Assessment
Gather evidence of what learners understand and can do, then use that information to measure learning, provide feedback, and improve the experience.
Assessment
Assessment is evidence — not just a quiz.
Assessment helps us determine what learners understand, what they can do, and where they may still need support.
A strong assessment is connected to the learning goal and asks learners to demonstrate the knowledge, decision, or performance that matters.
Start With What Learners Need to Do
Assessment should connect directly to the learning objective. Before writing a question, identify what evidence would show that the learner can meet the goal.
What should the learner know, decide, create, or perform?
What would demonstrate that the learner can actually meet that goal?
What task, question, scenario, or performance will produce that evidence?
Choose the Right Type of Assessment
Assessment can happen throughout the learning experience. The right approach depends on what you need to learn about the learner's progress or performance.
Assess the Performance — Not Just Recall
If learners need to make decisions or perform a skill on the job, the assessment should go beyond asking them to remember facts whenever possible.
Make Feedback Part of the Assessment
An assessment can do more than score performance. Thoughtful feedback helps learners understand why a response worked, what needs adjustment, and what to try next.
Adjust
Go beyond “correct” or “incorrect” when the learner would benefit from the reasoning.
Connect feedback to the learner's decision, action, or misunderstanding.
When appropriate, let learners apply the feedback and try again.
Make the Assessment Fair and Useful
A difficult assessment isn't automatically a good assessment. The goal is to collect meaningful evidence without unnecessary barriers or tricks.
Learners understand what the question or task is asking them to do.
The assessment measures something that matters to the learning goal.
The format doesn't create avoidable barriers unrelated to the skill being measured.
Scoring criteria and expectations are applied appropriately and consistently.
Confusing wording, obscure trivia, tricky distractors, or unnecessary complexity can measure test-taking ability instead of the intended learning outcome.
Use Assessment Results to Improve the Learning
Assessment data isn't only about learner scores. Patterns in the results can reveal where the learning experience itself may need attention.
What are the results telling you?
Turn signals into questions
Planning assessment for a learning project?
Start with what learners need to do.
If you have a course, content, or learning project that needs stronger assessment, start by clarifying the expected learner action, then choose the best way to check understanding, decision-making, or application.
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