LinguaFolio® Training Resources
Training modules to show how to implement LinguaFolio®
6.8 Creating Appropriate Assessments
Steps in assessment planning
According to “Assessment, Articulation, and Accountability,” a 1999 document resulting from a three-year foreign language assessment project conducted by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Division of Languages, the following steps are crucial to effective assessment:
1. Plan: Determine what to assess, how to assess, and when to assess. Choose purpose and audience.
2. Collect: Gather information through formal, informal, traditional, and authentic assessments.
3. Organize: Organize the information collected through various assessments to facilitate reporting.
4. Evaluate: Evaluate the student’s progress toward reaching the stated goals.
5. Report: Report the information gathered to the target audiences, such as students, parents, or administrators.
What to consider when developing assessments
The “Assessment, Articulation, and Accountability” document also describes a variety of factors that are important to consider when developing an assessment:
- What to assess. Determine purpose, audience, content, and task.
- How to assess. Determine the most effective tool.
- When to assess. Determine if assessment is ongoing (formative) or an end-result (summative).
- How to organize information. Determine how to gather data and organize information to make it easily accessible for reporting to particular audiences.
- How to report information. Determine the format for reporting data depending on type of audience with whom the information is shared. Reporting to students and parents will be different from reporting to administrators and researchers.