Assessment Terminology

Process of gathering and using qualitative and quantitative data to make a judgment of value, worth, merit or effectiveness. 

• Median

• Evaluation

• Correlation

• Deviation

The extent to which as test does the job for which it is used and measures what it is supposed to measure.

• Accountability

• Battery

• Consistency

• Validity

A progression showing the steps, guideposts or reasonable expectations indicating what students are capable of learning and what they should know and be able to do at different ages and grade levels in regard to standards.

• Benchmarks

• Performance Assessment

• Mastery Test

• Bias

A combination of natural and acquired talents, interests and/or abilities that a student may innately possess or that he/she may have learned. 

• Ceiling

• Aptitude

• Consistency

• Measurment

Includes both standardized and specially constructed intelligence and achievement tests which compare students to one another.

• Norm-refenced

• Benchmarks

• High Stakes Test

• Standardized Tests

Describes the degree to which a given test measures what it says it is measuring.

• Objectivity

• Battery

• Accountability

• Content Validity

A teacher-constructed list of characteristics used as criteria for ranking the quality of students’ work along with some type of guide for scoring or grading.

• Assessment

• Correlation

• Rubric

• Assessment

The process of gathering data and quantifying something according to a numerical scale or standard and assigning numbers to process events and objects.

• Measurement

• Assessment

• Test

• Standard Deviation

Statistics developed by test makers to represent specific populations and how the average person in that population would do on a specific test that may include grade, age, percentile or standard score and provide a basis for comparison are know as _____.

The extent to which a score differs from a certain reference point, usually the norm, midpoint or average.

• Percentile

• Norms

• Aptitude

• Deviation