Don’t get stuck in assessment jargon! This vocabulary list has definitions to commonly used assessment terms.

Action Research – Classroom-based research involving the systematic collection of data in order to address certain questions and issue so as to improve classroom instruction and educational effectiveness.

Affective Outcomes – Outcomes of education that reflect feelings more than understanding; likes, pleasures, ideals, dislikes, annoyances, values.

Annual Report – A report from each academic program based on its assessment plan that is submitted annually, which outlines how evidence was used to improve student learning outcomes through curricular and/or other changes or to document that no changes were needed.

Assessment – A process for gathering and analyzing data in order to make an informed decision about how a program/activity/function is performing (Qtd in Leading Assessment for Student Success edited by Rosie Phillips Bingham, Daniel A. Bureau, and Amber Garrison Duncan).

Assessment Tool – An instrument that has been designed to collect objective data about students’ knowledge and skill acquisition. An appropriate outcomes assessment test measures students’ ability to integrate a set of individual skills into a meaningful, collective demonstration. Some examples of assessment tools include surveys, focus groups, frequency counts, rubrics, content analysis, and so on.

Benchmark – A criterion-referenced objective performance datum that is used for comparative purposes. A program can use its own data as a baseline benchmark against which to compare future performance. It can also use data from another program as a benchmark. In the latter case, the other program often is chosen because it is exemplary and its data are used as a target to strive for, rather than as a baseline.

Cohort – A group whose progress is followed by means of measurements at different points in time.

Criterion Referenced Tests – A test in which the results can be used to determine a student’s progress toward mastery of a content area. Performance is compared to an expected level of mastery in a content area rather than to other students’ scores. Such tests usually include questions based on what the student was taught and are designed to measure the student’s mastery of designated objectives of an instructional program. The “criterion” is the standard of performance established as the passing score for the test. Scores have meaning in terms of what the student knows or can do, rather than how the test-taker compares to a reference or norm group.

Curriculum Map – A matrix showing where each goal and/or learning outcome are covered in each program course.

Direct assessment – Direct measures of student leaning require student to display their knowledge and skills as they respond to the instrument itself. Objective tests, essays, presentations, and classroom assignments all meet this criterion.

Educational Goals – The knowledge, skills, abilities, capacities, attitudes or dispositions students are expected to acquire as a result of completing your academic program. Goals are sometimes treated as synonymous with outcomes, though outcomes are the behavioral results of the goals, and are stated in precise operational terms.

Formative assessment – The assessment of student achievement at different stages of a course or at different stages of a student’s academic career. The focus of formative assessment is on the documentation of student development over time. It can also be used to engage students in a process of reflection on their education.

Holistic Scoring – In assessment, assigning a single score based on an overall assessment of performance rather than by scoring or analyzing dimensions or traits individually. The product is considered to be more than the sum of its parts and so the quality of a final product or performance is evaluated rather than the process or dimension of performance. A holistic scoring rubric might combine a number of elements on a single scale. Focused holistic scoring may be used to evaluate a limited portion of a learner’s performance.

Indirect – Indirect methods such as surveys and interviews ask students to reflect on their learning rather than to demonstrate it.

Institutional assessment – Assessment to determine the extent to which a college or university is achieving its mission.

Learning outcomes – Operational statements describing specific student behaviors that evidence the acquisition of desired goals in knowledge, skills, abilities, capacities, attitudes or dispositions. Learning outcomes can be usefully thought of as behavioral criteria for determining whether students are achieving the educational goals of a program, and, ultimately, whether overall program goals are being successfully met. Outcomes are sometimes treated as synonymous with objectives, though objectives are usually more general statements of what students are expected to achieve in an academic program.

Longitudinal – Data collected on the same individuals over time for use in a longitudinal study. A study that investigates development, learning, or other types of change in individuals over time.

Median – the middle number in a given sequence of numbers, taken as the average of the two middle numbers when the sequence has an even number of numbers: 4 is the median of 1, 3, 4, 8, 9.

Mean – Simple or arithmetic average of a range of values or quantities, computed by dividing the total of all values by the number of values.

Mode – that one value of a range of values that has the highest frequency as determined statistically.

Norm – A distribution of scores obtained from a norm group. The norm is the midpoint (or median) of scores or performance of the students in that group. Fifty percent will score above and fifty percent below the norm.

Objectives – Refers to the specific knowledge, skills, or attitudes that students are expected to achieve through their college experience; expected or intended student outcomes.

Outcomes – Refers to the specific knowledge, skills, or developmental attributes that students actually develop through their college experience; assessment results.

Percentile – The percentage of examinees in the norm group who scored at or below the raw score for which the percentile rank was calculated.

Performance-Based Assessment – Direct, systematic observation and rating of student performance of an educational objective, often an ongoing observation over a period of time, and typically involving the creation of products. The assessment may be a continuing interaction between teacher and student and should ideally be part of the learning process. The assessment should be a real-world performance with relevance to the student and learning community. Assessment of the performance is done using a rubric, or analytic scoring guide to aid in objectivity. Performance-based assessment is a test of the ability to apply knowledge in a real life setting or performance of exemplary tasks in the demonstration of intellectual ability.

Portfolio Assessment – Portfolios may be assessed in a variety of ways. Each piece may be individually scored, or the portfolio might be assessed merely for the presence of required pieces, or a holistic scoring process might be used and an evaluation made on the basis of an overall impression of the student’s collected work. It is common that assessors work together to establish consensus of standards or to ensure greater reliability in evaluation of student work. Established criteria are often used by reviewers and students involved in the process of evaluating progress and achievement of objectives.

Primary Trait Method – A type of rubric scoring constructed to assess a specific trait, skill, behavior, or format, or the evaluation of the primary impact of a learning process on a designated audience.

Program assessment – Assessment to determine the extent to which students in a departmental program can demonstrate the learning outcomes for the program.

Reliability – An assessment tool’s consistency of results over time and with different samples of students.

Rubric – A set of criteria specifying the characteristics of a learning outcome and the levels of achievement in each characteristic.

Self-efficacy – Students’ judgment of their own capabilities for a specific learning outcome.

Standard deviation – a measure of dispersion in a frequency distribution, equal to the square root of the mean of the squares of the deviations from the arithmetic mean of the distribution.

Summative assessment – The assessment of student achievement at the end point of their education or at the end of a course. The focus of summative assessment is on the documentation of student achievement by the end of a course or program. It does not reveal the pathway of development to achieve that endpoint.

Triangulation – The collection of data via multiple methods in order to determine if the results show a consistent outcome.

Validity – The degree to which an assessment measures (a) what is intended, as opposed to (b) what is not intended, or (c) what is unsystematic or unstable.

This list was compiled from:

• James Madison University’s online Dictionary of Student Outcome Assessment,http://people.jmu.edu/yangsx/
• Glossary of Useful Terms Related to Authentic and Performance Assessments. Grant Wiggins
• SCASS Arts Assessment Project Glossary of Assessment Terms
• The ERIC Review: Performance-Based Assessment. Vol. 3 Issue 1, Winter, 1994.
• Assessment: How Do We Know What They Know? ASCD. 1992.
• Dissolving the Boundaries: Assessment that Enhances Learning. Dee Dickinson