Page 16 - Guidance Education 11-12 (2006)

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT 15
might focus on the depth of an explanation. Descriptors help teachers to focus their assess- ment 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 achievement of the curriculum expectations across all four categories of knowledge and skills.