Assessments in Education: 5 Types You Should Know

Assessments in education refer to collecting and analyzing information to understand and improve student learning. Tests, essays, speeches, and projects are common ways teachers assess students to understand what they know and can do.

Stakeholders in education can use well-designed assessments to adjust instructions or teaching strategies and provide the right support for students. In addition, assessments affect several areas of education, including:

• Curriculum
• Instructional needs
• Student grade level
• Student placement and advancement
• School funding

Why Assessments Are Important

Assessments play a crucial role in education, providing valuable insights into students’ knowledge, skills, and learning progress. Using assessments, teachers can determine whether the learning objectives of the course ― what students should know or be able to do by the end of a class ― have been met.

Here are a few key reasons assessments are important:

• Helps student learning: Assessments help students determine whether they understand their course materials and what teachers teach.
• Motivates students: Assessment results help students identify areas of strength and weakness so they can do better.
• Improves teaching methods: Using assessments, teachers can readily gauge the effectiveness of their teaching methods and instructions and make adjustments where necessary.

The Purpose of Assessments

Here’s how The Edvocate, an educational advocacy and reform publication, summarizes the purpose of assessments in education: to gather students’ performance information to make judgments about their learning process.

While they may take different forms, assessments generally serve one of three purposes:

1. Assessment of learning: Determines whether students meet grade level standards through assessment processes like standardized tests, exams, and final projects.
2. Assessment for learning: Provides ongoing insights into students’ learning and enables teachers to adjust teaching strategies as they teach.
3. Assessment as learning: Actively encourages students’ involvement in learning by promoting problem-solving skills, goal-setting, and critical thinking.

Five Types of Assessments

Student shading answers with a pencil

Many recent studies, including this one, list formative, diagnostic, and summative assessments as the three basic kinds of assessments in education. In addition, several other assessment types serve various specific purposes and can inform instructional decisions. Here are five common assessment types and how they help students learn.

1. Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is an ongoing, interactive evaluation that gauges student learning throughout the instructional process. These assessments provide immediate feedback to teachers, allowing them to adjust teaching methodologies on the go to improve student learning.

Some examples of formative assessments include:

• Class discussions
• Group activities
• Quizzes
• Spontaneous question and answer sessions
• Periodic student feedback
• Homework

While these assessments can provide instant feedback and help students stay engaged, they can be time-consuming and subjective. To make this type of classroom assessment work, teachers should set clear expectations, create a supportive classroom, and use helpful technology tools.

2. Diagnostic Assessment

A diagnostic assessment is like a sneak peek before the learning process begins. Teachers can use these assessments at the beginning of a course or unit to assess students’ prior knowledge and skills. This way, they understand what students already know and where they might struggle, and then tailor instructions accordingly.

Examples of diagnostic assessments include:

• Pre-tests
• Concept maps
• Questionnaire, survey, or checklists
• Interviews
• Self-evaluation

A diagnostic assessment task is great for providing students with targeted help but may be time-consuming and require careful analysis. Teachers can use effective strategies to make the most of the results, such as grouping students based on their needs and designing individualized learning plans.

3. Summative Assessment

Summative assessments occur at the end of a unit, course, or academic period. These assessments measure students’ overall knowledge and understanding of a subject.

Common examples of summative assessments include:

• Final examinations
• Presentations
• Term papers
• Research projects

Teachers can use these assessments for accountability purposes and to comprehensively evaluate student performance. However, research shows that summative assessments may place undue stress on students and sometimes do not capture the complete picture of learning, especially if the assessments don’t follow best practices. To prepare students for summative assessments, teachers can provide study guides, review sessions, and practice tests.

4. Norm-Referenced Assessment

Norm-referenced assessments compare individual student performance to a larger group. These assessments determine how well a student performs relative to their peers. Since the student assessment typically reports scores in percentiles, norm-referenced assessments are useful for evaluating student performance in relation to a specific population or standard.

Some examples of norm-referenced assessments include:

• Benchmark assessments
• Standardized tests
• College entrance examinations
• Reading level assessments (for example, the Developmental Reading Assessment or the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System)

While these assessments can help teachers see how individual students are doing compared to others, they may not provide detailed insights into individual strengths and weaknesses. To make the most of this type of assessment, teachers can use the results to compare the average grade of their students against those in other classes or schools. This way, they can identify relative strengths and areas for improvement and make informed instructional decisions.

5. Ipsative Assessment

Ipsative assessments measure current student performance against previous results to track student achievement over time. These assessments often use a two-stage framework that allows students to retake exercises, student work, or tests, encouraging them to learn from their mistakes and do better with a second try.

With Ipsative assessments, students can track their individual development, and by prioritizing individual student progress over comparisons with others, the process fosters intrinsic motivation and goal-setting.

Some psychologists consider ipsative assessment as one of the most important types of assessment in education because it focuses on learning rather than meeting standards ― an important factor in helping students measure their own achievements, reflect on their development, and continuously strive for self-improvement.

Here are some ways teachers can incorporate Ipsative assessments into their classrooms:

• Project-based learning activities
• Comparing pre-test results with final exams
• Two-stage testing process
• Portfolios

Measuring Assessment Effectiveness in Education

Teacher invigilating students in an exam hall

It’s important to measure the effectiveness of assessments to ensure their validity and reliability. Think of this process as checking whether assessments are doing their job or fulfilling their purpose.

Some methods to measure assessment effectiveness include:

• Analyzing item difficulty and discrimination
• Conducting item analysis
• Comparing assessments to external benchmarks

A good practice is to look at the bigger picture when interpreting assessment results. Teachers should use multiple assessment data sources and consider contextual factors instead of relying on a single assessment or isolated scores to interpret results.

Well-designed assessments should:

• Provide feedback on students’ knowledge base
• Evaluate student progress
• Motivate performance for both students and teachers
• Help stakeholders in education set standards

Conclusion

One assessment type isn’t necessarily better than others ― they all have unique characteristics and serve different purposes in education. Formative assessments focus on monitoring and supporting learning in real-time, while summative assessments in education evaluate overall achievement.

Diagnostic assessments provide insights into prior knowledge, and norm-referenced assessments show students’ performance relative to their peers. Ipsative assessments help students identify improvement areas, motivating them to improve in subsequent tests or assignments and to set new goals.

When choosing the appropriate assessment type, a classroom teacher should consider the learning goals, instructional context, and students’ needs. Assessment tools like TestHound can helps those that administer tests be organized and prepared to give them, especially ensuring those with special needs have the resources they require.

If your school is interested in new ways to improve the learning experience for children, you may also be interested in automating tasks and streamlining processes so that your teachers have more time to teach. Education Advanced offers a large suite of tools that may be able to help. For example, four of our most popular and effective tools are:

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• TestHound, our test accommodation software, helps schools coordinate thousands of students across all state and local K-12 school assessments while taking into account dozens of accommodations (reading disabilities, physical disabilities, translations, etc.) for students.
• Pathways, our college and career readiness software, helps administrators and counselors create, track, and analyze graduation pathways to ensure secondary students are on track to graduate.
• Evaluation, our teacher evaluation software, documents every step of the staff evaluation process, including walk-throughs, self-evaluations, supporting evidence, reporting, and performance analytics.