The Classroom as an Assessment Environment

Classroom Assessment

chapter one

The Classroom as an Assessment Environment

Classrooms are busy places. Every day in every classroom in every school, teachers make decisions about their pupils' behavior, the success of their instruction, and the climate of their classroom. To­day was a typical day in Ms. Lopez's classroom. In addition to meet­ing the school buses in the morning, readying the room for the day's activities, putting up the work schedule on the blackboard, re­viewing her lesson plans, taking attendance, distributing supplies, collecting money for a field trip, passing out new reading work­books, reminding pupils of next Saturday's school fair, monitoring the lunch room, and other similar clerical tasks, Ms. Lopez also did the following:

• Referred Aaron to the Special Education Department to be screened for poor gross motor skills

• Assigned grades to her pupils' science test on Chapter Two, "The Planets"

• Moved Jennifer from the middle to the high reading group

• Selected Martha, not Matt, to deliver a note to Mr. Henderson, the principal

• Decided on topics to cover in tomorrow's math lesson

• Recommended that Robert spend extra time this weekend review­ing the different parts of speech

• Completed the monthly school progress report on each pupil in the class

• Stopped the planned language lesson halfway through the period in order to review the previous day's lesson

• Placed pupils who were below the accepted cutoff score on the state-mandated basic skills test in a special remedial group

• Rearranged the class seating plan to separate Bill from Leroy and to move Monroe to the front of the room so he could see the blackboard better

• Called on Kim twice even though her hand was not raised

• Praised Anne for her B grade, but encouraged Greg to work harder to get better than a B on the next test

• Switched social studies instruction from discussion to seat work when the class became bored and unruly

• Previewed and selected a film strip on astronomy for next week's science unit

• Determined that she should construct her own test for the math unit on improper fractions rather than using the unit test pro­vided by the textbook publisher

• Sent Randy to the school nurse when he complained of a head­ache

• Corrected her pupils' projects for the unit on the three branches of American government

• Decided to spend an extra two days on the discussion of the Pres­idential election in social studies

• Judged that Rose's constant interruptions and speaking out in class warranted a note to her parents about the problem

• Assigned homework in science and social studies, but not in math and language

• Checked with the school counselor regarding possible reasons for Joshua's increasingly inattentive class behavior

• Paired Kim, a class isolate, with Mary, a class leader, for the group project in social studies

• Kept Ralph in from recess because he had been rude to a teacher before school

• Held a parent-teacher conference with Greg's parents in which she told them that Greg was a capable student who could produce better work than he had thus far

• Consulted last year's standardized test scores to determine whether the class needed a review of the basic rules of capitaliza­tion

Ms. Lopez's day in the classroom, like those of all teachers, was filled with situations in which she had to make a decision. Some of the decisions were about individual pupils and some were about the class as a whole. Some were about instructional matters, some about classroom climate, some about pupil personalities, and some about pupil learning. Some, like the decision to change Jennifer's reading group or refer Aaron for screening, are types of decisions that are made quite infrequently during the school year. Others, like plan­ning topics for instruction, calling on pupils during class, and as­signing grades to pupils, are done many times each day.

Each decision required Ms. Lopez to consider some evidence be­fore selecting a course of action. These decisions and the evidence they are based on represent the lifeblood on which classrooms func­tion. Without such decisions, life in classrooms cannot be carried on. In the aggregate, such decisions serve to establish, organize, and monitor classroom qualities such as tempo, interest, learning, cli­mate, social adjustment, and instructional momentum. Such deci­sion making is a necessary and ubiquitous aspect of life in all class­rooms.

Classroom decisions such as these should not be made in the abstract or based on the whim of the teacher. Each decision Ms. Lopez made was based on evidence, on various types of informa­tion that are collected in many different ways at many different times by all teachers. Teachers use this store of information about individual pupils and the class as a whole to guide their de­cision making.

Why, for example, did Ms. Lopez praise Anne for her B grade but encourage Greg, who attained the same grade, to do better next time? How did she know that the way to settle down her bored and unruly class was to switch from discussion to seat work, when there were many other things she might have done to settle the class? What made her decide to move Jennifer to the high reading group? Why did she think pairing Kim with Mary for the social studies project was better than pairing Kim with Martha, Rose, or Joshua? Why did she feel that spending two extra days discussing the Pres­idential election would be more useful than using the time to intro­duce some other topic? Why was Martha, but not Matt, trusted to deliver a note to the principal? All of these decisions were based upon information Ms. Lopez had gathered about her pupils, infor­mation that helped Ms. Lopez decide what course of action she ought to take when confronted by the need to make a decision. It is the process of gathering, evaluating, and using such information that this book is about.

The process of collecting, interpreting, and synthesizing infor­mation to aid in decision making is called assessment. For many peo­ple, the words "classroom assessment" evoke images of pupils tak­ing paper-and-pencil tests, teachers scoring them, and grades being assigned to the pupils based on their test performance. Assessment, however, means more than using formal, paper-and-pencil tests to gather information to grade pupils. While formal tests and mea­sures are important parts of assessment, the foregoing list of Ms. Lopez's decisions indicates that classroom assessment involves much more than administering tests for the purpose of assigning grades to pupils. "Assessment," as the term is used here, includes the full range of information teachers gather about their pupils, instruc­tion, and classroom climate. It also includes the full range of meth­ods teachers use to gather that information. It includes interpreting and synthesizing the information to help teachers understand their pupils, plan and monitor instruction, and establish a viable class­room culture. In this chapter we shall explore the assessment infor­mation teachers accumulate and the ways in which they accumulate that information. Succeeding chapters will describe the assessment process in more detail as it relates to various types of classroom de­cisions all teachers must make.

