Evaluating Student Performance

1
Evaluating Student Performance

• Adapted from
• Department of Agricultural and Extension
  Education
• North Carolina State University

2
What should Shellys grade be?

• Shelly Forshee is a senior in Horticulture II.
  Her SAE program consists of raising bedding
  plants for sale to home gardeners during the
  spring. She has constructed a small cold frame
  on one side of her home in order to produce the
  plants. This year, she sold 234 worth of
  bedding plants and has 72 in expenses. The
  total amount of hours worked on her SAE was 62
  hours. The previous year, her profits were
  approximately 200 and her total hours worked
  were 70. She has summarized her records, but
  turned her record book in a week late. Student
  SAE programs comprise a portion of their overall
  grade.

3
Considerations???

• Should the grade be based upon
• improvement over last year?
• hours worked or dollars earned?
• expectations of a senior agriculture student?
• how her SAE compared to other students in the
  course?
• fact that she had a SAE and kept records?

4
Types of Evaluation Items

• Regardless of the purpose of the evaluation there
  are two major types of evaluation criteria
• Objective--clearly correct and incorrect answers
• Subjective--accuracy of the answer depends upon
  the judgment of the evaluator.

5
Objective

• Multiple choice test items
• True-False test items
• Completion (fill-in-the-blank)
• Matching
• Label parts

6
Subjective Items

• Essay
• Projects
• Student reports/papers
• Some short answer questions are subjective

7
Reasons for Evaluating Students

• To help them improve formative evaluation
• To make a final judgment on their progress
  summative evaluation

8
Purposes of Grading

• Administrative functions
• Student functions
• Teacher functions
• Guidance functions
• Parent functions

Grades A B C
Vasa, S.F. Alternative Procedures for Grading
Handicapped Students in the Secondary Schools,
Education Unlimited
9
Administrative Functions

• to indicate whether a student has passed or
  failed
• to indicate whether a student should be promoted
• to be used by employers to evaluate prospective
  employees
• to transmit information to another school
  district
• to enable a course to be evaluated
• to give schools public accountability
• to provide the public with a guarantee of
  competence

10
Student Functions

• to give students a reward and sense of
  achievement
• to give students feedback on progress
• to motivate students
• to give students experience in competition
• to give students experience in real-life
  situations
• to prepare students for a stratified society
• to test performance in real life

11
Teacher Functions

• to evaluate students progress during the course
• to assess amount of effort put in by the student
• to give feedback on teaching
• to provide a basis for assigning grades
• to maintain standards

12
Guidance Functions

• to assist personal development of the student
• to predict future performance
• to stimulate students to greater efforts
• to determine the number and types of courses in
  which a student should enroll
• to permit student participation in school
  activities

13
Parent Functions

• to give parents feedback on student progress
• to provide parents with information about
  appropriateness of course placement
• to provide parents with a means of evaluating the
  success of the IEP
• to provide parents with an opportunity to brag to
  their friends

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What should we use to determine a grade?
Possible suggestions

• Tests and quizzes?
• Homework?
• Daily assignments?
• Lab activities/projects?
• Student notebooks?
• Class participation?
• SAE programs?
• FFA activities?
• Effort?

15
Assigning a Grade

• Determine first what will be evaluated
• Then determine what proportion of the overall
  grade will be derived from each activity
• Let the students know ahead of time!
• Keep good documentation!

16
Assigning Grades

• When grades are assigned, they are usually
  assigned on one of the following bases
• Norm referenced--based upon how the student
  performed in comparison with other members of the
  class (or classes from previous years). Called
  grading on the curve (associated with the bell
  curve.

• Criterion referenced--based upon how the student
  performed based upon the established objectives
  (criteria). The criteria for evaluation is
  established before the activity begins. All
  students who meet the criteria established
  receive perfect scores for the activity.

17
Factors to Consider

• How well did John meet the objectives of the
  course during this grading period?
• Should students be rewarded for effort, even if
  the ability is not demonstrated?
• How were the various performance measures
  weighted?

18
Guidelines for Developing Tests - (Westbrook)

• Have a mastery of the subject matter that you are
  teaching.
• Have well-defined student objectives and
  communicate those to your students.
• Make sure your test covers a representative
  sample of your instructional objectives (content
  validity).
• Make sure that each item requires the student to
  execute the behavior that you intend to
  assess--not some other behavior.

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Guidelines for Developing Tests - (Westbrook)

• Follow test construction guidelines when you
  write test items.
• Include enough items to provide a reliable score
  (25 suggested)
• Use item analysis procedures with objective items
  to evaluate possible poor items.
• Try to include some items that measure higher
  mental processes.

20
Constructing a Test

• Valid does it measure what it is supposed to
• Does it match your objectives?
• Does it measure achievement only in your area of
  specialization?
• Ask another qualified person to review the test
• Reliable does it measure accurately
• How long is the test?
• How clear and objective are the items?
• Are the directions simple and straightforward?
• Is the scoring objective?
• Are the students emotionally and physically ready?

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Constructing a Test

• Objective and fair
• The method used by the teacher to grade the test
• The interpretation the student gives to the
  directions and the individual test items
• Develop an inflexible scoring key
• Discriminating
• Comprehensive
• Cover all concepts
• Equal proportions
• Easy to Use

22
Multiple Choice

• Keep the reading difficulty of items low.
• Do not lift a statement verbatim from a textbook.
  
• Take care that one item does not provide clues
  for another item.
• The stem of the item (main statement) should
  contain all of the information needed to answer
  the questioneven if the student is not provided
  the response choices.
• If an item is based on an opinion or authority,
  indicate whose opinion or what authority it was
  taken from.
• Avoid the use of interlocking or independent
  items.
• Let the occurrence of correct responses follow a
  random pattern.
• Avoid trick or catch questions.

