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This article was created by a professional writer and edited by experienced copy editors, both qualified members of the Demand Media Studios community. All articles go through an editorial process that includes subject matter guidelines, plagiarism review, fact-checking, and other steps in effort to provide reliable information. Articles by By JOHN S, eHow Contributor updated: January 13, 2011 An assessment is a diagnostic process that measures an individual's behaviors, motivators, attitudes and competencies. Assessment tools comprise various instruments and procedures. These tools are largely used in educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and in the corporate world too. The success of designing and developing assessment tools is brought about by using scientific methods to do so. Instructions 1 Develop assessment tools with the candidates to be assessed in mind . Different scenarios call for different tools and modes of evaluation. Ensure that the instruments and p...

You learned in the Theory of Reliability that it's not possible to calculate reliability exactly. Instead, we have to estimate reliability, and this is always an imperfect endeavor. Here, I want to introduce the major reliability estimators and talk about their strengths and weaknesses. There are four general classes of reliability estimates , each of which estimates reliability in a different way. They are: Inter-Rater or Inter-Observer Reliability Used to assess the degree to which different raters/observers give consistent estimates of the same phenomenon. Test-Retest Reliability Used to assess the consistency of a measure from one time to another. Parallel-Forms Reliability Used to assess the consistency of the results of two tests constructed in the same way from the same content domain. Internal Consistency Reliability Used to assess the consistency of results across items within a test. Let's discuss each of these in turn. Inter-Rater or Inter-Observer Reliability Whene...

Source : Macalester College Terms and Definitions Assessment Over the years, assessment has been used to describe either a process toward improvement, or a process toward accountability, sometimes both. At Macalester, our goal for assessment is the continual improvement in the quality of the curricular and co-curricular programming offered by the College to its students. Following are a few descriptions of assessment that we've found especially useful: "Assessment is the process of gathering and discussing information from multiple and diverse sources in order to develop a deep understanding of what students know, understand, and can do with their knowledge as a result of their educational experiences; the process culminates when assessment results are used to improve subsequent learning." (Huba and Freed p. 8) "…A systemic and systematic process of examining student work against our standards of judgment, it enables us to determine the fit between what we...

Source : American Public University System Assessment The systematic collection, review, and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development. (Palomba & Banta, 1999) An ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and 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) Benchmarking An actual measurement of group performance against an established standard at defined points along the path toward the standard. Subsequent measurements of group performance use the benchmarks to measure progress toward achievement. (New Horizons for Learning) Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives Si...