What is Assessment?

What is Assessment?

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).

In a nutshell, assessment answers three questions:

1. What are our learning expectations for students?
2. How well do students perform according to these expectations?
3. How can we improve students' learning so that they achieve the learning expectations?