It is important to note that while the focus here is on assessment as carried out by classroom teachers, teacher-centered assessment is not the only type of assessment that goes on in classrooms. Just as teachers constantly assess their pupils, instruction, and classroom climate, so too do pupils constantly assess the teacher, instruction, and classroom climate. Just as teachers want to know whether pu­pils are motivated, hard-working, academically able, and adjusted to the culture of the classroom, so too do pupils want to know if the teacher is fair, gives hard tests, enforces rigid discipline, can be swayed by a "sob story," and likes them as individuals (Brophy and Good, 1974; Jackson, 1990). Pupils have their own ways of gather­ing information to help them make decisions about their teachers, many of which are similar to the ways teachers gather information about their pupils.

Even teacher-pupil and pupil-teacher assessment does not fully exhaust the assessment activities that characterize life in classrooms. Pupils are also being assessed constantly by their peers. The class­room is a public place, and it does not take most pupils long to learn where they stand in the teacher's pecking order or in the academic, athletic, social, and other pecking orders established by their peers (Jackson, 1990; Rist, 1970). Assessment that focuses on a pupil's personal qualities is as likely to come from classmates as from any­one else, and classroom friendships, cliques, and popularity are based heavily on these assessments. While these pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil assessments are interesting and extremely important in their own right (Good and Brophy, 1973), they are beyond the scope of this work. It is useful, however, to bear in mind the pervasiveness of classroom assessment and its consequences for both pupils and teachers. The following sections describe the many di­mensions of this important topic along with its associated vocab­ulary.

PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT

Teachers assess for a variety of purposes because they are required to make a broad range of decisions in their classrooms. Consider the range of decisions Ms. Lopez was called upon to make in just one school day. Some of these decisions were about the scholastic characteristics of her pupils, while others were about their personal and social characteristics. Some decisions were about instructional progress, and others were about institutional adjustment and be­havior. If we look over the decisions Ms. Lopez made, their varied purposes become apparent.

Many of her decisions have to do with diagnosis of problems. Teachers are constantly on the lookout for pupils who are having learning, emotional, or social problems in the classroom. Teachers try to identify these problems, document their frequency, under­stand their basis, and select remedial activities. Sometimes the teacher can carry out the remedial activities needed, but at other times the pupil must be referred for more specialized diagnosis and remediation outside the classroom. Thus, Ms. Lopez set up her own in-class group for basic skills remediation, but she recommended that Aaron be screened by a specialist for his apparent deficiency in gross motor skills. She reviewed last year's standardized test performance to determine whether her pupils had a special need for remedial work in capitalization, but she also checked with the school counselor about possible reasons for Joshua's inattentive-ness. Much of the assessment data teachers gather is used to identify, understand, and remediate pupils' problems and learn­ing difficulties.

A number of Ms. Lopez's decisions had to do with assigning grades or making judgments about pupils' academic performance. Thus, she assigned grades to her pupils' Chapter Two science tests, completed a monthly progress report on each pupil, decided to construct her own test for the math unit rather than to use the test provided by the textbook publisher, corrected pupil projects on the American government unit, and conducted a parent-teacher con­ference with Greg's parents. Although the nature of the grading system can vary from school to school, it is also true that all schools require classroom teachers to judge and grade the academic perfor­mance of their pupils. Much of a teacher's time is spent collecting information that will be used to grade pupils or provide informa­tion about their academic progress.

Another main reason for collecting assessment information is to provide feedback and incentives to motivate pupils. For example, Ms. Lopez praised Anne for attaining a B grade but suggested that Greg could work harder and do better in the future, even though he also received a B grade. Similarly, Ms. Lopez used assessment information about Robert's performance in language to suggest that he study the parts of speech over the weekend. In both of these cases, information about academic performance was used to pro­vide feedback to pupils about their performance and, in Greg's case, provide incentive for improving his performance.

Most classroom teachers must make decisions about the placement of pupils in their class. Whenever a teacher divides pupils into sub­groups such as reading groups, math groups, or study groups, as­sessment for placement purposes is being carried out. Ms. Lopez made a placement decision when she moved Jennifer from the mid­dle to the high reading group. She made another placement deci­sion when she identified pupils who were below the cutoff score on the state-mandated basic skills test and placed them in a remedial group. When she paired Kim (the class isolate) with Mary in the so­cial studies group, she made still another placement decision. Note that Ms. Lopez's placement decisions were made for both academic and social reasons.

Many of the decisions that Ms. Lopez made concerned the plan­ning and conducting of instruction in the classroom. This fact should not be surprising, since the major activity that takes place in classrooms is instruction. The instructional decisions that Ms. Lopez made can be divided into two types: instructional planning deci­sions and instructional process decisions. When Ms. Lopez selected the topics to be included in tomorrow's math lesson, previewed and selected the astronomy film strip for next week's science unit, de­cided to spend two extra days discussing the Presidential election, and assigned homework in some subjects but not others, she was making planning decisions that would help her carry out instruc­tion in the future; she was planning future instructional activities. The process of carrying out instruction with the class also requires constant assessment and decision making regarding how well the lesson is progressing. At two points during the day, Ms. Lopez al­tered her instruction in the middle of the lesson because her pupils were confused and unruly. Once she stopped her language lesson to review the prior day's lesson because pupil responses to her ques­tions indicated that the class did not understand the content of yes­terday's language lesson. Another time she switched her method of instruction from discussion to seat work when the students became silly and unruly. A great deal of a teacher's assessment activities are focused on planning and carrying out instruction so that teaching will be appropriate to the needs and capabilities of the pupils.

A final, often overlooked purpose for assessment is to establish and maintain the social equilibrium of the classroom. Classrooms are complex social settings where people interact with one another in a multitude of ways. For classrooms to become positive social and learning environments, order, discipline, and cooperation must be present. The tasks of promoting learning and maintaining order are closely related; some amount of orderliness is needed for viable instruction to occur. Consequently, many of the teacher's decisions are concerned with establishing and maintaining the classroom as a viable and stable social setting. When Ms. Lopez selected Martha in­stead of Matt to deliver a note to the principal or changed the class seating plan to move Bill and Leroy farther apart, she was making decisions that related to classroom order and stability. The fact that she allowed Randy to go alone to the school nurse indicates her trust in him. On the other hand, Rose's constant interruptions and speaking out necessitated sending a note to her parents and Ralph's rudeness to a teacher led to his being denied a recess pe­riod. Finally, Ms. Lopez's effort to make Kim a part of the class­room society by calling on her even though her hand was not raised was another attempt to create and maintain a viable social and learning environment.

