What test is used to identify areas of weakness or difficulty of the students *?

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a paper
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

Diagnostic evaluation is concerned with evaluation of pupils learning difficulties during instruction. A diagnostic test used to diagnose or to reveal an individual’s weakness and strengths in a certain course of study. It tries to discover the specific area of weakness of a student in a given course of instruction and then suggest remedial measures.

Diagnostic tests are designed to analyze individual’s performance and provide information on the causes of difficulty. If a pupil continues to experience failure in a subject in-spite of the use of prescribed alternative methods of instruction during the course of instruction, in that stage teacher takes the help of diagnostic evaluation. So it assists the teacher in determining exactly where the learning or teaching has been successful and where it has failed.

The purpose of the diagnostic evaluation is to enquire into the nature of the difficulties faced by a pupil in his subject, so that proper remedial instructions may be applied. Diagnosis is, after all, a matter of degree. So tests may be diagnostic in various degree. Today, many tests used in educational evaluation may be called as diagnostic tests. In fact, any test which yields more than a single overall score is diagnostic.

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Diagnostic evaluation is of great use in making the teaching and learning more effective. Therefore, the teachers should not only be acquainted with the different diagnostic tests, but should also use the sense in making their instructional programme more effective.

Sometimes teachers spend much of their time in teaching over and over again a topic to their students. Because they develop a wrong notion in their mind that their students have not understand the topic and not their mind that their students have not understood the topic and not followed them. The real fact is that these teachers have a little or no knowledge of diagnostic test. Here the weak-point of the pupil’s should be diagnosed and due attention should be given to remove their difficulties.

Remedial Instruction:

Any diagnostic procedure must be based on extensive research to determine what types of errors are made. Once the error is tested, it is necessary to devise test procedures to reveal. After diagnosing the weakness of the pupil, the teacher needs to give him remedial instruction.

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If a doctor diagnoses that the patient is suffering from dysentery and does not give any remedy for its cure it will have no value at all. Unless, diagnosis is supplemented by remedy, it is worthless, same as in the field of education. Much work has been done so far, in diagnostic evaluation and remedial instigation for reading and arithmetic. Let us have a common idea about these two subjects in detail.

Diagnostic evaluation and remedial instruction in Reading:

Many teachers complain that their pupils are weak in reading. The real difficulty may lie in the poor reading of the pupils and hence they fail to recognize their thoughts properly. If a teacher does not know the nature of the difficulty, he may not be able to find out proper remedy to correct his pupils in reading; if he finds that poor reading ability is the course of their weakness in the subject.

So remedial instructions in reading should be a normal part of the reading programme at all grade levels. Researchers have provided that retardation in reading may seriously affect the personality development of pupils.

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In remedial reading programme, the first step is to identify those pupils who are weak in reading. Here the teacher is to adopt different procedures. The procedures include studying the eye movements during reading, using interest inventories, standardized silent reading test, standardized oral reading tests and informal teacher-made tests of reading. Efforts should be made to locate the cause of the difficulty of each pupil for remedial work in reading. Pupils fail to learn to read for a variety of reasons.

These factors are:

1. Poor physical condition.

2. Sensory defects.

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3. Unsatisfactory home condition.

4. Low intelligence

5. left-handedness

6. emotional tension

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7. Lack of interest

8. Poor background of experience.

9. Lack of reading practice etc.

Therefore, the diagnosis should be made to discover the reasons behind the lack of interest of the pupil. On the basis of the particular diagnosis, the specific nature of the remedial treatment should be given. There are several rules of procedure which have wide applicability for this purpose.

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Some of these are:

(i) Begin where the pupil is.

(ii) Inform him frequently by means of charts and graphs of the progress, he is making.

(iii) See that the exercise engaged in satisfying some basic goals of the pupil.

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(iv) Frequently commune the pupil for work, well-done.

(v) Supply a variety of exercises and activities, so that the work will not become monotonous.

A pupil’s reading vocabulary can be extended through extensive reading. This can be done through the use of an appropriate dictionary, systematic word study, the study of prefixes, suffixes and the root from which are derived. Wide reading method is most useful. The special reading classes should not be labeled remedial.

Diagnostic evaluation and Remedial instruction in Arithmetic:

Many students in schools are weak in arithmetic. They show very poor performance. So there is a felt need for remedial instruction in arithmetic. Diagnostic tests in arithmetic are of great value in identifying specific weakness which pupils posses and in pointing the way towards appropriate remedial instruction.

Example:

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If the pupils find it difficult to compute the problems on ratio and proportion, it does not necessarily mean that they do not know the method of computing these problems. These problems require a thorough knowledge of multiplication, division or cross-multiplication etc. It is just possible that some pupils may be weak in multiplications and division according to their need. It is of no use by wasting the time to repeat the lesson over and over again. The weak point of the pupils should be diagnosed and due attention should be given to remove their difficulties.

In the beginning of any lesson, one should test the previous knowledge of the pupils. While teaching a lesson on ratio and proportion at high school stage, the teacher should test his pupil, in all that he has read in the elementary stage. So he should not start teaching this new topic without removing the minor difficulties in multiplication and division. The teacher should not take the attitude that the teaching of multiplication and division is the responsibility of the elementary school teacher.

Survey tests in arithmetic are useful in giving the grade level at which a pupil performs. But the pupil’s difficulty in arithmetic con not always is shown by the Survey tests. So it is often highly desirable to use specially constructed diagnostic tests to furnish additional information about the pupil’s difficulty in arithmetic.

The remedial teaching which follows the diagnosis of individual difficulty, should take into account the needs and goals of the pupil. It should be more than mere drill. Drill or practice is highly necessary, but this should be related to the life-goal of the pupil. For this purpose, drill should be highly stimulating and new procedures and techniques should be introduced into the instruction from time to time.

In fact, the purpose of diagnostic test is to determine the weaknesses and deficiencies of pupils in different units of course content in a particular field. As such, the test constructor should not be confused the diagnostic test with the achievement test. And for the entire course content in a particular field he should prepare a battery of diagnostic tests and the remedial programmes, for removing the difficulties and weakness of the pupils.

Which of the test can be used to determine the strength and weakness of students?

How will you determine the weaknesses of your students?

Which test is given to know about the performance of students?

Which of the following assessment that is used to determine the students strengths/weaknesses skills and knowledge before taking the instruction?