There are three main purposes of assessment: assessment for administration, assessment for teacher self-awareness and assessment for student growth. Assessment for administration helps provide funding for schools, assessment for teacher self-awareness helps educators become aware of how clearly they are teaching, and assessment for student growth allows students to clearly understand their artwork and become advocates for themselves during the art making process. I believe assessment for the student growth should be the primary focus of assessment for all educators.
In the arts, the purpose of assessment is to help all students understand their development and progress by analyzing professional opinions for feedback in areas of success and areas that may need improvement. Analytic assessment is a form of assessment where the product is analyzed in pieces instead of holistically. With that, it is important to create criteria that assess the quantitative and qualitative aspects of artwork when providing summative assessment for students. Quantitative assessment refers to assessment where measurements can be made for things that are counted, whereas qualitative assessment is a judgement made based on a performance or standard. When using qualitative assessment, students and teachers need to understand the value of a professional judgement as opposed to subjective opinion. Douglas Boughton claims, “Professional opinion is based upon knowledge of student’s artistic development derived from education theory and a store of visual evidence gathered over years of teaching experience” (p. 8). It is evident that professional judgments have a considerable amount of support to teacher’s decisions as opposed to those who have acquired a smaller amount of knowledge in the field of visual arts and simply have subjective opinions. When teachers and students understand the value of professional judgments, more respect is given to the teacher-student relationship.
To emphasize the importance of student growth, the context of assessment must be considered. This means that the assessment should hold true to a real life task such as drawing a principle or element to demonstrate knowledge as opposed to circling a multiple choice question to define it. Judgments must be properly made to meet the needs of students with dis/abilities through student referenced assessment. It is important to give these students more formative assessments to emphasize the importance of individual student progress.
All in all, among the variety of assessment purposes, assessment for student growth should be the front runner. Using the proper classifications of assessment helps equip teachers with the tools and methods necessary for appropriately helping students achieve milestones in their artistic development. Douglas Boughton accurately summarizes the application of criteria in the art classroom for student achievement by stating that “The process of assessment in visual arts requires the expression of explicit criteria to guide the judgment of those charged with the responsibility of determining whether or not student products or performance contain the qualities that demonstrate a high level of learning, or “excellence” of achievement, in the context of the curriculum” (p. 13). Properly implementing a system for students to clearly understand the assessment you provide them with helps them become advocates of assessing themselves in their artwork putting learning in the students control. Helping students gain control of their education through appropriate methods of assessment creates an environment ideal for academic development and educational advancements.
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