By viewing classrooms as social systems in which formal instruc­tion is only one of the activities taking place and by viewing teachers as assessors who use different kinds of information to make many kinds of decisions, it is possible to classify classroom assessment into three general types, each with its own schedule, procedures, and purposes (Airasian, 1989). Table 1.1 contrasts these three assess­ment types. Some assessment is concerned with teachers carrying out their official responsibilities as members of the school bureau­cracy. Such assessment can be termed official assessment. Decisions such as grading, grouping, measuring achievement, interpreting standardized test scores, meeting with parents, identifying pupils for special needs placement, and making promotion recommenda­tions are part of the official responsibilities a teacher assumes as an employee of a school system. Other assessments are used to plan and carry out instruction. Such assessments can be termed instruc­tional assessment and include decision making related to (1) plan­ning instruction (what will be taught, how and when it will be

8 CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

TABLE 1.1 COMPARISON OF THREE TYPES OF CLASSROOM ASSESSMENTS

Purpose Timing

Evidence-Gathering Method

Type of Evidence Gathered

Recordkeeping

Sizing Up

Provide teacher with a quick perception and practical knowledge of pupils' characteristics

During the first week or two of school

Largely informal observation

Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor

Information kept in teacher's mind; few written records

Instructional

Plan instructional activities and monitor the progress of instruction

Daily throughout the school year

Formal observation and pupil papers for planning; informal observation for monitoring

Largely cognitive and affective

Written lesson plans; monitoring information not written down

Official

Carry out the bureaucratic aspects of teaching such as grading, grouping, and placing

Periodically during the school year

Formal tests, papers, reports, quizzes, and assignments

Mainly cognitive

Formal records kept in teacher's mark book or school files

taught, and what materials will be used) and (2) carrying out in­struction (determining from minute to minute how the lesson is progressing and modifying planned activities accordingly). A third kind of assessment—termed sizing up assessment, or social assess­ment—is used to get to know pupils early in the school year so that a classroom society can be established. This kind of assessment is used by teachers to obtain a quick personality sketch of each pupil to enhance instruction and communication in the classroom. It is used to get knowledge about the characteristics of the particular group of pupils who make up the class to aid the teacher in day-to­day decision making.

Succeeding chapters will describe these three types of assessment in greater detail. At this point it is only necessary to know that as­sessment serves many purposes in classrooms. Some of these in­clude decisions about the academic progress or placement of pupils; others are concerned with planning and carrying out instruction; still others are intended to establish and help maintain the class­room as a stable, productive social setting.

BEHAVIOR DOMAINS ASSESSED

In addition to having different purposes, classroom assessments can also differ in the "domain" of pupil behavior they gather informa­tion about. All human behavior can be divided into one of three cat­egories called the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains.

The most commonly assessed behavior domain in schools is the cognitive domain. Cognitive behaviors include the full range of in­tellectual activities—for example, thinking, reasoning, memorizing, problem solving, analyzing, interpreting, applying, and reading with understanding. Virtually all the tests that pupils take in school are intended to measure cognitive behaviors. Most of the instruc­tion that is provided pupils is focused on helping them attain cog­nitive mastery of some content or subject area. A weekly spelling test, a unit test in history, a worksheet on proper use of "lie" and "lay," an essay on the theory of supply and demand, and an oral rec­itation of a memorized poem all require pupils to demonstrate cogni­tive behaviors. The Scholastic Aptitude Test, the American College Testing Program Test, the College Board Achievement Tests, state high school graduation tests, the written part of a state driver's test, an intelligence or mental ability test, and standardized achievement tests such as the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and the Stanford, Metropolitan, Science Research Associates, and California Achievement Tests are all intended to assess pupils' cognitive behaviors.

Ms. Lopez was relying primarily on cognitive information about her pupils when she made the following decisions: assigned grades to her pupils, moved Jennifer from the middle to the high reading group, planned instruction in math and science, suggested that Robert spend extra time reviewing the parts of speech, identified pupils for remedial work in basic skills, graded pupils' American government projects, and consulted last year's standardized test scores to find out whether she needed to review the rules of capi­talization for the class. In each case, the decision that Ms. Lopez sought and the information she gathered to help her make that de­cision involved an assessment of her pupils' thinking, reasoning, memory, or general intellectual behaviors.

The many behaviors in the cognitive domain have been orga­nized into categories. One organization is called the Taxonomy of Ed­ucational Objectives: Cognitive Domain (Bloom, Englehart, Fürst, Hill, and Krathwohl, 1956); it is most frequently referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy or the Cognitive Taxonomy. Bloom's Taxonomy is widely accepted and used in describing different types of cognitive behavior. Another cognitive taxonomy that is used in many class­rooms has been proposed by Quellmalz (1985).

A taxonomy is a system of classification. Bloom's cognitive taxon­omy is organized into six levels, with each level representing a more complex type of cognitive behavior. Starting with the simplest and moving to the most complex, the six levels are knowledge, compre­hension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The type of cognitive behavior exemplified by each level of the taxonomy is illustrated below.

