The Main Types of Assessment & How to Balance Them

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

There are two main types of assessments: select response and constructed (or supply) response. Performance assessments are a special type of constructed response. The type of assessment that you choose will depend on your standards or competencies and what students are supposed to know, understand, and be able to do.

The goal in education should be to use a Balanced Assessment system...to use the appropriate type of assessment for the appropriate level of learning.

Select-Response

Select response items are common in today's standardized assessment world. The teacher provides the student with various answers, and the student selects one. True/False, matching, and multiple-choice are examples of select response questions.

Constructed-Response

Unlike a select response question in which the teacher provides the answers and the students choose the correct one(s), in a constructed response, students must create their own responses. Examples of this can include fill in the blank, diagrams, short answers, essays, or performance assessments.

Performance Assessments

Performance assessments are a special kind of constructed response because they require students to actually USE what they have learned in a practical or authentic way. When we say "authentic," we mean that it can be authentic to students' current lives, to potential future careers, or to the discipline itself. When we have students create series/parallel circuits, take a patient's pulse, or make change using physical money, those are all examples of (albeit less complicated) performance assessments. Performance assessments can range in length, intensity, and instructor intervention.

How do we choose which type of assessment or assessment item to use?

There's no hard and fast rule for how we choose the type of assessment. Generally, select response items cover the Understanding through Application level (with some multiple-choice being able to meet the Analyze level). Simple constructed response (such as fill in the blank) can also be lower-level, but the beauty of constructed response is that they can go all the way up to the Create level. Therefore, it's important to unpack standards using a taxonomy such as Bloom's cognitive domain or Webb's Depth of Knowledge in order to determine the appropriate rigor of the standard.

We also have to consider how long the various types of assessments take. Students can complete a single multiple-choice item, on average, in about 30-60 seconds. An essay, on the other hand, can take upwards of an hour. Performance assessments, especially if they become complex projects, can take days or weeks.

Moreover, grading time for the various types of assessments is different. With a select response or a lower-level constructed-response item, a teacher doesn't have to spend a long time grading. With a longer constructed response, especially a performance assessment, the teacher may end up spending considerable time grading using a lengthy checklist or rubric.

For these reasons, it's usually best to use the following rules of thumb:

• To check factual knowledge or simple application of skills (for instance, whether students can add/subtract with regrouping), use select response or lower-level constructed response.
• To check in-depth understanding or ability to use skills in real-life contexts, use constructed response. Especially when it comes to using skills in real-life settings, performance assessments are preferred.
• Strive for a balance between select response, constructed response, and performance assessments.

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Director of Innovation and Professional Development for Hampton City Schools. You can follow her on Twitter @LearningKate or on Linked In or email her at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.