Test and Evaluation

Teaching in a school is never random. For every lesson, unit and class, it is decided in advance what students should know, what they should be able to do and what attitudes they should build. These expectations are called learning competencies. Once teaching and learning have gone on for a fixed period, someone has to check whether those competencies have really developed in the students.

This assessment is not done in only one way. A student's educational achievement is measured through tests, class activities, class observation, interaction or other methods, and the evaluation is made on that basis. For example, after three weeks of teaching fractions, a maths teacher may give a written test, watch the students closely during group work and ask questions aloud in class. By putting together what all of these show, the teacher reaches a conclusion about how much each student has learned.

Evaluation is not something done on the spur of the moment. Many decisions have to be made before it starts, and making and preparing those decisions is the main work of evaluation management. Before an evaluation, these things must be settled:

• Make the purpose of the evaluation clear: decide whether it is formative or summative.
• Decide the method and the process that the evaluation will follow.
• Decide what exactly is going to be evaluated.
• Choose the tools: a test, observation or some other tool.
• Decide who will do each of these tasks and when.

Formative evaluation is done while learning is still going on, to help students improve. Summative evaluation is done at the end of a period, to make a decision about what students have achieved. Evaluation management covers deciding the method and process of evaluation and then managing it. It is here that the choice is made between a periodic method, which happens only at set intervals, and a continuous one, which goes on all the time. The tools are also chosen here: a written, an oral or a practical test, whichever suits the purpose.

Once the method and tools are fixed, the practical work begins. These tasks all fall under evaluation management:

• Constructing the questions
• Conducting the test
• Checking the answer books
• Analysing the results
• Keeping records of the test

Think of a school's half-yearly examination. Teachers write the questions, the exam is held according to a timetable, the answer books are marked, the results are studied to see where students are weak, and finally the marks are entered in the records. Organising that whole chain well is evaluation management.

To assess the learning competencies a student has developed in knowledge, skills and attitudes, written, oral and practical tests are used as the means.

• Written test: students write answers to the questions on a question paper in an answer book.
• Oral test: students answer the teacher's questions by speaking, for example in a question and answer round or by reciting a poem.
• Practical test: students show what they can do by doing it, for example carrying out a science experiment or drawing a map.

In this way, different kinds of test are used as tools to measure what a student has achieved in learning.

When a test is over, the students' answers are marked. Marking is not done by guesswork. The rules for how many marks each answer earns are fixed beforehand, and marks are given according to those pre-set rules.

Measurement produces a number, but the number is not a decision on its own. Evaluation is made on the basis of the result that measurement gives. Suppose Sita scores 42 out of 50 in a science unit test. Giving her 42 marks is measurement. Her teacher then looks at that score together with her classwork and homework and concludes that Sita understands the ideas well but still needs practice in drawing diagrams. That conclusion, and the plan to help her improve, is evaluation.

Evaluation is a broad idea. It looks not only at the progress of the student but at the whole educational programme.

• It assesses the educational programme and the progress of the student.
• It analyses whether the educational objectives have been met.
• It analyses whether the returns match the investment made.

Investment here means the time, money and effort put into education. When a school, its teachers, parents and the state have put so much in, checking whether students have learned in return is also part of evaluation. A test looks only at a student's answers, while evaluation looks at this whole picture. That is why evaluation is treated as much wider than a test.

In Nepal's schools, the test is one of the main tools of student evaluation. When a fixed period of teaching and study is complete, a test is held to find how much students achieved during that period in knowledge, skills and attitudes. Examples of such tests are:

• Unit test
• Monthly test
• Terminal (three-monthly) examination
• Half-yearly examination
• Annual examination

Students are also evaluated through means other than tests:

• Questions asked at the end of a lesson, as planned in the lesson plan
• Observation of class activities
• Homework
• Interviews

All of these tools are used to measure what a student has achieved. However, learning achievement is measured correctly only when the scoring of the test and the marks obtained are reliable. If one teacher gives an answer 5 marks and another gives the very same answer 2, those marks cannot be trusted. So a test is only one tool of evaluation.

Evaluation is done directly by giving written, oral or practical tests. But a student can also be evaluated through class observation, class activities and interviews.

The difference between a test and an evaluation can be set out in seven points:

A few points in the table are worth looking at more closely. A test happens only now and then, a few times a year, which is why it is called periodic. Evaluation goes on in class every day, because the teacher keeps gathering information about students' work in every lesson.

The point about scores works like this. In a test the score is what counts, and the same score can mean different things in different places. Sixty marks may be a good result in one school's difficult exam, while the same sixty looks ordinary in another school's easy one. In evaluation the score is not treated as the final word. It is a general basis, and the decision is made by combining it with other information.

The last point is about how a student feels. A test encourages a student who gets good marks, but it can also discourage one who gets low marks. Evaluation shows mistakes and also shows the way to fix them, so it encourages learning.

So evaluation and a test are not the same, but they are closely linked. The main tool of evaluation is the test, and the test is the step that comes before evaluation. In other words, the test happens first and evaluation stands on its result.

A test has its own main tool too, and that is the question paper. Written tests are given through a question paper, while oral and practical tests are different in nature. The relationship can be seen as a chain: the question paper is the tool of the test, the test is the tool of evaluation, and evaluation is the process of making decisions about a student's learning.