Development of Attitudes Towards Assessment and Evaluation Course: Brain Breaks® Videos

Introduction

A curriculum consists of four elements; (1) goal, (2) scope, (3) educational attainment and (4) assessment and evaluation. The goal is to make sure that students develop certain skills. The Scope involves information that students need in order to achieve certain goals and behaviors. Educational attainment refers to efforts to associate goals with content in order to achieve learning activities. Assessment and evaluation determine whether students have achieved the goals and target behaviors in curricula (Baykul, 2000; Yaşar, 2010). Assessment and evaluation results provide teachers with information on students’ cognitive, affective and behavioral development. Teachers should administer tests to determine whether or not students have achieved target behaviors. To do this, teachers should receive sufficient knowledge of assessment and evaluation from undergraduate and graduate courses.

The assessment and evaluation course is a compulsory course in teacher training curricula. Evaluation is an important component of assessment and evaluation and a process that should be monitored in a planned, systematic and conscious manner. An evaluation process should be carried out in a highly planned and systematic manner to determine the association of behavioral changes with certain criteria and shortcomings and retention of those behaviors (Bilen, 2002). Therefore, preservice teachers should develop positive attitudes towards the Assessment and Evaluation course and learn how to implement assessment and evaluation steps effectively. Appropriate instruments should be used to obtain measurement results during evaluation. Measurement is carried out to quantify the degree to which an object or person possesses a characteristic to be measured (Linn & Gronlund, 1995). Evaluation is, therefore, a wider concept that also includes measurement (Bahar, Nartgün, Durmuş, & Başol, 2015).

Evaluation is defined as a process in which measurement results are compared with a certain criterion to arrive at a judgment (Baykul, 2000; Tan, 2008; Tekin, 1996; Tekindal, 2002; Yaşar, 2010). The accuracy of evaluation depends on the accuracy of measurement results. The basic rule of measurement is putting a variable into measurable terms, creating stimuli necessary for its emergence or choosing between existing stimuli, incorporate the stimulus into the environment and using numbers or symbols to express responses to the stimuli (Tan, 2008; Yaşar, 2010).

Teachers are responsible for all these operations, and therefore, they are an indispensable part of the education system. Assessment and evaluation are performed to determine students’ academic achievement and curriculum effectiveness (Erden, 1995). Teachers should be competent in assessment and evaluation in order to get to know their students, to provide feedback and corrections on learning processes and to determine their students’ academic achievement. The quality of teaching depends largely on that of assessment and evaluation (Çıkrıkçı-Demirtaşlı, 2014). Therefore, the more competent the teachers in assessment and evaluation, the higher the quality of teaching that they provide. Consequently, the more positive attitudes the teachers have towards assessment and evaluation, the more competent they are in it. The effectiveness of the undergraduate Assessment and Evaluation course is an important factor affecting teachers' ability to develop assessment and evaluation skills.

National studies show that preservice teachers have inadequate knowledge of and competence in assessment and evaluation (Çalışkan, Tekin, & Uymaz, 2013; Çelik & Arslan, 2012; Erdoğan & Kurt, 2012; Gürsoy, 2017; Karamustafaoğlu, Caglak, & Mesakeci, 2012; Mutluer, 2015; Yaman & Karamustafaoglu, 2011; Yesilyurt, 2012). Research also shows that preservice teachers’ attitudes affect their professional lives and competence (Auzmendi, 1991; Gal & Ginsgurg, 1994). According to the General Directorate of Teacher Training and Development of the Ministry of Education (2017), assessment and evaluation is a professional skill. The undergraduate Assessment and Evaluation course helps teachers develop competence in assessment and evaluation (Higher Education Council [HEC], 2006).