1. Knowledge: Memorization behaviors such as memorizing for­mulas, poems, spelling words, state capitals

2. Comprehension: Understanding behaviors such as summarizing what one has read or explaining an idea in one's own words

3. Application: Behaviors such as using information to solve unfa­miliar problems; for example, predicting the outcome of actions

4. Analysis: Behaviors such as breaking a large body of information into smaller parts; for example, analyzing the tone, style, form, and meaning of a poem

5. Synthesis: Behaviors such as combining smaller bits of informa­tion into a generalization or conclusion; for example, formulat­ing a general principle based on a series of laboratory observa­tions

6. Evaluation: Behaviors such as judging the merit or worth of a person, object, or idea; for example, weighing the pros and cons of a course of action and deciding what to do

Quellmalz's taxonomy of cognitive behaviors includes five catego­ries: recall, analysis, comparison, inference, and evaluation.

A distinction is often made between higher and lower level cog­nitive behaviors. In general, any cognitive behavior that involves more than rote memorization is considered a higher level cognitive behavior. Thus, the knowledge level of the taxonomy represents lower level cognitive behaviors, and all succeeding levels represent higher level cognitive behaviors.

A second domain of behavior is the affective domain. Affective behaviors involve feelings, attitudes, preferences, values, and emo­tions. When we assess a person's interests, attitudes, preferences, emotional stability, motivation, trustworthiness, self-control, or per­sonality, we are assessing affective characteristics and behaviors. While such behaviors are rarely assessed formally in schools and classrooms, with the exception of an interest assessment that many school guidance programs administer to pupils in the eighth or ninth grade, affective behaviors are assessed informally by all teach­ers. It is important that teachers gather information about their pu­pils' affective behaviors and tendencies for many reasons.

THE CLASSROOM AS AN ASSESSMENT ENVIRONMENT

Teachers need to know who can be trusted to work unsupervised and who can't, who can be trusted to maintain self-control when the teacher has to leave the classroom and who can't, who needs to be encouraged to speak in class and who doesn't, who is interested in science but not in social studies, and who needs to be prodded to start classwork and who doesn't. Most classroom teachers can de­scribe such pupil characteristics, based primarily on their informal observations and interactions with the pupils rather than on the ad­ministration of formal, paper-and-pencil assessment instruments. From such informal assessments, teachers build up a store of infor­mation about each pupil's interests, motivation, values, work ethic, self-control, and personality.

Ms. Lopez was relying mainly upon her assessment of pupils' af­fective behaviors when she selected Martha, not Matt, to deliver a note to the principal and when she changed the class seating plan to separate Bill and Leroy, who were unable to control themselves when seated together. When she switched the social studies instruc­tion from discussion to seat work to avoid unruliness, decided to send a note home to Rose's parents about her interruptions in class, paired Kim with Mary in the hope of overcoming Kim's shyness and reticence, and kept Ralph in from recess for being rude to another teacher, she was also making decisions based on the affective behav­iors of her pupils. In each of these instances, Ms. Lopez's decision reflected her assessment of some affective characteristic of the class or individual pupils.

In contrast to the cognitive domain, there is no single, widely ac­cepted taxonomy of affective behaviors, although the taxonomy prepared by Krathwohl et al. (Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia, 1964) is the most commonly referred to and used. In general, it can be said that regardless of the particular levels or steps contained in any of the affective taxonomies, the organization of the taxonomies is based on the degree of a person's involvement in some activity or idea. Lower levels of affective taxonomies contain simple behaviors such as paying attention. Higher levels contain behaviors such as in­terest, commitment, or valuing, which represent a greater degree of affective involvement with an activity or idea.

A final domain of behavior is the psychomotor domain, which in­cludes behaviors of a physical and manipulative nature. Playing a sport, setting up laboratory equipment, building a bookcase, acting in a school play, typing, holding a pencil, buttoning a jacket, brush­ing teeth, and threading a needle are examples of activities that re­quire psychomotor behaviors. Although psychomotor behaviors are present and important at all levels of schooling, they are especially stressed in the early elementary grades where tasks like holding a pencil, opening a locker, and buttoning or zippering clothing are important behaviors to master. Similarly, with certain special needs populations, a major part of education involves so-called "self-help" skills such as getting dressed, attending to personal hygiene needs, and preparing food. A large proportion of "self-help" skills focus on psychomotor accomplishments.

There are a number of taxonomies of the psychomotor domain (Hannah and Michaels, 1977; Harrow, 1972). As with the affective domain, however, no single taxonomy is widely accepted or used by the majority of teachers and schools.

Ms. Lopez was concerned with her pupils' psychomotor behavior when she moved Monroe to the front of the room so that he could see the blackboard better, sent Randy to the school nurse because he felt ill, and referred Aaron to the special education department because he continued to exhibit poor gross motor skills. In each case, Ms. Lopez's decision was based on assessment evidence that pertained to some aspect of a pupil's physical or motor behavior.

METHODS OF COLLECTING ASSESSMENT INFORMATION

Teachers use two primary methods to gather information about their pupils, instruction, and classroom climate. The first method involves the use of paper-and-pencil evidence-gathering techniques and the second involves the use of observational evidence-gathering techniques. Each method is relied on heavily by teachers to help them obtain the assessment information they need to make class­room decisions.

The term paper-and-pencil techniques refers to assessment methods in which pupils write down their responses to questions or problems. It doesn't matter whether pupils use pencil, pen, crayon, or markers to record their answers, the technique is still referred to as paper-and-pencil assessment. When pupils take a test, complete a written homework assignment, turn in a written report, draw a pic­ture, or finish a worksheet, they are providing paper-and-pencil ev­idence to the teacher. The teacher reviews the test, homework, re­port, drawing, or worksheet to gather assessment information about each pupil's progress, learning, and misunderstandings, as well as the progress, learning, and misunderstandings of the class as a whole.

Paper-and-pencil evidence-gathering techniques are of two gen­eral forms: supply and selection. Supply, or production, techniques require the pupil to construct a response to a question. An essay question, for example, forces the pupil to produce a response in or­der to answer the question. A short answer or "fill-in-the-blank" question also requires the pupil to construct an answer. Book re­ports, journal entries, projects, and the like are all examples of supply-type paper-and-pencil evidence-gathering techniques.

