Student Assessment

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The term assessment is in most cases met with a negative reaction from most people. And these is as a result of poor understanding of the meaning of assessment or because of a previous experience that had some impact on the person and some people simply take it in a dismissive way because assessment to them simply brings about a pass or fail situation if which no one likes to stall. Adrian Tennant, in his article “Assessment Matters” defines assessment as the process of giving a consideration to a person or something and thereafter developing an opinion about them. He categorizes assessment into two namely; activity assessment which considers factors such as the ease or difficulty, the usefulness, the hardest part and if the person liked the assessment. The second type is self-assessment where someone analyses what they need to work on, their areas of improvement, what they have learnt among others. He further gives other ways through which assessments can be done, this include giving students homework, having them handle some projects and even involving them in class activities. There should also be flexibility in this assessment for example if in a year three assessments should be given to students, then they should have five assessments and let them know that out of the five given, the best performed three will be considered for their assessment. This will be a consideration of the fact that people have bad days sometimes thereby them another chance to give in their best and get what they deserve, furthermore it reduces the students fear of the assessment. Assessments should be done frequently and at every step of the learning exercise.

To begin with, Tennant’s article helps us understand what assessment really is. For instance he brings out the reasons why assessments are presumed in a negative manner yet it is an activity meant fir the greater good. He goes on to give an appropriate definition of assessment followed by the types of assessments and factors considered when carrying out each of the named assessment, this enables both the students and teachers to understand what is entailed in the assessment and how they can prepare for the assessment without having to worry about the difficulty or ease levels. Also, students’ fear of what they will achieve as the outcome is also catered for when Adrian speaks of flexibility and the number of times that assessments can be done. Furthermore, guidelines of how teachers can help their students to become comfortable with the assessment process and how they can be involved in the entire process are availed (Murillo and Hidalgo, 2020). He advises that assessment should be incorporated in the learning process so that students’ perception of the assessment shifts from thinking that the teacher only cares about the score to understanding that the teacher is concerned about the students’ problems in terms of their understanding of what they are taught.

Tennant brings out his opinion about assessment in a comprehensive manner. The article is detailed and very helpful and will for sure impact the understanding and insights of many who take assessments as an activity to see them fail. His introduction is catching and gives readers the idea being discussed in the article. The explanations are vivid, his ideas clearly elaborated and his content on the article very informative and resourceful. It makes the reader to understand what he is talking about and to in fact rethink about their stand on assessments.

Reference

Murillo, F. J., & Hidalgo, N. (2020). Fair student assessment: A phenomenographic study on teachers’ conceptions. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 65, 100860.