Page 16 - Business Studies 9-10 (2006)

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT 15
– processing skills (e.g., analysing, interpreting, assessing, reasoning, generating ideas, evaluat- ing, synthesizing, seeking a variety of perspectives, forming conclusions)
– critical/creative thinking processes (e.g., evaluation of business situations, problem solving, decision making, detecting bias, research)
Communication. The conveying of meaning through various oral, written, and visual forms, including electronic forms (e.g., presentations, charts, graphs, tables, maps, models, web pages, spreadsheets, flyers, financial statements, letters, memos, reports).
Application. The use of knowledge and skills to make connections within and between various contexts.
Teachers will ensure that student work is assessed and/or evaluated in a balanced manner with respect to the four categories, and that achievement of particular expectations is considered within the appropriate categories.
Criteria. Within each category in the achievement chart, criteria are provided, which are subsets of the knowledge and skills that define each category. For example, in Knowledge
and Understanding, the criteria are “knowledge of content (e.g., facts, terms, definitions, procedures)” and “understanding of content (e.g., concepts, principles, theories, relationships, methodologies and/or technologies)”.The criteria identify the aspects of student performance that are assessed and/or evaluated, and serve as guides to what to look for.
Descriptors. A “descriptor” indicates the characteristic of the student’s performance, with respect to a particular criterion, on which assessment or evaluation is focused. In the achievement chart, effectiveness is the descriptor used for each criterion in the Thinking, Communication, and Application categories.What constitutes effectiveness in any given performance task will vary with the particular criterion being considered.Assessment of effectiveness may therefore focus on a quality such as appropriateness, clarity, accuracy, precision, logic, relevance, significance, fluency, flexibility, depth, or breadth, as appropriate for the particular criterion. For example, in the Thinking category, assessment of effectiveness might focus on the degree of relevance or depth apparent in an analysis; in the Communication category, on clarity of expression or logical orga- nization of information and ideas; or in the Application category, on appropriateness or breadth in the making of connections. Similarly, in the Knowledge and Understanding category, assess- ment of knowledge might focus on accuracy, and assessment of understanding might focus on the depth of an explanation. Descriptors help teachers to focus their assessment and evaluation on specific knowledge and skills for each category and criterion, and help students to better understand exactly what is being assessed and evaluated.
Qualifiers. A specific “qualifier” is used to define each of the four levels of achievement – that is, limited for level 1, some for level 2, considerable for level 3, and a high degree or thorough for level 4.A qualifier is used along with a descriptor to produce a description of performance
at a particular level. For example, the description of a student’s performance at level 3 with respect to the first criterion in theThinking category would be:“the student uses planning skills with considerable effectiveness”.
The descriptions of the levels of achievement given in the chart should be used to identify the level at which the student has achieved the expectations. In all of their courses, students should be given numerous and varied opportunities to demonstrate the full extent of their achieve- ment of the curriculum expectations across all four categories of knowledge and skills.