Effective Assessment Practice
The instructor has changed the assignment on this order. I was wondering if the same writer could
add the additions to this paper and have it completed by Monday May 25th by 9PM EST
The new instructions are included the paper she/he wrote can still be used. They included in this
paper two effective and on ineffective method the instructor now wants 3 effective and three non
effective methods of assessment so the writer would have to include one more effective method and
two ineffective methods. I am sure there will be a charge to this. Listed below are the new instructions
word count is the same. If you could let me know the additional cost and how I go about placing this
order so the same writer can finish it I would appreciate it.
NEW INSTRUCTIONS
Gather various assessment instructions that you or a colleague have used in the classroom or
assessment and evaluation tools used in prior courses. Examples include commercially produced unit
tests, teacher-created tests, rubrics, and portfolios.
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 2
Select three examples that you think represent both effective (3) and ineffective (3) assessment
practices. = Total 6
Justify your analysis and offer suggestions in a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper.
Include a variety of materials including three or more journal articles (these are to be peer reviewed
published articles) to substantiate your analysis.
Effective assessment practice
Assessment is an integral way that can be utilized by teachers in evaluating growth
and the level of knowledge of a student. Assessments are a crucial element of the learning
process. In nursing, classroom assessment enables the students to improve their knowledge.
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 3
Assessment allows the teacher to analyze and gauge how the students are learning and to
identify any students who are weak and require remediation. This paper explores different
evaluation and assessment tools utilized in prior courses. Moreover, three effective
assessment practices and three ineffective assessment practices are selected.
Assessment instructions or assessment/evaluation tools
- Portfolios
Portfolios are understood as a collection of evidence for demonstrating attitudes,
skills, knowledge, as well as achievements. A portfolio relies on a level of self-regulation,
critical reflection, and writing skills on the part of the student; that is, the person who is being
assessed. If a portfolio is employed as a tool for assessment, it has to be specific and clear
(Green, Wyllie & Jackson, 2013). Nursing is a comparatively late adopter of portfolios
considering that portfolios have been utilized in various professional disciplines in
universities for several years for the purpose of encouraging reflective practice in students. In
nursing, the portfolio could be utilized to assess student growth as well as professional and
personal development, which could be assessed over time (Green, Wyllie & Jackson, 2013). - Rubrics
Graduate-level nursing students should have the ability to express concepts in writing
as well as verbally. For a lot of learners, this would actually be an accumulative continuing
process guided by the educators in every successive class. The instructors need to employ a
tool that is capable of consistently evaluating and assessing the work of nursing students,
whilst offering feedback. Scoring rubrics, as Truemper (2009) pointed out, do this by way of
directing a nursing student towards areas requiring improvement, whilst also giving credit for
the items which the nursing student has done correctly. Even though scoring rubrics have
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 4
mostly been used by undergraduate students, they can greatly improve graduate nursing
students’ ability in the areas of verbal and written communication (Truemper, 2009).
- Teacher-created tests
These tests can be used by teachers in improving their instruction.Pannoni (2014)
reported that educators can create and utilize meaningful assessments to improve their
teaching of nursing students. Teachers should first createa blueprint of what they want to test
prior to creating the examination. This is important as it would help educators understandthe
vital information that they have to test which would assist them in making instructional
decisions. In addition, the educators should look at test results that would help them identify
what the learners have learned and the areas where the students actually need improvements
(Pannoni, 2014). - Commercially-produced unit tests
The necessity to pass a commercially-produced standardized test as a requirement for
the student to progress in nursing programs is an intensifying and growing trend. Given that
the results of the tests could block the student from graduating or could make the student
ineligible to take licensing examination for instance NCLEX, commercially-produced unit
tests are actually high stakes. It is notable that issues surrounding high-stakes testing have in
fact crystallized around licensure examinations predictive testing and the serious results or
effects they have on decisions pertaining to student progression (Spurlock, 2009). Test results
from commercially-produced unit tests could be helpful in different ways. For instance, they
provide nursing students with information with regard to their knowledge relative to other
nursing students countrywide using national forms. They also help faculty members to
identify the weaknesses and strengths of the curricular (Spurlock, 2009).
