Assessment (Mislevy, Steinberg, Almond) (Shute) (West)
Mislevy, Steinberg, and Almond note that, "an assessment design is intended to embody an argument that suits the assessment's purpose. An operational assessment, is the experience as it is captured by the participant. So, that incorporates 4 main points: Presentation (something is presented and a response is captured) Response scoring (response is evaluated for what is important), Summary Scoring (synthesized results into understanding ground beliefs, or what someone is likely to do), Activity selection (based on the information, what are the logical next steps). Moreover, there are two type of data that are important when conducting assessments. They are (1) what the students say, do, or produce in the assessment; and (2) the features and conditions of the situation that results in data. Context play a large role in evaluating assessment and responses. From a behavior, psychological, or any other social science stand point, the context in which the assessment takes place, as well as the context of the individual (variables) can fix the results. Thus, such information needs to be decoded by the researcher before proceeding in evaluating responses.
Stealth assessment does as it say, it's stealthy. It isn't an outright evaluation, rather is takes a more discrete approach, as it is "seamlessly woven into the fabric of the instructional environment to support learning of important content and key competencies" (Shute, 2011). Since it isn't a forthright examination, this aids in the reduction of text anxiety, "while not sacrificing validity and reliability". Key elements include: (Shute, 2011)
1) evidence-centered assessment design, which systematically analyzes the assessment argument concerning claims about the learner and the evidence that supports those claims
(2) formative assessment and feedback to support learning
3) provides the basis for instructional decisions, such as the delivery of tailored content to learners
4) Information is maintained within a learner model and may include cognitive as well as non cognitive information for a broader, richer profile.Â
What this type assessment also permits is the evaluation of learning wherein the learner is fostering their ability to think "creatively, critically, collaboratively, and systematically and then communicate effectively". Measuring for these experiences allows the researcher to determine if effective learning is happening. Such measurement of internal processing could not be conducted in multiple choice exams. Rather, I would theorize that such an examination could come from personal testimonies via journals, blogs, or the final product of a collaborative project, and even reflective or papers of analyses.Â
Darrell West notes that children today are receiving immediate feedback regarding their performance via quizzes or various similar assessments. This environment, West argues, is a much more productive environment for learning. This "data-driven approach" he explains, "make it possible to study learning in real-time and offer systematic feedback to students and teachers". Focusing on analytics, he continues, will help teachers understand what is being learned and what is not.
Clearly, West places an emphasis on real-time data, but his logic still fails to convince me that that approach is the most affective to students. Obviously, it cuts the teachers work in half, while simultaneously supplying data to researchers, but I can't help but think that there is a measure of human interaction lost with this approach. Is the student truly doing their best work via this method. Wouldn't this method create anxieties, since the student knows a quiz is following this reading, and that his teacher will see his 'mistakes'. I would almost theorize that if 12-year old Susan, is not retaining concepts, than isn't it the teachers job to address ways in which to help Susan? Switching from one method to another, and giving Susan prompts to visit websites to help her read more thoroughly, doesn't convince me that she is benefiting much from this empty instruction.
