As accrediting agencies(including education) have become increasingly interested in improvement, it has become imperative to have a word that describes feedback for improvement that is distinct from one that describes the determination of quality.

Therefore, there is a need to understand assessment as one of the most important tasks of teachers as they help improve learner performance.

• Teachers are responsible for many different practices in schools.

• Learners must be given opportunities to show teachers what they know and what they can do.

• Assessment is thus seen as one of every teacher’s essential responsibilities.

• Teachers use two distinct processes to help learners build lifelong learning skills

• These are: assessment and evaluation.

• Literature of the last several years show that assessment has usually been used to indicate that at least some hint of improvement is expected in the assessment process

(Bordon & Owens, 2001; Palomba & Banta, 1999).

• Similarly, evaluation is usually used to indicate that some sort of judgement of quality will be made.

• Assessment is the term used to look at how the level of quality of a performance or outcome could be improved in the future; it includes strengths that should be sustained as well as high priority areas for improvement.

• The assessment process is not concerned with the level of quality; only with how to improve the level of quality. • Evaluation is the term used to describe

the determination of the level of quality. • The evaluation process focuses only on

the actual level of quality with no interest in why that level was attained.

• Assessment provides feedback on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and work products to enhance future performances and learning outcomes. • These two processes are complementary

and necessary in education. • And the two processes are of

improvement and judgement.

•There is no language indicating the level of quality, such as “good,”“terrible,” “terrific,” or “horrible.”• Conversely, in the evaluative report, only information regarding the actual quality of the performance is given. •This might be in the form of a grade or a score or an evaluative comment, such as “good work.” •The purpose of the evaluative report is toreport the level of quality and possibly any consequences based on the determined level of quality. •It is not used to suggest improvements in future performances.

Assessment and evaluation both have their purposes, and, when used correctly, both can add significant value to teaching/learning.Important Distinctions Between Assessment and Evaluation/Comparison of Assessment and EvaluationEvaluation determines whether a standard was met Assessment provides feedback on performance; strengths, success or failure, areas for improvement, and insights

Assessment:

•The process of collecting, creating and interpreting information to aid in decision making.•It is the systematic collection , review , and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development (Palomba & Banta). 

•It requires the gathering of evidence of learner performance over a period of time to measure learning and understanding. •Evidence of learning could take the form of dialogue, journals, written work, portfolios, tests along with many other learning tasks.

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•Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving learning. •It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance. 

What do the educational experiences of our learners/students add up to?

Can our learners/students integrate learning from individual courses into a coherent whole? Do our learners/students have the knowledge, skills, and values a graduate should possess?

How can learner/student learning be improved?  

Evaluation

•The process of judging the quality or value of a performance or a course of action, such as the quality of a learner’s/student’s essay as a result of assessment.

•A value judgment about the results of data collected on student learning

• It occurs when a mark is assigned after the completion of a task, test, quiz, lesson or learning activity.

•A mark on a spelling test will determine if the child can spell the given words and would be seen as an evaluation.

. It requires that the instructor compare data collected on student performance to a pre-defined outcome expectation in order to determine what the student has learned and how well. 

Assessment: During a grade 1 lesson, in which a teacher is teaching the learners to identify square shapes, the teacher gathers information on whether learners can identify square shapes. Suppose the learners cannot identify square shapes….

Evaluation: The teacher judges that it is not good that the learners cannot identify square shapes in order to move on to the next objectives which are: to name the different shapes and to identify objects of the same shape.

Action: The teacher decides that re-teaching is necessary. Therefore, the teacher groups the learners in pairs and they practice drawing big and small squares, circles and triangles. The teacher then helps them to learn how to identify squares from among the other shapes.

Note: Without assessments it will be impossible to tell whether any learning has taken any place.

Key Attributes

•Although assessment and evaluation are used for different reasons, they do have some similar steps. Both:•involve specifying criteria to observe in a performance or outcome. • require the collection of data and other evidence by observing the performance or by looking at the outcome or product. • require a performer and a person who collects information about the performance

• In both cases a person (either evaluator or assessor) observes or collects evidence about a performance or outcome;

• another person performs or develops an outcome.

• Both processes also conclude with a report of the findings which include all the similarities and at least as many differences.

• The relationship between the people involved is different in the assessment and evaluation processes

• In both cases a person requests the process (either evaluation or assessment).

• In assessment, the locus of control rests with the performer; in evaluation, it rests with the observer.

• The report to the performer is also vastly different.

• In the assessment process, the reportincludes information about why the

performance was as strong as it was, and describes what could be done to improve future performances.

• In assessment, there is no mention of the actual quality of the performance; only how to make the next performance stronger

Conclusion.Conclusion.• Write a summary, using a table to show the

differences and similarities of assessment and evaluation