1. Assessment in
Curriculum Design
Rahma Kaffa,
Younes Taia, Zakaria Jamaati
Curriculum Development Course
Prof. Mohamed El Fatihi

2. Outline
I. Assessment Rational of incorporating in CD, procedures
II. Types of Assessment.
a. Placement assessment
b. Observation of learning
c. Achievement assessment (short-term and long-term)
d. Diagnostic Assessment
e. Proficiency assessment
III. Approaches to Assessment:
a. Validity
b. Reliability
c. Practicality

3. Assessment
• is the process of collecting information by
reviewing the products of student work,
interviewing, observing, or testing.

4. Rationale for Assessment
Guide and encourage effective
approaches to learning; validly and
reliably measure expected learning
outcomes, in particular the higher-order
learning that characterizes higher
education; and define and protect
academic standards.

5. General principles underpin Assessment Procedures:
• Assessment should be an aid to successful
learning and should encourage students to apply
their knowledge and skills in an analytical and
critical manner;
• Modes of assessment should be specifically linked
to the learning outcomes of a unit and course
including outcomes for the development of
graduate attributes;
• Assessment requirements should be based on pre-
determined and clearly articulated criteria that
describe standards of knowledge, skills,
competencies and/or capabilities.

6. General principles underpin Assessment Procedures:
• Students should receive feedback on their work in
a timely manner that assists them to monitor their
progress towards the achievement of specified
learning outcomes and to improve the quality of
their work;
• Assessment should be inclusive and equitable for
all students;
• Assessment should be valid and reliable;
• Students and staff should act in accordance with
the Academic Regulations, the Academic Honesty
Policy and the Assessment Policy and Assessment
Procedures.

7. How to create assessment
Guiding Questions for Creating
Assessments When creating any
assessment, you should use the same
backwards planning mindset that frames
all of your instructional planning. To help
you backwards plan your assessments,
consider the following questions:

8. How to create assessment
1. What are your learning goals or
standards?
2. What evidence would you need from
students to demonstrate mastery of the
standards/goals?
3. What method will you use to assess?
4. What are the criteria for success? What
are the characteristics of a high quality
response?

9. Types of Assessment:

10. Placement assessment
The learners are assessed at the
beginning of a course to see what level of
the course they should be in. The aim of
this testing is to ensure that the course is
not going to be too easy or too difficult for
the learner.
• It often has to be done just before a course
begins.
• The results have to be available quickly.

11. Possible placement tests
A grammar-based test could ask the learners to
complete sentences, choose appropriate items
from multiple-choices, locate the items referred to
by reference words in a text, or complete a cloze
test or dictation.
Tests which focus on vocabulary. For example, a
placement test which consists of a computerized
yes/no test where the learners see individual
words without context from various frequency
levels and have to indicate whether they know the
word or not. About one-third of the words are
nonsense words which are used to correct for
over-estimation by the learner.

12. Tests which focus on language in terms of
pronunciation use include interviews, role
plays, listening tests with message-focused
questions, reading passages with message-
focused questions and composition writing.
Note:
Teachers should therefore not feel that they have to
include mainly language use tests in a placement test, and
should feel comfortable with making use of tests focusing on
knowledge of language items.
Possible placement tests

13. Observation of learning
While the course is running, the
activities that the learners do are carefully
monitored to see if each particular activity
is likely to achieve its learning goal. This
involves technique analysis and
classroom observation.

14. • Monitoring learners‟ progress in a course can
occur at the level of the learning activity.
• This monitoring does not assess the learners
but is directed towards the tasks that they do.
• The purpose of the monitoring is to see if it is
necessary to make changes to the learning
activities in order to encourage learning.
Observation of learning

15. Aspect that should be Considered in Observation
of learning
• There are four questions that should be
asked when observing learning activities
(Nation, 2001: 60–74).
1. What is the learning goal of the activity?
2. What are the learning conditions that
would lead to the achievement of this
goal?

