Testing and assessment is a major component in the educational process. Admissions tests, entrance exams, diagnostic tests, and many others are used in determining the credibility of applicants into college programs, vocational and training, and work assessments.
More employers than ever are also using these online assessment tools to filter out the less desirable candidates and focus on the ones that are most likely to fit what a company is needing. Online schools, colleges, and training and certification institutions all rely on these tests to determine whether someone has met the criteria for proceeding to the next level in their education.
In the future, schools and businesses will likely work together more coherently in this process, so that the assessments will adequately reflect what employers need in a candidate. Students will be more satisfied too because they will be trained in the area they excel in most.
The key to this coherent training program is dependent on putting the right assessments in place so that candidates will be assessed on the specific areas that are needed for the job they are applying for.
Types of Assessments for Educators
There are several different types of educational assessments, so it’s important to understand the difference so you can understand the type of assessment your school might need to assess accurately what you want to measure. Your school may be in need of one, two, or all of these specific types of assessments. Whatever your need, Testofy.com can help.
Pre-Admission Tests
Pre-admission tests are meant to measure a candidate’s strengths or weaknesses in certain areas that may help predict their likely success in a certain discipline or area of study. In this way, pre-admission tests serve as a screening method to screen out the students who may be going into the wrong field and wasting their time and the school’s time. Constructing pre-admission tests take a certain kind of know-how in creating the right questions that will help illustrate a student’s likelihood of success and show the areas of need.
Periodic Assessments
Another important type of assessment is a periodic assessment. These assessments are scheduled at different times so that students and teachers can chart their progress as they proceed. They allow teachers and administrators to chart individual student progress over time and focus on the greatest areas of need that should be given more attention. They also allow you to keep records and report results to students and others as needed at designated times.
Course-based Assessments
Course-based assessments are typically given at the completion of a course. Many schools are now using these types of assessments to decide whether students in public education proceed to the next grade or not. For online training school or colleges, they can be used in whatever way the school sees fit to monitor their year’s progress and use it as a factor in determining recommendations for the student’s future learning. These assessments can also provide instant feedback and analysis on how they are progressing from course to course.
Competitive Assessments
Competitive assessments are a new type of assessment that is unique to online schools. This format allows you to set up a more competitive format for testing that includes many different types of media and question formats. It also allows for answers of different types and gives you more flexibility in your assessment design.
Classroom-based Assessments
Classroom-based assessments (CBA) are often used in the public education setting to assess specific student progress in the regular classroom. In college and vocational school environments, these types of assessments can be used to assess a student’s progress in specific classroom skills. These tests are usually criterion-based and not norm-referenced, which means that they are based on specific criteria set forth by the instructor and school administrators. You can create these tests to include whatever you want and Testofy can help you design them to your specifications.
Mock Assessments
Mock assessments are designed for the purpose of serving as practice tests that allow students to become familiar with the format of a test so that they have a better chance of success when they take the real one. Both public schools and online colleges sometimes use this method to help students better prepare as well as to help increase their chances of success.
Certification Assessments
Online testing is becoming a thing of the future. In fact, many online schools, as well as a few brick-and-mortar institutions are already opting for this method in order to avoid some of the problems associated with traditional testing. When you test online you cut out the worry of:
- Stolen test manuals and secure testing materials
- Cheating by students looking at others’ work
- Generic test questions that are not relevant to the results
- Anxiety among students in large testing groups
When you use a service such as education based assessments you can design the certification questions in any way you choose to and help keep the control of what criteria you judge to be the most important in your power. This is something that you cannot do with a traditional type of testing or assessment company. Those companies are dictated by traditional influences, such as state departments of education, state government, and other sources. But when you custom-design your test to fit your needs, you can stay in control of the process completely. You get to determine which criteria are most important to include in whether a person meets your certification requirements.
Concerns About Online Testing
Some schools have concerns about using online testing because they are afraid they are less secure than real-world type tests. They also fear that they will lose control or that the tests will lose the human element if they are online. However, quite the contrary is true. While it’s true individual people will not administer or score the tests, this increases the validity of the results even more. Likewise, when you use a service to create your tests based on specific criteria that you design yourself, you will be able to keep the control at the top, where it belongs. Testofy simply follows your lead and specifications in what you want to include and creates the test digitally so that you don’t have to worry about creating it yourself. In short, Testofy automates the online school testing process!
Get Rid of Biased Tests
One great advantage of online testing is that you can cut out all of the bias and stereotypes about specific groups of people when the test is administered. You put in the questions that are important to your company or school, and Testofy does the rest. With computer algorithms that construct the test questions based on your input, you will end up with a non-biased test that truly tests what it is supposed to, without giving preference to certain groups, making it multicultural, global, and fair to all.
No matter what type of assessment you are looking for, you can keep the control at the top and have a test designed specifically to your standards, so that you don’t have to worry about how it will turn out.
To get started creating your first educationally-based assessments, contact Testofy to learn more. To sign up for a trial package with Testofy to see how they can help you create your unique online assessments, register here.
Imagine a world where assessments are created automatically with no thought of grouping, bias, or preference. Such assessments could measure a student’s ability level at any stage, whether before entrance into your school after a course is completed, or at any time you choose. This test would also be capable of running at any time without you being present to administer it. And it would provide the most accurate results of that student’s ability, and never allow them to cheat. This means the test would be reliable, valid, and trustworthy.
That would be the perfect test. — Testofy.com
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