Assessment methods, their merits and demerits Essay Example for Free

opinion methods, their merits and demerits EssayMainly, three types of judicial decisions ar in practice, initial, formative and summative assessment. Initial assessment stern be a formal or informal process of identifying each bookmans strengths and help them to understand their areas of development, and the flockting action stick out accordingly. In formative assessment, teacher or assessor monitor students learning execution during the learning time against a set criteria. Students struggling areas are determine by feedback records and action plan for teachers to adopt teaching strategies and student to motivate for more study is adjusted. In Summative assessment, teacher evaluates the learners proceeding at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against a standard and other students performance. Summative assessments are towering stakes or high point values and includea)Written examsb)Quizzesc)Dissertations and projectsd)Instead of comparing the advantag es and disadvantages of these assessment types, I would prefer to discuss assessment instruments I used in these assessments and talk about their merits and demerits.Assessment typeStrengthLimitations1.Written exams1. Good tool to assess students knowledge without guessing.2. It forces student to think and articulate that thinking.3. Take less time to create test as compared to MCQ where assessor has to rile more choices and student will choose one.4. Teacher can provide better feedback on answers.1. These tests needs language skills with and ESL students cant demonstrate their capabilities.2. These tests are time bounds and a slow writing student may not able to show his full knowledge.3. Performance in these test base on memorizing facts instead of showing creativity.Assessment typeStrengthLimitations2.Oral Exams1. This format decreases miscommunication and misunderstandingwhile questioning or answering.2. Student doesnt need to follow any set lines for answer.3. Give more chanc es to examiner to ask how student came to this answer.4. More assessors can take part in this format.5. More areas can be covered in less time. 1. Could be biased and less fair result oriented. 2. Requires a trained examiner to set such format which cost more. 3. Shy students can be distracted by other factors and cthey may not give their fullest.Assessment typeStrengthLimitations3. Portfolios1. Assess and promote critical thinking.2. Give opportunity learner to be self-directed, active, peer -supported and independent.3. More than one assessor validates the performance.4.Promotes creativity and problem solving5. can be used to assess professional and personal development.1. tricky to identify whether this is students own effort or somebody elses. 2. Involve large amount of paper work which gives less time to center on course. 3. Reliability issues.4. Student can easily hide their weaknesses in this type of assessment.Assessment typeStrengthLimitations4. Projects and dissertations 1. All round ability testing i.e practical, analytical and interpretative skills. 2. Teaches students time management and if in group then teaches leadership and team work skills. 3. Increase motivation to complete task quickly and in time.1. reservation of such format assessment is hectic and time consuming. 2. Validity and reliability of assessment is not high as compared to other formats. 3. If resources not available to learning, performance will be compromised.In my teaching career, I have gone through all above mentioned assessment tools and found written exams are widely used in many parts of world. People love written exams because they pile up work and when exam is near, they memorize it and ready for exam, no notional work during the term just collecting the notes. Trend is slightly changing in the world and other assessment tools are in practice, mostly university are assessing courses byassignments, project and dissertations and these formats require continuous study and work thats develop students other skills along with the completion of these tasks.