Assessment is a quite essential component of the teaching learning process or the education system in general. But, for serving its purposes as a good tool of assessment, it must meet the following criterias -
An assessment tool may be termed as a valid tool if it is able to demonstrate accuracy in its functioning or behaviour, i.e, it should assess what it seeks to assess.
e.g. - A tool of assessment meant for assessing achievement in mathematics should assess achievements related to mathematics instead of one's proficiency related to language or art.
Reliability refers to the faith that can be put into the functioning of an object. Similarly, a tool of assessment may be said to be a reliable one if it passes judgement over the performance of the learner in almost the same way everytime.
e.g. - If an evaluator assigns 60 marks out of 100 marks in a given test to an examinee, second evaluator should also assign the same marks in the same test to same examinee.
The evaluation is said to be objective if responding to the test items by examinee or marking of the responses by evaluator is not at all affected by their respective personal interests, attitudes or feelings.
We can also say that the subjectivity shown by the examinee and evaluator should not affect the evaluation outcomes (objectives).
An assessment tool may be said to be quite comprehensive if it demonstrates its capability of assessing the teaching-learning outcomes related with each and every aspect of the content material, topic or unit of the subject covered through the classroom teaching- learning.
We must have a proper diagnosis of the difficulties faced by a learner in their learning process. Accordingly a tool of assessment must invariably help in supplying information related to such diagnosis.
A good assessment tool must be equipped with the following features associated with its construction and use -
The assessment tool should be quite convenient and economical in terms of labour, time and expenditure for its preparation and construction at the hands of paper setters.
An assessment tool should not pose problem at the time of administrating the examination. More particularly, it should not pose the problems related to copying, talking or consulting with each other during examination.
The assessment tool should not pose problems to the evaluator in assigning scores to the responses of the examinees.