What is educational assessment and how is it used?

Educational assessment is the systematic process of documenting and evaluating empirical data regarding students' knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs. It helps refine educational programs and improve student learning through continuous feedback and measurement. Although often used interchangeably with testing, assessment encompasses a broader range of methods to determine learning outcomes across individual learners, institutions, or entire educational systems.

What we know

• Educational assessment is a systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. [1, 2]
• Assessment data can be obtained either by examining student work directly or by relying on data from which inferences about learning can be made. [2]
• The term assessment came into use in an educational context following the Second World War. [2]
• An examination or test is a form of educational assessment intended to measure a test-taker's knowledge, skill, aptitude, or physical fitness. [3]

Still open

• The final purpose of assessment practices may conflict when educational institutions use evaluation data to demonstrate effectiveness to funders and stakeholders versus individual educators using it to enhance learning.

Where to go next

• how it workedHow do examinations measure student knowledge?
• a case in pointWhat purpose do academic rubrics serve in grading?
• what followedHow does educational evaluation demonstrate institutional effectiveness?
• whenWhen did the concept of educational assessment emerge?
• what caused itHow do educational philosophy and accreditation affect test design?
• an unexpected connectionHow do non-profit testing organizations influence educational assessment?Organizations like the Educational Testing Service develop standardized tests such as the SAT on a large scale, yet they may not be directly involved in administering or proctoring them.

Sources

• [1]educational assessment (Wikidata Q2585724) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Educational assessment · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Exam · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Educational evaluation · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Rubric (academic) · CC BY-SA 4.0