Evaluation Systems in Higher Education Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The feature not applicable to internal assessment is Use of only achievement tests.

Internal assessment is conducted by the teacher during the course. It integrates teaching with evaluation, is periodic and continuous, and tests a wide range of skills and abilities through assignments, seminars, projects, practicals, observation and class tests.

Relying only on achievement tests would reduce it to a series of examinations, which defeats its purpose of assessing all-round progress. The other three options describe its genuine features.

Answer: C

Going through notebooks and writing remarks is called evaluation.

Evaluation means judging the quality or worth of a learner's work against some standard and communicating that judgement. When a teacher reads the notebooks and writes remarks such as 'good', 'incomplete' or 'revise this sum', the teacher is passing a value judgement on the work, which is evaluation.

'Notebook checking' and 'daily remarks' merely describe the physical activity and are not terms of educational measurement. The key reserves 'assessment' for the wider, systematic gathering of information about learning (tests, observation, assignments), of which the remark is the evaluative end product.

Answer: A

Absolute and relative grading are types of indirect grading.

In direct grading, the examiner assigns a grade straight away, without first giving marks. In indirect grading, performance is first scored in marks and the marks are then converted into grades. The conversion can use fixed ranges of marks (absolute grading) or a candidate's position in the group's distribution (relative grading), so both are forms of indirect grading.

'Special' and 'standard' are not categories in this classification.

Answer: C

Summative evaluation takes place at the end.

Summative evaluation sums up achievement at the end of a course, programme or term, for example through a final examination or end-line survey, to judge how far the objectives were met.

Evaluation at the beginning is diagnostic or baseline, and evaluation during the programme or at regular intervals is formative, used to improve teaching or the programme while it is under way.

Answer: B

The psychomotor domain deals with practical skills.

Bloom and his colleagues classified educational objectives into three domains. The psychomotor domain covers physical and manual skills that combine mental and muscular activity, such as stitching, cooking, using equipment or demonstrating a technique.

Feelings, attitudes and values belong to the affective domain, while knowledge and intellectual abilities belong to the cognitive domain.

Answer: C

The learning process is monitored by formative evaluation.

Formative evaluation takes place during teaching, through questioning, class work, quizzes and observation, so that teacher and learner can see how learning is progressing and adjust it while there is still time.

Summative evaluation judges achievement at the end of a unit or course, placement evaluation decides where a learner should start, and diagnostic evaluation probes the causes of persistent difficulties rather than monitoring the whole process.

Answer: B

The appropriate tool is a diagnostic test.

A diagnostic test is designed to find out exactly where and why learners are going wrong: the specific concepts or skills they have not mastered and the errors they make. Its results guide remedial teaching.

An achievement test measures how much has been learnt, a standardised test compares performance against norms, and a post-test measures learning after instruction; none is designed to locate errors in the teaching-learning process.

Answer: C

The University's key gives Summative.

Summative evaluation is the evaluation made at the end of a unit, term or course to find how much of the content the student has learned and to grade or certify it. That is the sense in which the blank is read as a 'clear idea about understanding of particular content'.

Placement evaluation is made at the start to decide where a learner should begin, and diagnostic evaluation looks for the causes of repeated learning difficulties, so neither fits. Formative evaluation, made during teaching to give feedback, also tells the teacher about understanding of particular content, so a case can be made for it; the question keeps the end-of-instruction sense and the key is Summative.

Answer: A

Summative evaluation is judgemental in nature.

Summative evaluation comes at the end of a course or term and sums up what has been achieved, usually to award grades, certify or promote. Its purpose is to pass judgement on the final level of attainment.

'Developmental' describes formative evaluation, carried out during teaching to improve learning. 'Diagnostic' evaluation identifies specific learning difficulties and their causes, and placement evaluation is done at the start to decide where a learner should begin.

Answer: C

A good achievement test is reliable, giving the same result when repeated, objective, with scoring that does not depend on the examiner, and valid, measuring what it is meant to measure. Ambiguity is a fault in a test, because an item that can be read in more than one way makes the result unreliable. So ambiguity is the one that is not a characteristic of a good test. The answer is ambiguity.