Some paper-and-pencil procedures require the pupil to select the correct answer from a list of presented options. Multiple choice, true-false, and matching questions are called selection techniques because, as the name implies, the pupil responds to each question by selecting the answer from among a set of provided choices. No­tice that a selection-type question provides the maximum degree of control for the person who writes the question, since that person specifies both the question and the choices from which pupils must select their answers. In supply-type questions, the person who writes the question has control only over the question itself; respon­sibility for supplying a response to the question resides with the pu­pils answering the question. This difference has implications for constructing and scoring the two types of questions.

Observation is the second major evidence-gathering approach classroom teachers use to collect assessment data. As the term sug­gests, observation involves looking at or watching pupils carry out some activity. It also includes hearing pupils speak and discuss. When pupils mispronounce words in oral reading, interact in groups, speak out in class, bully other pupils, lose their concentra­tion, have puzzled looks on their faces, patiently wait their turn, raise their hands in class, dress shabbily, and fail to sit still for more than three minutes, teachers become aware of these behaviors through observation. Much of the information that is essential for minute-to-minute decision making in classrooms comes from teacher observation, not from paper-and-pencil assessments, which are time-consuming to administer and score.

Thus, Ms. Lopez observed that Monroe often squinted when she was writing on the blackboard and decided to move him closer to the front of the room so he could see the blackboard better. She noticed Randy with his head on his desk and a grimace on his face and sent him to the school nurse for examination. During the lan­guage lesson she saw blank looks on her pupils' faces and got no raised hands when she asked questions. This observation led her to stop and review the lesson from the previous day. Ms. Lopez ob­served Ralph being rude to another teacher, an action that earned Ralph no recess for a day. Each of these examples shows how teacher observation is used to obtain assessment data that lead to classroom decisions.

Almost all classrooms are set up so that teachers and pupils face one another. The teacher's desk faces the pupils' desks. During in­struction, the teacher faces the pupils, whether it is in large or small group instruction. This means that teachers spend a great deal of the school day observing pupils. Some of the teacher's observations are planned observations, as when pupils read aloud in reading group or present an oral report to the class. In such situations the teacher structures the classroom environment so that he or she can look for a particular set of behaviors the pupil is expected to dem­onstrate. For example, in reading aloud the teacher might be watching and listening for clear pronunciation of words, changing voice tone to emphasize important points, periodically looking up from the book while reading, and so forth. Because the observa­tion is planned, the teacher has time to identify in advance of the observation the particular behaviors the pupils will be expected to perform and set up the classroom to be certain those behaviors occur.

Other observations are unplanned, or informal, observations—as when the teacher sees Bill and Leroy talking while they should be working, notices the pained expression on a pupil's face when a classmate made fun of his clothes, or observes the pupils fidgeting and looking out the window during the science lesson. These unplanned observations prompt and inform questions such as "What do I do now?" or "Is everything going as I planned?" The teacher does not plan these observations in the same way that ob­servations of reading aloud or giving an oral report are planned. Unplanned observations make note of idiosyncratic, unsystematic happenings in the classroom which the teacher sees, mentally records, and interprets.

The fact that teachers and their classes are in a confined space, facing and interacting with one another for from one to six hours per day, means that the teacher is in a position to observe a great deal of pupils' behavior, appearance, and reactions. These observa­tions, both planned and unplanned, provide assessment informa­tion for classroom decisions that the teacher makes on a minute-to-minute basis.

Paper-and-pencil techniques and observation complement each other in the classroom. Try to imagine classroom decision making without any observational information about pupils' appearances, reactions, behavior, and interactions. Conversely, try to imagine what it would be like if no paper-and-pencil information about writ­ten expression, logical organization, or content mastery were per­missible. Both types of information are needed to carry out mean­ingful assessment in classrooms, so a teacher's mastery of both evidence-gathering approaches is important.

Although paper-and-pencil and observational techniques are the primary methods by which teachers gather classroom assessment data, supplementary methods are also available to them. Helpful in­formation can be obtained from the pupils' prior teachers, school nurses, and parents. Teachers routinely consult previous teachers to corroborate or reinforce current observations. Parents frequently volunteer information and respond to teacher queries. While use-

THE CLASSROOM AS AN ASSESSMENT ENVIRONMENT 15

ful, each of these supplementary sources of information has its lim­itations (discussed in Chapter Two), and should be treated with cau­tion when making decisions.

STANDARDIZED AND UNSTANDARDIZED ASSESSMENTS

Some of the information teachers collect and use in their classrooms comes from assessment procedures that are standardized, and some comes from assessment procedures that are unstandardized. "Stan­dardized" refers to the extent to which an assessment procedure is administered, scored, and interpreted in the same way for different test takers at different times and in different places. A standardized assessment is designed to be given in different places and at differ­ent times, but always under identical conditions of administration, scoring, and interpretation. The main reason for standardizing as­sessment procedures is so that scores can be compared across pupils and groups without the conditions of administration, scoring, and interpretation distorting the comparison.

The Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing Program Test are examples of standardized tests. On a Saturday in early December, high school pupils across the nation take the SATs. Regardless of whether a pupil is taking the SAT in a school cafete­ria in Sacramento, California, an auditorium in Abilene, Texas, or a classroom in Albany, New York, that pupil will be administered the same test, under the same conditions, with the same directions, in the same amount of time as all other students who are taking the test at that time. Further, the results of the test will be scored and interpreted the same way for all test takers.

Most standardized tests are constructed by companies or organi­zations outside of local school systems, who consult with test special­ists, curriculum experts, and teachers in developing their tests. When Ms. Lopez identified pupils below the cutoff score on the state-mandated basic skills test for remedial work and consulted the previous year's standardized test scores to determine if the class needed a review of capitalization rules, she was examining informa­tion from standardized assessment instruments. Regardless of what pupil in the state or nation took the test, it was administered, scored, and interpreted in the same way.