16. Aspect that should be Considered in
Observation of learning
3. What are the observable signs that these
learning conditions are occurring?
4. What are the design features of the
activity that set up the learning
conditions or that need to be changed to
set up the learning conditions?

17. Example:
In a spoken fluency development activity.
 The learning goal of the activity is to
Develop Spoken fluency
• The learning conditions are (assumed)
- The learners are focused on the meaning of the
task.
- The task involves very limited language
demands, i.e. all the language needed to do the
task is familiar to the learners.

18. Example:
 The observable signs:
- involvement in communicating with a
partner.
- reasonably high speed of speaking with a
small number of hesitations.
- some signs of comprehension by the listener.

19. The design features of the activity.
include opportunity for preparation, a chance
to repeat the task several times to different
listeners, a familiar topic and an involved
listener, and time pressure.
Example:

20. Achievement Assessment
Short-term Achievement Assessment.
• Short-term achievement assessment monitors the
product of activities, or small sets of activities applied in
the classroom.
• The goal is to check whether learners are progressing
throughout the course time.
• Provides feedback for both Ts and Ss.
• They can have motivational purposes:
– Oblige learners to do work they are required to do in due time.
– Develop feeling of achievement for Ss as they succeed on tests

21. Achievement Assessment
Short-term Achievement Assessment.
• In courses where there fewer classes, this type of
assessment is not feasible.
• Short-term objectives are effectively assessed if clear
„performance objectives‟ are set ahead for some learning
goals.
• A Performance Objective: (brown, 1995) It is a specific,
accountable and measurable description of the desired
accomplishment we want the S to attain by the end of
the assessment period.
– 1. Subject. 2. The performance.
– 3. The conditions 4. The measure.
– 5. The criterion.

22. Achievement Assessment
Short-term Achievement Assessment.
• The subject: who should achieve the objective of the
lesson.
• The performance: what the learner should be able to
perform.
• The conditions: under what conditions the performance
of the learner should occur.
• The measure: how the performance will be tested.
• The criterion: what level of the performance must be
reached.

23. Achievement Assessment
Short-term Achievement Assessment.
• E.g.:
The learner should be able to quickly read and
comprehend a 550 word text containing only well-known
vocabulary and constructions at a speed greater than 250
words per minute and with at least 70 per cent
comprehension as measured by ten four back to the text
and while they answer the questions.

24. Achievement Assessment
Short-term Achievement Assessment.
• Using performance objectives is recommended to clarify
goals for both T and learners, and to monitor progress.
• Recently, most curriculum designers do write POs for
some of the goals of the course.
• Generally, STAA should provide clear record of the
progress that can be easily interpreted:
– Should be administered in a user friendly format. (motivation)
– Should not be time consuming.
– Should be done at regular point of the class.
– Activities should be familiar to the Ss

25. Achievement Assessment
Long-term Achievement Assessment.
• It measures both the achievement of learners during a
period of a course and the effectiveness of the course.
• The length of the course determines the number of tests
learners will sit for:
– A final achievement test.
– Tests part of the way through a course.
• The latter may be done to pick up learners that are
struggling with the course.
• They may be also used to assess the first part of material

26. Achievement Assessment
Long-term Achievement Assessment.
• They have three characteristics:
– 1. They are based on material taught in the course.
– 2. Learners do know ahead the test‟s type of questions and
material will be covered.
– 3. They are criterion referenced (standard) # Norm referenced.
• Achievement tests may also be considered Mastery tests
where the learners have to reach a criterion of mastery to
pass to the next level. If they fail they may be repeated
opportunities to study for the test and sit for it.

