Assessment Glossary

Increasing Student Success

Assessment

These glossary terms are primarily related to student and program assessment. Some related terms are located under the Program Management category. More comprehensive glossaries of terms can be found in the Greenwood Dictionary of Education (Collins & O’Brien, 2011) and the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (Newcomer, Hatry, & Wholey, 2015).

affective domain

1. Definition: “A part of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for student attitudes, values, and emotional growth. The affective domain includes five basic categories: receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterization by a value” (Dembo, 1994. p. G-1).

2. Compare with COGNITIVE DOMAIN and METACOGNITIVE DOMAIN.

alternate assessment

1. Definition: “Examination of student progress through direct observation of student performance and judgment of learning products through a collection of authentic sources such as behavior, student presentations, and work” (Collins & O’Brien, 2011, p. 18).

2. Compare with ASSESSMENT, DIFFERENTIATED PLACEMENT, DIRECTED SELF-PLACEMENT, PLACEMENT, and PLACEMENT TESTING.

assessment

1. Definitions: (a) “Process of applying systematic formal and informal measures and techniques to ascertain students’ current competencies and abilities; (b) Process of determining students’ strengths and weaknesses in cognitive and affective areas for the purpose of generalized placement; (c) Act of assessing, or taking a measurement by counting, rating, or estimating the amount of skill, ability, or knowledge of some element of an individual or a program); (d) ASSESSMENT should be as objective as possible (value-free), as opposed to EVALUATION, which suggests that value has been added. Assessment does not assume, in advance, what is good, worthwhile, or desirable. In analogy to science, assessment is observation. Although objectivity is always relative, it is important to separate the measurement from the interpretation of its meaning” (Collins & O’Brien, 2011, p. 36); and (e) “While ‘ASSESSMENT’ means “measurement,” the term is increasingly used in the higher education context to refer to a systematic cycle of collecting and reviewing information about student learning. The complete cycle involves: clearly stating expected goals for student learning, offering learning experiences, measuring the extent to which students have achieved expected goals, and using the evidence collected to improve teaching and learning” (Office of the Provost, n.d., para. 1).

2. Examples: College entrance examination scores, scores on pretests for all students enrolled in a course, and graduation rates for students in a particular academic degree program.

3. Compare with ALTERNATE ASSESSMENT, CAUSATION and CORRELATION, DIFFERENTIATED PLACEMENT, DIRECT SELF-PLACEMENT, EVALUATION, PLACEMENT TESTING, PROGRAM GOAL, PROGRAM OBJECTIVE, RESEARCH, and SYSTEMIC SELF-STUDY.

backwash

1. Definition: Describing the positive or negative impact that an assessment of a specific skill has on whether that skill has been acquired.

2. Examples: (a) Instructors organize their class learning activities directly to prepare for high-stakes tests that can impact funding for the school; and (b) Supplemental learning topics are ignored to permit more time for the instructor to teach to the test.

baseline

1. Definitions: (a) Natural occurrence of behavior before intervention; and (b) Data collected to establish a point of comparison between previous behavior and that which occurs after an intervention is introduced.

behavioral change

1. Definition: Difference in performance that is observable and documentable.

2. Examples: Course dropout rate, final course grade, and persistence toward graduation following an intervention activity.

3. Compare with ACADEMIC MENTORING, COURSE-BASED LEARNING ASSISTANCE, and TUTORING.

causation and correlation

1. Definitions: (a) CAUSATION occurs when one variable increases or decreases directly from another variable. This is difficult to establish with human subjects since other variables may have an influence. This is easier to establish under carefully monitored scientific studies that are replicated numerous times, and (b) CORRELATION suggests a high likelihood that two variables are associated. Studies may report the likelihood of this relationship by establishing the percentage of chance that some other variable might explain the results.

2. Examples: (a) Carefully designed studies replicated many times established the CAUSATION of cigarette smoking to various medical conditions including lung cancer; and (b) Attending a student-led study group results in a CORRELATION of higher course grades.

3. Compare with ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, FORMATIVE EVALUATION, and RESEARCH.

cognitive domain

1. Definition: “A part of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Bloom divides the objectives in the cognitive domain into six categories: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation” (Dembo, 1994, p. G-2).

2. Compare with AFFECTIVE DOMAIN, ASSESSMENT, and DIAGNOSIS.

cohort

1. Definitions: (a) Specific subpopulation or a subset of the entire student body studied over a period through the examination of their attitudes, behaviors, or scores on assessment instruments; and (b) Group of students who are a subset of the entire student body.

2. Examples: entering first-year COHORT of students at a college or university; subpopulation of students such as student-athletes, fraternities and sororities, or students over the age of 25.

college and career readiness

1. Definitions: (a) Level of preparation at which a student possesses the content knowledge, strategies, skills, and techniques necessary to be successful in any of a range of postsecondary settings (Collins, 2007; Conley, 2012); and (b) COLLEGE READINESS and CAREER READINESS are relative terms because they are dependent upon a particular institution, specific degree program within that institution, and a particular instructor teaching a course within a degree program.

2. Compare with COLLEGE-LEVEL, DEVELOPMENTAL, and DEVELOPMENTAL-LEVEL COURSE.

criterion

1. Definitions: (a) Measurable objective that describes the characteristics of acceptable performance; and (b) Specific standard by which performance is evaluated.

2. Compare with PROGRAM GOAL, PROGRAM OBJECTIVE, MISSION STATEMENT, and VISION STATEMENT.

developmental profile

1. Definition: Description of an individual’s academic or cognitive competencies as measured by, for example, high school grades, standardized college entrance exams, interviews, and surveys.

diagnosis

1. Definitions: (a) Process of determining students’ specific strengths and weaknesses to create a prescription for treatment (Harris & Hodges, 1981); (b) Planning of instruction based on an evaluation ...