications, such as science experiment demonstrations. As states look to develop innovative assessment options, performance assessments have garnered increased attention.
Performance Assessments, also referred to as competency-based assessments, allow students to demonstrate their knowledge by directly exhibiting a skill, reporting on an investigation, producing a product, or performing an activity. States are increasingly exploring the use of performance assessments during instruction, to meet graduation requirements, or for inclusion in statewide summative assessment systems. Depending on the intended use of performance assessments, comparability and reliability in scoring performance tasks create challenges for using these assessments to uncover and address inequities and require substantial time and resources to effectively implement, particularly when attempting to scale across multiple schools and districts in a state.
Assessments may also be delivered to students using various mediums, including paper and pencil or digitally, including through computer-adaptive tests, which adjust the difficulty of questions based on prior student responses to potentially provide a more precise understanding of student proficiency on standards. States may also rely on vendor-developed assessments like college entrance exams or others that are designed to align with state academic standards.
Statewide summative assessments are used to measure student progress, target interventions and supports, understand student achievement and growth and — in conjunction with other measures — report on school quality.
Identifying schools for improvement:
Understanding Student Achievement:
Reporting on Student Achievement
A high-quality assessment supports a meaningful understanding of student performance and provides high quality data to education stakeholders.
Assessment Design
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