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 5
- Rating Scales
A rating scale allows an educator to indicate the frequency or degree of strategies,
skills, or behaviours which the student displays. A rating scale states the criteria and provides
3 or 4 response selections to describe the frequency or the quality of student work (Rudner &
Schafer, 2012). Rating scales could be employed by educators in recording observations and
nursing students can utilize them as tools for self-assessment. It is worth mentioning that
teaching nursing students to utilize descriptive wording, for instance never, sometimes,
usually, and always will help them identify particular needs and strengths. Furthermore, a
rating scale provides nursing students with information that they can use to set goals and
improve performance (Wortham, 2010). In rating scales, the descriptive word is in fact more
significant than the related number. The more descriptive and precise the words for every
scale point is, the more dependable and consistent the assessment tool. - Checklists
These tools basically state certain criteria and allow educators to collect information
and to make judgments with regard to what the nursing students know and can relative to the
outcomes. A checklist can be utilized in recording observations of an entire class, a group, or
an individual (Rudner & Schafer, 2012). A checklist contains a listing of behaviours or
particular steps, which could be marked as No/Yes, Incomplete/Complete, or Absent/Present.
An educator could also utilize a checklist to observe the nursing students. These assessment
tools can also be employed as formative tools to assist nursing students in identifying the
areas where they need to improve before they submit their work to the teacher for grading
(Rudner & Schafer, 2012).
Effective assessment practices
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 6
- Portfolio – In nursing education, the portfolio is emerging as an effective and
efficient way that is used to evaluate professional development and program outcomes (Ryan,
2011). Electronic or e-portfolios can also be used – this refers to an electronic version of the
portfolio. Electronic portfolios are suitable and useful for working with learners, especially
when bearing in mind that most students nowadays are technology networked, techno-savvy,
and wanting to complete their work exclusively by using computers (Green, Wyllie &
Jackson, 2013). Advantages of creating electronic portfolios include personal benefits for
instance easier storage, developing technology skills that are suitable for e-learning, increased
capability of circulating copies, and encouraging portfolios that are more longitudinal and
therefore career growth (Green, Wyllie & Jackson, 2013).
In addition, portfolios are of benefits since they allow a student to be accountable for
and take control of their learning. Moreover, they also encourage self-reflection. Even so,
issues have been reported such as the time period needed by both the assessor and the
student, concerns with regard to confidentiality, the fact that portfolios might favour students
who have better reflection and written skills, and confusion regarding the sorts of evidence to
be incorporated in the portfolio. On the whole, researchers who have explored the
acceptability of portfolios in nursing education have reported positive results (Green, Wyllie
& Jackson, 2013). - Rubrics: this tool plays a vital part in the broader nursing education teaching-
learning process. Rigorous, modifiable rubrics are very important as they truly assess student
learning objectives. In essence, they take into consideration learning objectives as well as the
learning-teaching process, and support objective grading (Truemper, 2009). Rubrics utilize a
set of criteria in evaluating the performance of the student. They comprise a fixed
measurement scale as well as comprehensive description of the traits for each performance
level.
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 7
- Teacher-created tests: teachers in general never desire to wait until the year’s
end when learners are required to do high-stakes tests like graduation examinations in order
to find out that the learners did not understood the material. In the long run, teacher-created
tests could also save time since the educator will not teach content which learners have
mastered already (Pannoni, 2014). Educators need to bear in mind that assessments need to
be utilized in measuring student growth and not simply to award another grade. For the
educator, the goal must be to move all students forward from where they begin in the class
(Pannoni, 2014).
Ineffective assessment practices
- Checklists: These assessment tools are disadvantageous considering that they could
be time consuming. Moreover, if there are a lot of checklists, the instructor could become
overwhelmed with assessment as well as record keeping. A checklist does not indicate how
well the student is performing (Rudner & Schafer, 2012). The instructors might also not
consider assessment of students using checklists as valid measures. In addition, the instructor
might find it hard to adapt teaching and assessment behaviours to incorporate checklists
(Wortham, 2010). - Rating Scales: An effective rating scale uses descriptors with measures that are
clearly understood, like frequency. Rating scales which are dependent on subjective
descriptors of quality, for instance excellent, good, or fair, are less effectual given that the
single adjective actually does not have adequate information on what criteria are specified at
each of these points on the rating scale (Wortham, 2010). The main shortcomings of this
assessment tool that make its ineffective are as follows: first, rating scales are not reliable.
