Assessment vs. Evaluation

Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student 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.” (Angelo, 1995, p. 7).

Assessment	Evaluation
Formative: Ongoing to increase quality	Summative: at the end to judge quality
Process-Oriented: Provides feedback on how learning is going.	Product-Oriented: Measures the quality of what has been learnt at a particular moment.
Reflective: Involves internally defined criteria and goals.	Prescriptive: Compares learning outcomes with external standards/criteria.
Diagnostic: Aims at identifying areas of improvement.	Judgmental: Aims at providing an overall grade.
Flexible: Adjust as problems are clarified	Fixed: To reward success and punish failure
Absolute: Strive for ideal outcomes	Comparative: Makes a distinction between better and worse.
Cooperative: Learn from each other	Competitive: Beat each other out (pass or fail)