27. Achievement Assessment
Long-term Achievement Assessment.
• Rationale behind mastery
tests:
– If something is to be
learned, it should be
learned.
– Every learners is capable of
achieving mastery,
regardless of time needed.
– T responsibility is to Ss and
to learning.
– The mastery of area is
rewarding and motivating
for both T and Ss.
• Opposing view:
– T‟s responsibility is to the
subject matter, not to the
student.
– One role of courses is to
inform employers and
institution‟s admission
responsible that
capabilities are different.
– Learners are responsible
for their own learning and
managing it.

28. Achievement Assessment
Long-term Achievement Assessment.
• It is advisable that questions in achievement tests should
be slightly different to the activities done in class.
• Language learning is supposed to be able to transfer to a
variety of uses.
• General: Achievement tests are:
– A very important component of curriculum design..
– Provide feedback for Ts, Ss, curriculum designers.
– Have a “washback” effect on teaching and learning (motivates
and guides learning)

29. Diagnostic Assessment
• It is implemented to find out the weaknesses and gaps in
learners‟ knowledge so an action can be done about
them and not to waste time on teaching what already
students know well.
• DA is a very good instrument of needs analysis both
before a course starts and during the course.
• The results of DA determines what should a course
cover. Thus a good DA is accurate and easy and easy to
interpret in terms of actions to be taken.

30. Diagnostic Assessment
• Some other types of assessment can provide us with
diagnostic information, such as achievement tests,
proficiency test, achievement tests, or placement tests.
• There some designed specifically for diagnosis:
– The vocabulary level test (Schmitt et al., 2002)
The test is designed to determine what should be the focus of the
course: whether high frequency vocabulary or low frequency
vocabulary as teaching each category requires different teaching
strategies.

31. Diagnostic Assessment
• The findings of diagnostic assessment can thus have a
important effect on the design of a course.
• DA can be also in different forms:
– Analysis of language use ( written compositions, reading tasks,
spoken performances).
– Observation of learner performance (the process of writing,
note taking, etc.)
– Learner self-assessment where learners work with check lists to
indicate their perceived areas of strength and weakness.
It is very difficult to determine learners subjective concerns
from objective judgments

32. Proficiency assessment
• A unique feature about language proficiency test is it
draws its items from the language itself not from any
course.
• The purpose of proficiency assessment is that to reflect
to what extent a learner knows of the language or a
specific part of it.
• The well know proficiency tests are:
– Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL)
– International English Language Testing System (IELTS)

33. Proficiency assessment
• These tests sometimes awaits a learner at the end of a
course.
• They may be working as a criterion-referenced test to
determine the admission of a learners into an English
medium university:
– TOEFL iBT (internet-based) is out of 120.
– IELTS test uses a 9-point scale.
• In some cases these tests may act as norm-referenced to
show learners their level of proficiency in relation to
others

34. Proficiency assessment
• TOEFL as a criterion referenced test can have an
important washback effect on a language course that
precedes it.
• It can have the effect of making the content of the course
resembles the content and test items formats in the test.
• Courses that predict what will be in the test and do copy
the format of the test in their learning activities do
consider proficiency test as achievement tests for the
course, except that the course is drawing items from old
tests.

35. Proficiency assessment
• For these courses the presence of a proficiency test at the
end of the course affect different teachers in different
ways. Thus, the quality of channels communication
between test designers and test designers and the Ts
and learners is paramount.
• There are constraints of proficiency test at the end of the
course:
– 1. courses become commercial business for publishers which
their books may mislead sometimes the test takers.
– 2. making a course look like a test makes dependent to the test.
– 3. Remove the test, for some international universities who offer
intensive English programs, or their own proficiency tests

36. Proficiency assessment
• Proficiency tests are a good source for evaluation data
for a program as they represent an independent
measure of the relevance, and adequacy of a language
course.

37. Approaches to assessment
• All assessment needs to be checked to see that it is doing
its job properly and that is not causing unnecessary
work.
• Most investigate procedures including the tools for need
analysis, course evaluation procedures, and tests and
other measures for assessment can be examined by
considering THREE criteria: Reliability, Validity and
Practicality.
• We will discuss these three criteria in relation to tests.