They are very subjective given that rater error as well as bias are frequent problems. The rater
might rate a student basing on their earlier performance, or on an emotional basis instead of
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 8
rating a student on an objective basis. Furthermore, vague and unclear terms make rating
scales unreliable; the raters may mark traits with the use of dissimilar interpretations of the
ratings (Wortham, 2010).
- Commercially-produced unit tests: Although tests results from commercially-
produced unit tests could be of use in different ways, they should not be utilized in predicting
NCLEX performance. Spurlock (2006) reported that demanding a fixed score for nursing
students in order for them to graduate or to undertake the NCLEX exam in order to make sure
that program pass rates remain at the levels set by the state board could really be detrimental
to the nursing students who have passed every component of the nursing program
successfully. Such learners might have no option except to undertake the exit exam over and
over again until they attain the programs designated passing score.Lots of commercially-
produced unit tests give individual student scores which are associated with a likelihood of
passing the licensure examination NCLEX.
Researchers have reported that whilst commercially-produced unit tests in most cases
work well in recognizing high-performing learners who may actually pass the licensure
examination NCLEX, they are significantly less accurate in recognizing individual learners
who would not pass the licensure examination.This distinction in explaining the accurateness
of a test is particularly vital when there are policies in place which serve to prevent nursing
students’ progression or graduation (Spurlock, 2009).Nursing students who have suffered
adverse consequences for failing on their commercially-available unit tests have initiated
court proceedings against their nursing programs with the use of various legal bases.
Common grounds might be as follows: educational malpractice, lack of due process, and
violation of contract. For instance, nursing students have utilized the program handbook or
college catalog, which could be seen as a contract between the learner and his or her school,
as a crucial part of their legal defense. If the handbook or catalog never included policies
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 9
regarding commercially-produced unit tests, plus the possible consequences for progressing,
Spurlock (2009) stated that the nursing student can claim that the school violated the contract.
Conclusion
In conclusion, assessments are a vital constituent of the learning process in nursing
education. The different assessment/evaluation tools that I have used include portfolios,
rubrics, commercially-produced unit tests, rating scales, checklists, and teacher-created tests.
Out of this, the most effective ones are portfolios and rubrics. Three effective assessment
tools include teacher-created assessment tools, rubrics, and portfolios. Scoring rubrics can
really improve graduate nursing students’ ability in the areas of verbal and written
communication. Portfolios are vital given that they allow a student to be accountable for and
take control of his or her learning. Furthermore, they also encourage self-
reflection.Commercially-produced unit tests are ineffective in assessment practice. Three
ineffective assessment tools are checklists, commercially-produced unit tests, and rating
scales.
Reference
Green, J., Wyllie, A., & Jackson, D. (2013). Electronic portfolios in nursing education: A
review of the literature. Nurse Education in Practice, 30(2013): 1-5
EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICE 10
Pannoni, A. (2014). Three ways high school teachers can improve assessments. USNews.
Rudner, L. M., & Schafer, W. D. (2012). What teachers need to know about assessment.
Ryan, M. (2011). Evaluating portfolio use as a tool for assessment and professional
development in graduate nursing education. Journal of Professional Nursing, 27(2):
84-91
Spurlock, D. R. (2006). Do no harm: Progression policies and high-stakes testing in nursing
education. Journal of Nursing Education, 45(8), 297-302.
Truemper, C. M. (2009).Using scoring rubrics to facilitate assessment and evaluation of
graduate-level nursing students. Journal of Nursing Education 43(12): 562-4
Wortham, S. C. (2010). Classroom Assessments: Checklists, rating scales, and rubrics.
Albany, NY: Pearson Education Inc.
