Adding assessment to psychology activities/demonstrations: Why and how

There are hundreds of demonstrations/activities available for high school psych teachers (Benjamin et al., 1999). While these activities/demonstrations can be engaging, exciting elements of high school psychology classes, very few of them include a way to measure the learning impact of the activity. Activities/demonstrations can be even more useful in high school psychology classrooms if they include efficient tools teachers can use to gauge what students learned.

This document is an abbreviated version of the “Assessment Guide for Psychology Teachers” (PDF, 617KBopens in new window) (APA Working Group on Assessing Student Knowledge and Skills in Psychology, 2017) document developed at the APA Summit on High School Psychology Education. Working group members were Regan Gurung, PhD, Rob McEntarffer, PhD, Dana Dunn, PhD, Alan Feldman, Stephanie Franks, Sayra González, PsyD, Jane Halonen, PhD, Miriya Julian, and Maria Vita.

These steps may be useful for teachers as they modify existing demonstrations/activities to add assessment possibilities.

• In the past, high school psychology teachers scrambled to find any available activity they could use. Now that there are dozens of activities available for every unit, we have the opposite problem. We need to carefully pick and choose which activities we will use given the limited time we have with students. One way to quickly narrow down the possibilities is to start with the question: what will students learn by participating in this activity? This is the first step recommended in the “Resource Vetting Rubric” (PDF, 48KB)opens in new window (APA Summit on High School Psychology Education, 2017) developed at the APA Summit on High School Psychology Education. Pick the activity that you think most closely aligns with your learning goal for the lesson.
• Step 1 will help you later in this process: Since you have a clear idea what students should learn as they participate in or watch the activity/demonstration, you can figure out how to assess the learning impact of the activity.

• Asking students what they learned from an activity is a common way to check for understanding, but it has limitations: Usually not all students have an opportunity to respond, so you may know the students who raised their hands and provided answers learned something, but you don’t have any information about what the rest of the class learned.
• After you choose your demonstration/activity, look through the procedures to see if it includes something that requires students to “show what they know.” Some activities include this step, some don’t.
  
  

• Now that you know what you need students to learn, what activity might match that purpose, and whether or not the activity already includes an assessment, it’s time to make sure that assessment will get you the information you need (If it does, skip Step 4 and 5 below), or if you need to develop an assessment that will.
• Most purposes for assessments embedded in activities are probably “formative:” these are more informal, low-stakes measurements or practice opportunities teachers use to determine whether concepts need to be reviewed again or if it’s time to move on. It is unlikely (but possible) that a teacher might be able to use an assessment embedded in an activity for a “summative” purpose, in which measurement directly contributes to a formal final judgment of what has been learned (e.g., a grade).
• If you have to add a task to the activity to figure out what students learned, think ahead to how you want to use that information and choose an appropriate assessment format. The “Assessment Guide for Psychology Teachers” (PDF, 617KB)opens in new window includes detailed descriptions of assessment formats (pg. 7-12). Here is a brief summary of this “purpose-format match.”
  
  

• After you choose your assessment format based on your purpose, it’s writing time. Think about other assessments/assignments in this format that you already use in your class. You may be able to “copy” what you do in that existing assessment/assignment and adapt it for this demonstration/activity.
• The  “Assessment Guide for Psychology Teachers” (PDF, 617KB)opens in new window includes advice that might be useful if you are writing new assessment items or tasks:

• Multiple Choice items: pg. 16-17
• True-False items: pg. 18
• Open-ended/Essay items: pg. 17
• Rubric development for essay or performance assessments: pg. 18-20 (Note: since the purpose of your assessment is probably to help you make a teaching decision about reteaching, you probably don’t need a formal rubric. The “single point rubric” described on pg. 19 might be useful.)

• Suggestion: look back at “Step 1: What will students learn?” and let that purpose guide every decision you make during assessment development. Ask yourself: What can I have students do that will give me reliable information about what they learned through the activity/demonstration?

• You should probably think about the first time you use your brand-new assessment as a “field test.” You may have to revise the assessment to get data you can use.
• The concepts of reliability and validity might be useful as you think about your results and whether you want to revise the assessment (more information on pg. 22 of the “Assessment Guide for Psychology Teachers” [PDF, 617KBopens in new window])

• Reliability: Do you think you would get similar results from these students on this assessment task if you asked them to do it again? Did they take it seriously? Do you have surprising results from specific students who you know are very capable or usually struggle? These surprising results might indicate that some students didn’t take the task seriously, or that there is something about your assessment task that is “throwing” some students off.
• Validity: Remember the purpose you defined in step 3. Usually for an activity/demonstration, the purpose of the assessment is to figure out if students learned what they were supposed to learn so that we know if we can go on with additional instruction or if we need to backtrack and address misconceptions. If your new assessment provides information you can use to make that inference, that’s a good sign that you have a valid assessment task.

Rob McEntarffer taught psychology, AP psychology, and philosophy for 13 years at Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was involved with the AP psychology reading and APA/TOPSS for many years. While teaching, he became interested in educational measurement issues and got a Master’s degree in educational measurement (qualitative and quantitative methods) from the University of Nebraska Lincoln in 2003. Rob started his work as an assessment/evaluation specialist with Lincoln Public Schools in 2005, and works with the district on large scale and classroom assessment issues. Rob earned his PhD in teaching, learning, and teacher education in 2013, focusing his research on how teachers make room for formative assessment processes in their classrooms. Rob lives with his wife, two kids, dog, and cat in Lincoln, Nebraska and works for Lincoln Public Schools.