(Re)design Learning Outcome Assessment Methods

Is it formative (to provide feedback and support students' growth) or summative (to evaluate their progress)?

• Formative Assessment: These are ongoing, low-stakes assessments used throughout the course to provide students with feedback and guide their development. They help students reflect on their learning and make improvements before the summative assessment. Examples include quizzes, drafts, peer reviews, and reflection papers. Consider exploring Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) for additional ideas and inspiration.
  • Culture of Feedback: Providing feedback throughout the course, rather than just at the end, helps students track their progress and stay motivated. Early and ongoing feedback not only reinforces successes but also clarifies areas for improvement, which helps students develop and refine an accurate theory of how they learn. 
• Summative Assessment: These are typically final evaluations at the end of a learning period (e.g., final exams, capstone papers) that measure the extent to which students have met the learning outcomes. Summative assessments focus on gauging the achievement of cumulative knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Not all courses or programs may have summative assessments. For example, courses that use alternative assessment frameworks such as contract or labor-based grading may be designed to focus entirely on formative assessments. For courses and programs that do integrate summative assessments, including formative assessments to help students practice with feedback helps ensure that the summative assessments are equitable. 

Is the assessment reliable and valid? Does it accurately and fairly measure what it is intended to measure?

• Reliability: This refers to the consistency of an assessment. A reliable assessment produces stable and consistent results across time, raters, or varying conditions (e.g., inter-rater reliability).
• Validity: This measures whether the assessment accurately reflects the learning outcomes it is meant to measure. A valid assessment ensures that the tasks or criteria truly represent the skills and knowledge the instructor aims to measure. There are different types of validity (e.g., content validity, construct validity, face validity, etc.)

How can I include students in developing assessment methods to ensure they understand the expectations, contribute to identifying what is important to assess, and are fully equipped to succeed?

• Transparency: Clearly communicate the purpose, expectations, and criteria of the assessment to students. Enhance transparency using tools such as rubrics, which define what success looks like and outline performance levels, ensuring that students understand how they will be evaluated. The TILT framework is an excellent resource for promoting transparency in learning and teaching.
• Equity: Ensure assessments provide all students with a fair opportunity to succeed by considering diverse learning backgrounds and experiences. Including students in the development of assessments helps identify potential barriers and allows instructors to adapt methods that promote inclusivity. Recommended reading: NILOA's Equity in Assessment

Direct methods involve reviewing and measuring actual student work, such as exams, essays, and performances. These methods provide concrete evidence of student achievement. 

• Rubrics: Rubrics are a powerful tool in direct methods of assessment, offering clear and objective criteria for gauging student learning achievement. They help ensure that assessment practices are purposeful, aligned with learning outcomes, and transparent in their expectations. By breaking down the criteria for success, rubrics provide specific performance descriptors that directly reflect the learning outcomes. This structure is invaluable for maintaining consistency in grading, for example, and for providing students with clear expectations and targeted feedback to help them improve.
  
  For examples and guidance on creating equity-centered rubrics, visit our Reimagining Assessment Practicum OER, where we explore the value of co-creating rubrics with students to promote inclusivity and equitable assessment. Additionally, refer to the AAC&U VALUE rubrics for reliable, well-structured sample rubrics that have been tested for validity and can serve as valuable starting points to assess learning outcomes.

Indirect methods capture students' perceptions of their learning experiences. Methods such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups offer valuable insights into how students feel about their learning progress and their educational experiences. While indirect methods do not directly measure student performance, they complement direct ones by revealing patterns in students' self-perceptions of growth and their achievement of learning outcomes. It is often useful to calibrate student perceptions with the data gathered from direct methods to get a fuller picture, especially when considering curricular changes.

• Surveys: A valuable tool for gathering student feedback on their learning experiences, self-perceived progress, and engagement. They provide essential data for understanding students' attitudes toward a course and can inform instructional and curricular adjustments. To gather actionable insights, survey questions should be clear, concise, and aligned with learning outcomes.