A Critical Analysis of Examination in Assessing Psychology Students at Coursework

A Critical Analysis of Examination in Assessing Psychology Students at University - Coursework Example Students are assessed for a variety of reasons such as for motivation of students, producing learning opportunities, enabling feedback to students and teachers, grading and for improving quality of education provided and institutions (Rust, 2002). Teachers design assessment and examination techniques to facilitate learning of students and give feedback of the conduct of the students during the course. It is essential to fully understand the real purpose of assessment and the assessment method used should be critically analyzed and evaluated, for the assessment technique to be effective in achieving its purposes. As according to Broadfoot, â€Å"Assessment is on the agenda because change is on the agenda; because there is growing pressure in many countries for the education system to do more and different things; because it is felt that assessment is key to achieving these changes†. This paper identifies the purpose of the assessment and indicates what should be assessed. It fu rther analyzes the attributes of an efficacious assessment. There are more than one examination methods used in assessing students at educational settings, and this paper analyzes those methods and further describes the strengths and weaknesses, and advantages and disadvantages of the examination method to assess the students. ... Assessment of examination can include giving grades as a part of it, but it does not limited to this act. It is a subjective process of evaluation as well as objective one (Rust, 2002). The main purpose of assessment of students is the most important consideration before analyzing and evaluating the assessment and examination methods. Assessment through examination is considered as a dynamic process having multiple aspects and diverse intentions. Such diverse intents include providing the examination criteria on the basis of which students are graded and promoted to next higher level. In assessing students, proper feedback is enabled so as to highlight the quality of student learning, and also teachers are capable to evaluate the the extent to which their teaching is effective. The assessment through examination method is crucial in maintaining academic standards (Brown et al., 1996). The deep understanding of purpose of assessing students facilitates the teacher in establishing a mo del which defines the assessment method to use in particular educational setting. But before moving to that step of developing assessment framework, the facets of student learning that are to be assessed or examined should be considered. The assessment content majorly depends on the course objectives as both of these assist to achieve the same educational goals for student learning. This is the basic element of an effectively-designed curriculum. The extensive classification of educational and learning objectives covers three critical areas that are knowledge, skills, and attitudes. For the knowledge domain, Harden has illustrated that cognitive measures are addressed by knowledge objectives (Harden, 1979).