Standardized assessment procedures require precise and detailed
information about how the procedure is to be administered, how
much time pupils can spend on it, what pupils are to be told before
administration begins, and other such details. Usually, the administrator is given a script to read to pupils ("Good morning. Today you
will take the________ Test. Do not open your booklet until I tell you to do so."). The same script, time limits, and procedures are used wherever and whenever the procedure is given.

Few teacher-made assessment instruments are standardized. Most are constructed for personal use and reflect the particular in­struction provided in a given classroom. Teachers select the type and the level of difficulty of their questions to match their pupils. The information from the assessment is used to determine the per­formance of pupils in that one class, and there is no intent or desire to administer the same test to pupils in other classes for compara­tive purposes. Essentially, teacher-made assessment instruments are intended for one-time use with a single group of pupils at a single point in time.

When Ms. Lopez assigned grades to her pupils based on her Chapter Two science test and decided to construct her own test for the math unit, she was relying upon assessment information that was unstandardized. Many of Ms. Lopez's unplanned observations of her students' behavior can also be classified as unstandardized as­sessments. These fleeting, infrequently occurring, unpredictable, seldom repeated classroom observations represent a rich and im­portant, though unstandardized, form of assessment data. Teachers use these idiosyncratic observations to make decisions about indi­vidual pupils and the class as a group.

It is important to note that standardized assessments are not nec­essarily better than unstandardized ones. As explained above, stan­dardization is important when one desires to make comparisons be­tween pupils in different classrooms at different times. If comparison beyond a single classroom is not desired, a standardized assessment procedure is not needed. Standardization has to do with the type of comparison one wishes to make—i.e., either within (unstandardized) or beyond (standardized) a single classroom—and the rigidity of administrative conditions that flow from the desired comparison. As we shall see, the quality of most assessment devices depends more heavily on other important characteristics, such as the suitability of the questions, than on their degree of standard­ization.

INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP ASSESSMENTS

Some assessment procedures are intended to be administered to one person at a time, and others are intended to be administered to a group of pupils simultaneously. The former are called individu­ally administered assessments and the latter group-administered as­sessments. The distinction between the two is determined by whether information is obtained from pupils one at a time or from a group of pupils concurrently.

Individually administered assessment information is collected ei­ther under formal conditions or from teacher observation and in­teraction with a single pupil. Standardized tests like the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Terman and Merrill, 1973) or the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (Wechsler, 1974), two commonly used school ability tests, are given under controlled conditions to one pupil at a time. As with most individually admin­istered assessments, they are given orally and require that the ex­aminer pay constant attention to the examinee, since how the ex­aminee interacts with and responds to the examiner provides information just as important as the score he or she attains.

One major advantage of individually administered assessments is that the examiner acquires information that is richer than that ac­quired in a group-administered setting. In the one-on-one assess­ment situation, opportunities for clinical observation are many, and the administrator observes the examinee's attention span, spoken and receptive language, speech, frustration level, and problem-solving strategy, as well as the specific answers the examinee pro­vides. The administrator also has the chance to follow up on an ex­aminee's response in order to clarify or comprehend it more completely. Most standardized, individually administered assess­ment devices require that the administrator have a great deal of training and experience. Some individually administered instru­ments, including the Stanford-Binet and the WISC, can be given only by persons who have been trained and certified to give the test.

While a classroom teacher's informal observation and interaction with pupils is less structured than the formal assessment procedures just described, it is clear that teachers do focus on and assess their pupils as individuals. When Ms. Lopez moved Jennifer to the high reading group, she did so on the basis of assessment data she had gathered about Jennifer's reading performance. When Ms. Lopez selected Martha, not Matt, to deliver a note, she did so because her assessment of Martha's personal qualities indicated that she was a responsible pupil who could be relied on to carry out a task. Keep­ing Ralph after school was based on an informal, unplanned obser­vation of Ralph's lunchroom behavior. Finally, when Ms. Lopez sat down with Greg's parents at a parent-teacher conference, much of the information she conveyed was based on her assessment of Greg as an individual.

Group-administered assessments, whether standardized or not, are more efficient to administer than individually administered ones. In the same amount of time it takes to gather information from one student, group-administered procedures gather informa­tion about a whole class. The cost of this efficiency is the loss of rap­port, insight, and knowledge about each examinee that is present in the individually administered assessment environment and interac­tion. Virtually all group-administered assessments involve paper-and-pencil tests that permit many pupils to work simultaneously on a task. When the task to be assessed involves oral reading, giving a speech, assembling equipment, or some other performance, group-administered procedures are not useful.

Informal group assessment occurs often in the classroom, prima­rily through teacher observation. Thus, when Ms. Lopez watched the class become silly and unruly during the social studies lesson, she was performing group assessment. Similarly, when her pupils had difficulty answering her questions during the language lesson, she stopped what she was doing to review the previous day's lesson. This is another example of informal, group-based assessment.

In summary, assessments vary according to their purpose, the type of behavior they are intended to assess, the method by which information is collected, the degree to which the procedure is stan­dardized, and whether they involve individual or group administra­tion. While other variables will be considered in succeeding chap­ters, those we have already discussed permit us to describe the characteristics of different assessment techniques. For example, a test such as the SAT or the ACT can be described as a standardized, group-administered, paper-and-pencil cognitive assessment. An as­sessment intended to determine how well a student can shoot free throws, use a hand saw, or assemble laboratory apparatus can be de­scribed as a standardized, individually administered, psychomotor performance assessment. Most teacher-constructed classroom tests are unstandardized, group-administered, paper-and-pencil cogni­tive assessments. Finally, teacher's judgments about a pupil's ability to get along with his or her classmates in social situations would likely be based on unstandardized, individual, affective perfor­mance assessments.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ASSESSMENT

Assessment is the process of gathering, interpreting, and synthesiz­ing information to aid decision making in the classroom. Like Ms. Lopez, all teachers collect information to help them make decisions about their pupils' learning, the success of their instruction, and the social climate of their classroom. Likewise, all teachers have avail­able to them a multitude of assessment information: formal and in­formal; written and observational; cognitive, affective, and psycho­motor. Whether such information will help teachers to make good decisions depends on whether the assessment information itself is good. What then are the characteristics of good assessment infor­mation?

