Educational Tools of Assessment

According to TenBrink(1974), “Evaluation is a process of obtaining information and using it to form judgments which in turn are to be used in decision making.”(p.18).The purpose of evaluation is to place students in appropriate programmes and to determine the causes of deficiencies in   students learning and helps in answering questions about the instructional procedures.An effective evaluation   involves the use of both measuring and non measuring tools to come up with clear conclusions.

The measuring tools which provide quantitative data   are as follows:

Tests:

Cronback cited in Aggarwal(1997) defines tests “ as a systematic procedure for observing and describing one or more characteristics of a person with the aid of either a numerical scale or a category system.”(p.250)

Tests can be used to measure all levels of cognitive domain. The advantages of the tests is they can be given at any point in the instructional sequence .Tests can be teacher made or standardized. Teacher made tests are prepared by the teachers to be used in classroom settings and is the most commonly used tool. A standardized test is an instrument designed to obtain many kinds of information. The test is accompanied by a table of norms. Furthermore these tests are used to measure various kinds of aptitudes and achievements in subject matters of great variety. Moreover they can measure personality traits, opinions, attitudes, interests etc. These are useful in making decisions about placement and are valuable in diagnosing problems as well as making predictions about student successes.(TenBrink,1974)

Advantages of teacher made tests are they are useful, economical, less time consuming, objective and provide considerable means of comparing individuals. The disadvantages of these tests are the stress is mostly on verbal ability. The scope is narrow only cognitive domain. Level norms are difficult to obtain. Can be a source of anxiety to students (Aggarwal,1997)

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