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Education & Teaching vocabulary · Assessment and Grading

Assessment

Meaning in education & teaching, with examples

/əˈsesmənt/nounCore term

In education & teaching, assessment means: The process of collecting information about what students know and can do, for example through tests, tasks, questions or observation, and judging their progress.

In Turkish: değerlendirme, ölçme ve değerlendirme

How it is used

A key word in every school. Teachers carry out or conduct assessment, design assessment tasks and use assessment data. It is both a process (uncountable) and a single task (countable: 'an assessment'). The verb is assess.

Example sentences

  1. Our department uses a mix of written tests and project-based assessment.

  2. The end-of-unit assessment showed that many students still struggle with fractions.

Common collocations

  • carry out an assessment
  • assessment criteria
  • ongoing assessment
  • assessment data
  • assessment task
  • formative assessmentAssessment that takes place during learning to check how students are progressing and to adjust teaching, rather than to give a final grade.
  • summative assessmentAssessment at the end of a unit, term or course that measures what students have learned, usually to give a grade or make a decision.
  • rubricA scoring guide that lists the criteria for a task and describes what work looks like at each level of quality, so that marking is clear and consistent.
  • feedbackInformation given to a learner about their work or performance, explaining what went well and what they can do to improve.
  • diagnostic assessmentAssessment done before teaching a topic or course to find out what students already know, what they misunderstand and where they need support.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Assessment and Grading

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