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Your Assessment Strategy (Part 4: Defining Terms)
by Steven B. Just
Practitioners in scientific fields tend to agree
on terminology. When a chemist talks about a molecule all
chemists agree on the definition of a molecule. When a pharmacologist
discusses the mechanism of action of a drug everyone in that
field agrees on what the term “mechanism of action”
means. In testing though there is no single agreed upon nomenclature.
Probably this is because the language of testing is part of
the vernacular. We have all been taking tests in one form
or other since kindergarten, using whatever terminology our
teachers used. What is the difference between a test and an
exam? What makes a quiz a quiz and not a test? Where do evaluations
fit into all this? And what’s an assessment?
Though there is no single agreed-upon answer
to all these questions it is important when developing an
assessment strategy to have an internally consistent vocabulary
within your organization. That way when a trainer decides
to give an “exam” everyone will know exactly what
that entails and, more important, what the performance expectations
are for the test takers. Below are our recommendations for
a testing vocabulary. You don’t have to use our vocabulary
exactly; this is not the only way to define these terms (though
obviously your terminology should make intuitive sense –
don’t call a high stakes test a quiz), but you need
to be internally consistent.
Assessment—the
overarching term for any instrument that is used to evaluate
or judge and from which conclusions can be drawn either about
an individual, a group or the learning program itself.
Quiz—a low-stakes
assessment that has no long-term consequences. It can take
the form of a self-assessment so the learner can diagnose
his/her own strengths and weaknesses or a diagnostic quiz
so an instructor knows the entry-level knowledge of the learners.
Test—a medium-stakes
assessment that has immediate consequences but no long-term
consequences. Module level tests in a mastery learning system
fit this category: The learner must pass the Module 1 test
before being allowed to proceed to Module 2, etc. There may
be no limit to the number of test tries and the scores may
not be permanently recorded in a system of record, but there
are immediate consequence to failure: the inability to proceed
through the learning system. These tests are often called
“formative assessments.”
Exam—a high-stakes
assessment that has long-term consequences for job status:
“You must pass this exam to be considered qualified
to perform your job.” Typically exams have limited numbers of tries, higher security, a formal system of remediation, and escalating consequences for repeated failure. Final assessments
that test an entire learning system, often called “summative
assessments,” are frequently considered high-stakes.
Evaluation—a form
of assessment in which a judgment is made either about the
learning program itself (Level 1 in Kirkpatrick terms) or
the learner by human raters. The latter frequently takes the
form of a role-play in which multiple raters score (typically
on a Likert scale) a learner on his or her ability to perform
a job function.
Note:
To simplify terminology one of our clients has collapsed Tests
and Exams into a single category. They have assessments without
consequence (Quizzes) and assessments with consequence (Exams
or Tests). 
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