Myth 2 Assessment practice and gathering evidence

Myths and facts about assessment

Myths

  • "All students in a class must be assessed at the same time"
  • "Offering different standards, tasks or contexts to students in the same class is not allowed, is not fair and provides an advantage to some students"
  • "Student assessment evidence can only be used for one standard and not multiple standards
  • "Assessment evidence must all be presented in the same way using the same context and must be in writing"
  • "Portfolio evidence means that students have multiple assessment opportunities."
  • "The more evidence produced, the better the grade."
  • "Students can resubmit evidence for the same standard multiple times."

Facts

    • Students should be assessed when they are ready, where this is practical and manageable for the school.
  • Assessment should enable students to have a fair opportunity to achieve.
  • Assessment methods should not disadvantage particular learners, such as those entitled to special assessment conditions.
  • Students in class can complete different standards and do not need to be assessed for all the standards offered in the assessment programme.
  • Different tasks or contexts can be used to assess individual students, as the teacher’s judgement is against the standard.
  • As each standard assesses a different learning outcome, authentic evidence generated during teaching and learning may be used for more than one standard. This can be within a subject or across subjects.

Evidence of achievement can be gathered in different ways, provided it meets the requirements of the standard, is authentic and can be verified. For example, evidence can be:

  • oral, digital, by a performance or practical
  • gathered over time as a portfolio
  • ongoing and integrated with learning
  • naturally occurring
  • gathered through observations and checklists
  • written.

Teachers can also:

  • use a single context to assess students against more than one standard
  • provide guidance on sufficiency of evidence
  • provide exemplars to show “what levels of achievement may look like”
  • review the number of credits in a programme of learning.

More information

Effective assessment practice in schools

More points about assessment

  • Not all learning needs to be assessed. Assessment should not drive a learning programme.
  • By assessing fewer standards students can “do less, better”.
  • The amount and type of evidence needs to be appropriate to the standard.

Read more NCEA myths and facts

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