The purpose of gathering assessment information is to help

teachers make decisions in the classroom; assessment is not an end in itself, but a means to another end, namely, good decision mak­ing. In simple terms, then, good assessment information is any in­formation that helps teachers to make correct decisions in their classrooms.

The following situation is an example of the general process teachers follow to gather assessment information. The situation also illustrates the problem of trying to determine the adequacy of the assessment information gathered. Mr. Ferris has just finished a three-week math unit on computing long division problems with re­mainders. During the unit he has taught his pupils the computa­tional steps involved in doing long division problems and the con­cept of a remainder. He has given homework, reviewed both homework problems and examples from the text, and administered a few quizzes. Now, at the end of the unit, Mr. Ferris, wants to gather assessment information to find out whether his pupils have learned to do computational problems involving long division with remainders. He wants to gather this information to help him make a decision about each pupil's learning so that he can assign a unit grade to each pupil.

To gather the information needed, Mr. Ferris, like most other teachers, decided to give a test that includes problems similar to those he had been teaching. Having decided on the general nature of the test, he then had to decide upon the particular test questions to be included in the test. From the millions of possible test items involving long division computations with remainders, Mr. Ferris fi­nally selected ten items that were similar in difficulty and format to the ones he had been teaching in class. If he had picked ten items that were either harder or presented in a different format than those he had taught in class, the results of the test would not provide good information about classroom learning, which is what he wanted to gather information about. In that case, Mr. Ferris would have been assigning grades based on factors influenced primarily by nonclassroom learning.

Mr. Ferris recognized this potential pitfall and avoided it by se­lecting ten items that were similar in difficulty and format to the items taught and practiced in his classroom. He wrote the items, as­sembled them into a test, administered the test during one class pe­riod, and scored the tests on a scale of 0 to 100. Mr. Ferris then had the assessment information he needed to make a decision about each pupil's grade. Notice that the assessment information itself does not make the decision. Mr. Ferris has to interpret the assess­ment information and make the decision about each pupil's grade himself.

Greg and Lynn each got a score of 100 on the test and received an A grade for the unit, whereas Stuart scored 30 and received a D grade. The grades were based on Mr. Ferris's judgment and inter­pretation of the assessment information provided by the ten-item test. If one were to ask Mr. Ferris what Greg's and Lynn's A grades meant or represented, he would likely say that "Greg and Lynn can do long division with remainder computational items very well." He would also likely say that Stuart's D is "indicative of the fact that he cannot do such items well."

In making these statements, Mr. Ferris illustrates the relationship between assessment data and the resulting decisions. Consider care­fully how Mr. Ferris described the performance of Greg, Lynn, and Stuart. He said Greg and Lynn "can do long division with remain­der computational items very well." He did not say, "Greg and Lynn can calculate the correct answer to the ten items I included on my test." He described their performance in general terms rather than in terms of this one ten-item test. Similarly, Stuart was judged in general rather than test-specific terms.

The logic that Mr. Ferris and all teachers use is that if a pupil can do well on selected test items, the pupil is likely to do well on similar items that were not included on the test or assessment. Similarly, if pupils do poorly on the ten test items, it is likely that they also would do poorly on similar, unasked items. Hence, when asked to describe the performance of Greg and Lynn, he indicated that they do long division with remainder problems very well.

Mr. Ferris's ten-item test illustrates a characteristic that is com­mon to virtually all classroom assessment, regardless of whether it is formal or informal, paper-and-pencil or observational, standard­ized or unstandardized, or cognitive, affective or psychomotor. As­sessment involves the process of gathering information about a sample of behavior or performance and using that sample to make a generalization about similar behavior or performance that wasn't directly observed.

The essence of classroom assessment is to look at some of a pupil's behavior and use that information to make a generalization about similar situations and behavior that were not observed. Mr. Ferris used performance on ten test items to make a generalization about his pupils' performance on the millions of similar items he did not include on his test. Likewise, teachers often form lasting impres­sions of their pupils' personalities or motivation from a few brief observations made in the first week of school. They observe a small sample of the pupils' behavior and on the basis of this sample make general statements such as, "He is unmotivated," "She is a trouble­maker," and "They are socially immature." These are generaliza­tions about pupils' noncognitive behavior that teachers routinely make using informal assessment information that includes only a small sample of the pupils' school behavior.

Decisions are typically based on assessment information that con­tains only a small portion of relevant behavior. What if that sample is incomplete or atypical? What if the pupil had an "off day" or the teacher's impatience did not permit a pupil to show his or her "true" performance? If these things happen, then the decision made about the pupil is likely to be wrong and probably unfair.

To summarize, a key characteristic of good assessment informa­tion is that it allows the teacher to correctly make the decision he or she wants to make. This characteristic of assessment information is called validity, and it is the most important characteristic that assess­ment information can possess (Messick, 1989). "Validity" refers to the extent to which the assessment information permits teachers to make appropriate generalizations and decisions about pupil behav­ior or performance. Without validity, the assessment data will not lead to correct decisions. When we ask the question, "Will this as­sessment procedure gather appropriate evidence and permit me to make the generalization about pupil behavior I wish to make?", we are asking about the validity of assessment.

We shall have more to say about validity throughout this text. At this point it is sufficient to say three things about the validity of as­sessment information. First, validity is concerned with the extent to which a small sample of performance permits one to generalize about pupil behavior in similar, nonassessed situations. Second, va­lidity is the most important property assessment information can possess. Without validity, the assessment information is of no use. Third, validity concerns are pertinent to all classroom assessment, not just to those involving formal, paper-and-pencil techniques. Each of the many decisions Ms. Lopez made during the school day was based on some type of assessment information. It is appropriate and necessary to ask about the validity of the assessment informa­tion behind each of Ms. Lopez's many daily decisions.