23
Multiple Choice

• Avoid ambiguity.
• Beware of items dealing with trivia.
• Be sure there is one and only one correct or
  clearly best answer.
• Items designed to measure understandings,
  insights, or the ability to apply principles
  should be presented in novel terms.
• Beware of slang associations.
• Beware of irrelevant grammatical clues.
• Avoid the use of one pair of opposites as options
  if one of the pair is the correct or best answer.
  
• Beware of the use of "none of these", "one of the
  above", or "all of the above" as options.
• Use the negative sparingly in the stem of the
  item.

24
True-False

• Must be limited to item that are definitely true
  or false.
• Often used for specific, isolated, or trivial
  facts.
• Can be used to test meanings and definitions of
  terms.
• Has a high guess factor.
• Beware of "specific determiners."
• (1) The question is usually false when "all",
  "always", "no", "never", and other all-inclusive
  terms are used.
• (2) The question is usually true when "usually"
  or "sometimes" is used.

25
True-False

• Beware of ambiguous and indefinite terms of
  degree or amount (frequently, greatly, to a
  considerable degree)
• Beware of negative statements and double
  negatives.
• Avoid items that contain more than one statement,
  particularly when one is true and one is false.
• Avoid items where the correct answer depends upon
  one insignificant word, phrase, or letter.

26
Matching

• The items in a set should be homogeneous.
• The number of answer choices should be greater
  than the number of problems presented.
• The set of items should be relatively short. Long
  matching sets are extremely hard to complete.
• Response options should be arranged in logical
  order.
• The directions should indicate whether an answer
  choice may be used more than once.

27
Completion

• Good for testing knowledge of vocabulary,
  identification of concepts, ability to solve math
  problems.
• Beware of indefinite or "open" completion items.
• Omit only key words.
• Do not leave too many blanks in a single
  statement.
• Blanks are better put near the end of a
  statement.
• If a problem requires a numerical answer,
  indicate the units in which it is to be
  expressed.

28
Essay

• Before writing the question, know exactly what
  mental process of the student you want to bring
  out.
• Start essay questions with "compare", "contrast",
  "give the reasons for", "present the arguments
  for and against", "give an original example of",
  "explain how or why".
• Use clear, precise questions.
• Dont ask "what do you think", or "in your
  opinion", or "write all you know about".

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Essay

• Do not have too many questions for the time
  available.
• Do not mix essay and objective questions when
  time is limited.
• Do not offer a choice of questions to be
  answered.
• Make a list of all pertinent points that should
  be covered in the students answer for each
  question. Use these when grading

30
Constructing Psychomotor Performance Tests

• Devise situations or problems
• Develop a task sheet
• Contains
• Situation or problem
• Directions for the task
• List of materials, tools, and equipment
• Criteria for performance
• List materials, tools and equipment

31
Constructing Psychomotor Performance Tests

• Develop criteria for performance
• May be in objective
• Existing standards
• Develop subcriteria
• Procedures, key points, and standards as the
  student performs the task

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Constructing Psychomotor Performance Tests

• Devise an evaluation strategy
• Process followed
• Product produced
• Time standards
• Safety standards
• Develop the evaluation instrument
• Checklist
• Format
• Rating scales
• Yes/no
• Multi-level
• Numeric scales

33
Test Anxiety (Aggression)

• Teachers must decide Are tests important or is
  learning important?
• We live in a society obsessed with test scores
• Test scores open or close doors to students
• Words like tests of mastery or competency
  tests add further emphasis to test importance
• Teachers are evaluated based upon test scores of
  their students
• But the question remains Do the tests actually
  measure all aspects of student learning?

34
Can we reduce test anxiety?

• Make tests only one component of the grade.
  (Gives a broader evaluation of student
  performance)
• Give students smaller quizzes early in the
  semester so they can know what to expect on
  larger exams.
• Tie test items to the objectives
• Use humor and ice-breakers prior to the test

35
Test Administration Guidelines

• Clear directions are important!
• Give all instructions prior to beginning the
  exam.
• If time restrictions apply, be sure this is
  understood.
• Keep time on the board--not aloud.
• When corrections are made during the exam
• Stop the entire class
• Put down your pencils/pens
• Make corrections
• Continue with the exam
• Circulate during the exam to make questions and
  clarifications more unobtrusive.
• Do not give hints to some students!

36
Make Test Taking a Learning Experience

• Go over answers to the test questions with the
  class. If time permits immediately following the
  test, this is usually the most teachable moment.
  (When tests are returned, often the only thing
  that interests the student is the grade--not
  their incorrect answers)
• When papers are returned to the student, go over
  the major points that were not understood by the
  class.

37
Evaluating Students Summary

• Determine the purpose for evaluation
• Include multiple types of evaluation criteria
• Establish from the beginning what will be used to
  evaluate students
• Determine whether the evaluation is norm or
  criterion referenced. Grading on a curve is
  usually a bad idea.
• BE CONSISTENT AND FAIR!

38
Assigning Grades

• John Lindsay is a sophomore in your Agricultural
  Engineering Technology I course. John has an IQ
  of 95, slightly below average in verbal ability.
  You are averaging grades for the grading period
  and Johns grades are as follows
• Average for quizzes 60
• Major test average 55
• Shop project C-
• John has participated in 2 FFA activities at the
  Federation level and has been active in chapter
  activities. He has an outstanding SAE and plans
  to apply for a proficiency award. He does not
  usually participate in class discussions
  voluntarily, but he does attempt to answer
  questions directed toward him. Often his answers
  are only partially correct. He takes notes in
  class and his notebook contains all the necessary
  information, but it is somewhat sloppy and
  disorganized. What grade should he be assigned?