Assessment Is a Powerful Tool for Learning

This essay discusses assessment and sets out to discover if assessment is one the most powerful tools for promoting effective learning. Some of the different forms of assessment and their advantages and disadvantages will be explored. Assessment the process of documenting, in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs as well as how it is applied in the work of teachers on a daily basis will be discussed. Assessment is a global term and can incorporate oral, written, observational or practical testing. Assessment has always been an important part of a pupil’s education ( Gipps, 1992, p. 1). The term assessment is used as a general term to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers and by pupils themselves, that provide information to be used as feedback to improve learning and teaching (Chappius, Stiggins, Arter & Chappius, 2004, p. 11). Smith & Lopinski (2007, p. 2) define assessment as when we decide where our pupil is at a given moment, where we want him to be in a week or a month or a year and how we will get him there.

Smith (2007, p. 8) states that assessment is a complex issue that is a key element in education but in its different forms is used to address the, often competing, demands of a wide range of stakeholders. Broadly, these demands fall into two categories, those that are designed to provide accountability data allowing for comparison of the performance of groups and institutions, regionally, nationally and internationally and those which focus on learning and teaching aimed at supporting and encouraging the progress of individual pupils.

According to Smith (2007, p. 9) assessments to monitor national standards to make teachers, administrators and politicians accountable are known as evaluative. Summative assessments are those used to classify pupils for university placement for employers, to determine which stream pupils should be put in at school or to report on the achievements of pupils to themselves and