A second important characteristic of good assessment informa­tion is its consistency, or reliability. Would the assessment results for this person or class be similar if they were gathered at some other time or under different circumstances? If you weighed yourself on a scale, got off it, and then got back on it and weighed yourself again, you would expect the two weights to agree quite closely. If they didn't, you wouldn't make a decision based on the results. In fact, if the weights were very different, you wouldn't know which to believe as a basis for making a decision. If an assessment approach does not produce consistent information, the teacher would want to exercise caution in using the information to make a decision about a pupil or the class.

Essentially, reliability is concerned with the consistency of assess­ment information. Think of a friend whom you consider to be in­consistent. He or she is sometimes punctual and sometimes late. When this friend tells you something or promises to do something, you cannot rely on what they say. A person who is inconsistent is unreliable. It is the same with assessment information: inconsistent information is unreliable; it cannot be trusted. Unreliable informa­tion does not help teachers make good decisions.

Recall that Ms. Lopez observed Rose's class interruptions and Joshua's inattentive behaviors over a period of time before deciding to take action. She did this to be sure that she was observing stable, consistent behavior. Did Rose and Joshua behave the same way at different times and under different circumstances? By observing them over a period of time, Ms. Lopez could have faith in the reli­ability of her observations.

Since any single assessment provides only a limited sample of a pupil's behavior, no single assessment procedure or instrument can be expected to provide perfect, error-free information. All assess­ment information contains some error or inconsistency due to fac­tors such as ambiguous test items, interruptions during testing, dif­ferences in pupils' attention span, clarity of directions, pupils' luck in guessing, misinterpretations by teachers, mistakes in scoring, and obtaining too small a sample of behavior to permit the pupil to show consistent, stable performance. These and other factors (Frisbie, 1988; Gronlund, 1985) conspire to introduce some amount of inconsistency into all assessment information.

One of the purposes of this text is to indicate methods that can reduce the amount of unreliability in classroom assessment data. If a teacher cannot rely on the stability and consistency of the data gathered during the assessment process, the teacher must be care­ful not to base important decisions on the data. Thus, along with validity—which asks, "Am I gathering assessment information about the appropriate characteristic?"—the classroom teacher must also be concerned with reliability—which asks, "How consistent and trustworthy is the information I have obtained?"

Both validity and reliability are crucial characteristics of good as­sessment. Decisions based on assessment information lacking in va­lidity and reliability will be flawed. Note again the difference be­tween validity and reliability. Validity is concerned with whether or not the targeted characteristic is being assessed, while reliability is concerned with the consistency of assessment information gathered.

Consider the following assertion regarding the relationship be­tween validity and reliability: "Valid assessment is always reliable, but reliable assessment is not always valid." The first half of the statement is fairly straightforward. One cannot make valid decisions if the assessment data on which the decisions are based is not con­sistent. So, in order to have a valid assessment, one must have reli­able information.

As to the second part of the statement, imagine the following sce­nario. Suppose I ask a pupil in my class how many brothers and sis­ters he has. He tells me, and I ask him again. I repeat the question several times, and each time the pupil indicates the same number of brothers and sisters. I have assessed with consistency and stability; the assessment information I have gathered is reliable. Suppose, however, I use this information to make a decision about what read­ing group to place the pupil in; the more brothers and sisters a pu­pil has, the higher the placement. Since the number of brothers and sisters probably has no relation to a pupil's performance in reading, a decision based on this information, no matter how reliable it is, would not be valid. It is inappropriate to make a generalization about reading group placement from information about the num­ber of siblings a pupil has, even though the information itself is highly reliable. In short, assessments can be reliable, but not neces­sarily valid. Succeeding chapters will explore the relationship be­tween validity and reliability in greater detail and offer suggestions for improving the validity and reliability of classroom assessment.

ETHICAL ISSUES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Teaching is a profession and teachers are professionals. Like other professionals who have knowledge their clients do not have and whose actions and judgments can affect their clients in many ways, teachers are subject to ethical standards of conduct. The purposes of having such ethical standards are to protect clients and to remind the professional that with his or her authority and influence come responsibilities to the client. Many standards cut across all dimen­sions of teaching. For example, some ethical standards that must be applied to all teaching activities are: Treat and respond to each pu­pil as an individual; do not physically or psychologically abuse a pu­pil; provide the best instruction possible to all pupils. There are, however, some ethical responsibilities that are particularly impor­tant to assessment.

Teachers are in a position to obtain a great deal of information about their pupils' academic, personal, social, and family back­ground characteristics. More than just having access to such infor­mation, however, teachers use it to make decisions and judgments about pupils—decisions and judgments which can have important consequences for pupils. Pupils and parents trust teachers to be fair in carrying out these activities. For these reasons, there are teacher responsibilities that accompany their assessment activities. These re­sponsibilities involve both the collection and use of assessment in­formation. Thus, teachers have a responsibility to obtain appropri­ate and sufficient information about a pupil before making a decision about the pupil; each pupil should be given a fair chance to show what he or she can do using appropriate assessment proce­dures. Once assessment information is collected, teachers have a re­sponsibility to protect its privacy, recognize the limits of its use in decision making, and not use it to demean or ridicule a pupil.

Many ethical aspects of classroom assessment are considered in succeeding chapters. In preparation for what follows, it is impor­tant to remember that regardless of the nature of the assessment process or the type of decision it is intended to help make, there are ethical responsibilities regarding the collection and use of assess­ment information. Teachers are granted the right to assess and make decisions about their pupils. Many of these decisions can have important academic and personal consequences for pupils. So, along with the right to assess and judge, comes the responsibility to exercise that right with care and understanding. In classroom as­sessment this means collecting appropriate data and using it in ways that are not damaging to the pupil.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

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