38. Reliability
Reliability is synonymous with the consistency of a test,
a survey, observation or other measuring device.
Let us consider this example:
Imagine stepping on your bathroom scale and weighing
140 pounds only to find that your weight on the same scale
change to 180 pounds an hour later and 100 pounds an
hour after that. So, base on the inconsistency of this scale,
any research relying on it would certainly be unreliable,
and its results would not be accurate.

39. • So, Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool
produces stable and consistent results.
• The reliability of a test refers to its degree of consistency
and repeatability.
• Statistically, reliability is measured by having the
learners sit the test twice and seeing if the learners get
near enough to the same result, or more commonly, by
splitting the scores on the individual test items into two
equal groups and seeing if the learners get the same
score on both groups.

40. Characteristics of a reliable
test
• A reliable test is always given under the same conditions,
which include the amount of time allowed for the test,
and the instructions are always presented in the same
way.
• It is consistently marked, because if the marking is
unreliable, then the results are unreliable. Reliable
marking is consistent, and consistency is helped by
having some kind of answer key or well-thought-out
scoring procedure. Markers need to be trained.

41. • It has many questions or points of assessment, then if
something is wrong with one or two of the points, this
will not greatly influence the result.
• Its questions and instructions are clear and
unambiguous.

42. Validity
• A valid test measures what is supposed to measure. A
valid achievement test measures what has been learned
on the course. A valid listening test measures skill at
listening.
• The most practical ways for a teacher or curriculum
designer to check the validity of a test are to look at its
face validity and content validity.

43. • Face validity:
Face validity simply means that if the test is called a reading
test, does it look like a reading test? If it is called a vocabulary
test, does it look like a vocabulary test?
Face validity is important because it reflects how the learners
and perhaps their parents, and other teachers will react to the
test. For example, a vocabulary test which has a low face
validity, it presents words in isolation without a context, it does
not ask for the learner to give a meaning, and it does not require
him or her to use the vocabulary, this could affect the learners’
reaction to the test and their acceptance of its results.
It is an advantage if tests look like the kind of test they are
supposed to be.

44. • Content validity:
It is little like face validity, except that the decision-
making about validity is not made by looking at the test’s
“face”, but by analyzing the test and comparing it to what
it is supposed to test. For example, To find the content
validity of an achievement test, we would have to look at
the part of the course that was being tested and list the
items and skills taught. Then we would have to look at the
test and list the items and skills tested, if these two lists
matched each other quite closely, or if the test involved a
representative sample of the course list, we could say the
test has content validity.

45. • In other words, validity exists when a test is
used for the purpose for which it was
designed.

46. Practicality
• Not only must a test be reliable and valid, it must also be
practical. Practicality is examined by looking at the cost
involved in administering and scoring the test, the time
taken to administer and sit the test, the time taken to
mark the test, the number of people needed to
administer and mark the test, and the ease in
interpreting and applying the results of the test.
• Tests can be made more practical by being carefully
formatted for easy marking, by being not too long, and
by using objectively scored items such as true/false or
multiple choice.

47. • The requirements of practicality, reliability and validity
do not always agree with each other, for example short
tests are practical but not very reliable or valid.
Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice some practicality to
get a valid test (For example an individual oral interview
for 200 people), or to sacrifice validity to make the test
more practical (multi-choice vocabulary tests). Where
possible, reliability and validity should be preferred over
practicality, but usually compromise is necessary.

48. • Assessment is a major source of information for the
evaluation of a course and thus its gradual improvement.
Assessment also contributes significantly to the teacher’s
and learners’ sense of achievement in a course and thus
is important for motivation.
• Curriculum design should include the planning of a well-
thought-out program of assessment of various kinds.

49. References
• Macalister, J. (2010). Language Curriculum Design. NYC:
Routledge.
• Retrieved from website on 20 May, 2013:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hrs/profldev/performance_
management/performance_objective.html