Pedagogy, Andragogy and Assessment Questions and Answers

Answer: C

This is formative assessment.

Formative assessment takes place during teaching, to check and improve learning as it happens. Probing questions that clarify students' ideas and concepts in the course of a lesson are a typical formative technique.

Diagnostic assessment identifies specific learning difficulties, usually before or apart from instruction; predictive assessment forecasts future performance; and summative assessment judges learning at the end of a unit or course.

Answer: C

The statement that is not true is Develops poor guidelines and inadequate decision making.

A lesson plan does the opposite: it gives the teacher clear guidelines and supports sound decisions about content, method, time and teaching aids before the class begins.

The other statements are genuine advantages of lesson planning. It sets a definite objective for each session, links each lesson to the ones before and after it, and provides a basis for evaluating whether the session achieved what it set out to do.

Answer: A

There is no freedom to the individual in directive counselling.

In directive (counsellor-centred) counselling, associated with E. G. Williamson, the counsellor collects data, diagnoses the problem, decides what should be done and advises the client, who is expected to follow. The counsellor is the expert, and the client has little freedom in the process.

Non-directive (client-centred) counselling, developed by Carl Rogers, gives the client the greatest freedom: the counsellor listens and reflects while the client finds his own solution. Group and individual counselling describe how many people are counselled, not how much freedom they have.

Answer: A

A cumulative record is a non-standardized tool of guidance.

A cumulative record is a file kept by the school for each pupil over the years, collecting information on attainment, attendance, health, family background, interests, activities and teachers' remarks. It is compiled by teachers from many sources and is not constructed, tried out and normed like a test, so it is classed with anecdotal records, rating scales and interviews among the non-standardized (non-testing) techniques.

Standardized tools are tests such as intelligence and aptitude tests with fixed procedures and norms. A cumulative record is not wholly objective, since it includes teachers' judgements, and 'appropriate' is not a category of guidance tool.

Answer: A

It is called placement.

Placement is the guidance service, and the personnel function, of fitting the right person to the right place: in a school, putting pupils into suitable courses, classes or activities; in employment, assigning a selected candidate to the job that best suits his abilities and interests. It follows selection and is itself followed by induction and follow-up.

Follow-up checks how the person is getting on after placement. Guidance is the whole process of helping individuals make choices, and counselling is the face-to-face helping relationship within it. Neither describes the act of putting a person in a place.

Answer: C

The method is Likert's method of summated rating.

Rensis Likert's method (1932) asks respondents to rate each statement on a scale, usually from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and adds the item scores to give the attitude score. It needs no panel of judges, takes less time and work to construct, and yet gives reliability as good as or better than the Thurstone scales, which is why it became the most widely used method.

Thurstone's paired comparison and Thurstone and Chave's equal-appearing intervals need many judges to scale the statements, which is laborious. Guttman's scalogram requires building a cumulative scale, which is also demanding.

Answer: C

The weakness is in the criterion of usability.

Usability (practicability) concerns how practical a test is to use: ease of administration, ease and objectivity of scoring, ease of interpretation and application of the results, time and cost. A test whose results are hard to interpret causes exactly the difficulty Sandeep faced, however good the test is in other respects.

Validity is whether the test measures what it claims to, adequacy whether it samples the content sufficiently, and discrimination power whether its items distinguish good from weak candidates. None of them is about difficulty of interpretation.

Answer: A

We have to use a criterion-referenced test.

A criterion-referenced test interprets a candidate's performance against a fixed standard of mastery, for example whether he can perform the specified tasks of the job to the required level. Eligibility for a specific job depends on whether the person meets the standard, not on how he compares with others, so this type of test is the right one.

A norm-referenced test ranks a person against a norm group. An achievement test measures what has been learnt in a course, and a diagnostic test identifies specific learning difficulties. None directly answers whether a candidate meets a job's requirements.

Answer: C

The technique is flip methodology.

In the flipped classroom, students study the new content on their own before class, through videos, readings or online material, and class time is used for discussion, problem solving and application with the teacher's guidance. The responsibility for first learning the material is rolled over to the students, who then take an active part in the class.

Role play, peer teaching and brainstorming are all active techniques, but each is a single activity used within a lesson. None of them reorganises the teaching process so as to shift responsibility for learning to the student in the way flipping does.

Answer: A

The process is reflective teaching.

Reflective teaching, building on the ideas of John Dewey and Donald Schon, is the practice of looking back at one's own teaching: what happened, why it worked or failed, and how it could be done better. Teachers collect information about their lessons through journals, peer observation or student feedback, analyse it and change their practice. That is exactly the cycle the question describes.

Resourceful teaching and creative teaching describe inventiveness in using materials or methods, not systematic self-review. Flipped teaching reorganises where content is learned and has nothing to do with the teacher's reflection on practice.