Role of Testing and Evaluation in Nursing Education
What is Testing
A test is a set of items to which students respond in written or oral form, typically during a fixed period. Brookhart and Nitko (2008) defined a test as an instrument or a procedure for describing characteristics of a student. Tests are typically scored based on the number or percentage of answers that are correct and are administered similarly to all students.
Although students often dread tests, information from tests enables faculty to make important decisions about students. Tests are used frequently as an assessment strategy. They can be used to assess students’ knowledge and skills prior to instruction, which enables the teacher to gear instruction to the learners’ needs.
Conclusion About Test Results
Test results indicate gaps in learning and performance that should be addressed first as well as knowledge and skills already acquired. With this information teachers can better plan their instruction. When teachers are working with large groups of students, it is difficult to gear the instruction to meet each student’s needs.
However, the teacher can use diagnostic quizzes and tests to reveal content areas in which individual learners may lack knowledge and then suggest remedial learning activities. Not only do the test results guide the teacher, but they also serve as feedback to students about their learning needs.
Tests and Utilization in the Nursing Education
Tests are commonly used to determine students’ grades in a course, but in most nursing courses they are not the only assessment strategy. Faculty members (N = 1573) in pre licensure nursing programs reported that papers, collaborative group projects, and case study analyzes were used more frequently for assessment in their courses than they were tests.
However, tests were weighted most heavily in determining the students’ course grades (Oermann, Saewert, Charasika , & Yarbrough, 2009). Tests are used for selecting students for admission to nursing programs. Admission tests provide norms that allow comparison of the applicant’s performance with that of other applicants.
Tests also may be used to place students into appropriate courses. Placement tests, taken after the individual has been admitted, provide data for determining which courses students should complete in their study programs. For example, a diagnostic test of math skills may determine whether a nursing student is required to take a medication dosage calculation course.
By reviewing test results teachers can identify content areas that students learned and did not learn in a course. With this information, faculty can modify the instruction to better meet student learning needs in future courses.
Last, testing may be an integral part of the curriculum and program evaluation in a school of nursing. Students may complete tests to measure program outcomes rather than to document what was learned in a course. Test results for this purpose often suggest areas of the curriculum for review and may be used for accreditation reports.
Evaluation Process in Nursing Education
Evaluation is the process of making judgments about student learning and achievement, clinical performance, employee competence, and educational programs, based on assessment data. Broad foot (2007) emphasized that the focus of evaluation is on making judgments about quality.
Utilization of Evaluation In Nursing Education
In nursing education, evaluation typically takes the form of judging student attainment of the educational objectives and goals in the classroom and the quality of student performance in the clinical setting. With this evaluation, learning outcomes are measured, further educational needs are identified, and additional instruction can be provided to assist students in their learning and in developing competencies for practice.
Similarly, evaluation of employees provides information on their performance at varied points in time as a basis for judging their competence. Evaluation extends beyond a test score or clinical rating. In evaluating learners, teachers judge the merits of the learning and performance based on data.
Evaluation involves making value judgments about learners; In fact, value is part of the word “evaluation.” Questions such as “How well did the student perform?” and “Is the student competent in clinical practice?” are answered by the evaluation process. The teacher collects and analyzes data about the student’s performance, then makes a valued judgment about the quality of that performance.
In terms of educational programs, evaluation includes collecting information prior to developing the program, during the process of development to provide a basis for ongoing review, and after implementing the program to determine its effectiveness.
With program evaluation, faculty members collect data about their students, alumni, curriculum, and other dimensions of the program for the purposes of documenting the program outcomes, judging the quality of the program, and making sound decisions about curriculum revision.
As educators measure outcomes for accreditation and evaluate their courses and curricula, they are engaging in program evaluation. Although many of the concepts described in this book are applicable to program evaluation, the focus instead is on evaluating learners, including students in all types and levels of nursing programs and nurses in health care settings. The term students are used broadly to reflect both of these groups of learners.
Types of Evaluation
Formative Evaluation
Evaluation fulfills two major roles: it is both formative and summative. Formative evaluation judges students’ progress in meeting the objectives and developing competencies for practice. It occurs throughout the instructional process and provides feedback for determining where further learning is needed. Wang (2008) suggested that formative evaluation is integral to the interaction between students and teachers.
With formative evaluation the teacher continually assesses how well students are learning, gives them prompt and specific feedback about the knowledge and skills that still need to be acquired, and directs the instruction to the gaps in learning so students achieve mastery. Considering that formative evaluation is diagnostic, it typically is not graded.
Teachers should remember that the purpose of formative evaluation is to determine where further learning is needed. In the classroom, formative information may be collected by teacher observation and questioning of students, diagnostic quizzes, small-group activities, written assignments, and other activities that students complete in and out of class. These same types of strategies can be used to assess student learning in online and other courses offered for distance education. In clinical practice, formative evaluation is an integral part of the instructional process.
The teacher continually makes observations of students as they learn to provide patient care, questions them about their understanding and clinical decisions, discusses these observations and judgments with them, and guides them in how to improve performance. With formative evaluation the teacher gives feedback to learners about their progress in achieving the goals of clinical practice and how they can further develop their knowledge and skills.
Summative Evaluation
Summative evaluation, on the other hand, is end-of-instruction evaluation designed to determine what the student has learned in the classroom, an online course, or clinical practice.
Summative evaluation judges the quality of the student’s achievement in the course, not the progress of the learner in meeting the objectives. As such, summative evaluation occurs at the end of the learning process, for instance, the end of a course, to determine the student’s grade and certify competence.
Although formative evaluation occurs constantly throughout the learning experience, for example, each day, summative evaluation is conducted on a periodic basis, for instance, every few weeks or at the midterm and final evaluation periods. This type of evaluation is “final” in nature and serves as a basis for grading and other high-stakes decisions.
Summative evaluation typically judges broader content areas than formative evaluation, which tends to be more specific in terms of the content evaluated. Strategies commonly used for summative evaluation in the classroom and online courses are tests, term papers, and other types of projects.
In clinical practice, rating scales, written assignments, portfolios, and projects completed about clinical experiences, and other performance measures may be used. Both formative and summative evaluation are essential components of most nursing courses.
However, because formative evaluation represents feedback to learners with the goal of improving learning, it should be the best part of any nursing course. By providing feedback on a continuous basis and linking that feedback with further instruction, the teacher can assist students in developing the knowledge and skills they lack.