Assessment Review Tool
From the publishers:
“The [Rhode Island Assessment Review] tool provides a framework for educators to use when evaluating an assessment for a given purpose, particularly whether or not an assessment is appropriate as evidence for a Student Learning Objective. It can be used to review commercially-, district-, or teacher-developed assessments. The tool prompts educators to consider type, alignment, scoring, administration, and bias.
This review should be completed by a team of educators and will take several hours to complete in its entirety. Given the scheduling constraints most teams face, the review can be completed over several sessions, each of which could be dedicated to a different aspect of the assessment (e.g. Alignment).”
The purposes of this tool are well defined and met. It should help educators, especially teacher teams, evaluate the quality of an assessment for a given use. Communications quality is acceptable, although it could be improved by adding hyperlinks to other useful resources, especially the Rhode Island Assessment Review Toolkit, which I highly recommend as a precursor to using this tool. Users should also read the Sample Review (Companion Document), which provides a sample assessment review.
Utility could be quite high for educators or administrators who need or want to evaluate the quality of their own or other assessments for classroom use. (Note that this tool is intended to be used by a “team of grade or content-alike educators.”) Evidence of the tool’s effectiveness is not provided, but the overall dimensions evaluated in the tool suggest a possible impact on learning.