Tayla Reynolds

November 29, 2014

ED450
Pre/Post Assessment Analysis
Introduction/Background Info:
For my data analysis, I gave a pre and post assessment to Mr. Webers Woods 2 class
first period. There are nine male students in this class and during the quarter and they were
responsible for creating a finished wood project that had a specific grading criteria. These
students are very familiar with creating woodworking projects, and will probably continue with
higher level classes. With that, I wanted to explain to them why the class they were taking will
be important and how it can be used to their advantage in the future. All nine of the students took
the pre assessment and all nine took the post assessment as well which made it fairly easy to
examine and compare the results.
Before starting the lesson, I gave the class the pre assessment first thing, than the post
assessment right after I was finished. The pre and post were the exact same questions so
therefore it would be more obvious if the students understood the material that was being
discussed. The assessments were constructed off of what I was teaching in the lesson that day.
Pre-Assessment:
While planning my lesson, I knew that I wanted to create an assessment that correlated
along with it. As I began to create the pre assessment, I made several predictions and
observations. I predicted that the majority of the students didnt have previous knowledge with

the material that I was about to teach. In this group of nine students, there were two seniors, three
juniors, and four sophomores. Although different in age, all nine students are on the same skill
and knowledge level and very similar in terms of learning capabilities. I predicted that they were
going to be able to make educated guesses that were somewhat similar to what I was looking for,
but nothing exact. As I planned the lesson, I made assumptions what the students did and did not
know and the graph listed below represents those predictions.

Prediction Before Lesson

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Definition

Name 1+
Woodworking Jobs
Pre-Test

List Salary
Catagorically

List 2+ Skills Needed

Post Test

The features you see on the x-axis are the questions I asked in the pre and post
assessment and the y-axis shows the number of students that I thought would get the questions
correct. Each different color on the graph represents either the pre assessment of post assessment
to make it more evident on which was which.
After creating the pre-assessment, it made it that more simple to develop my lesson and
think about what I wanted to cover and what I wanted the students to know. The concepts that I
wanted to access is if the students were really familiar with the definition of a woodworker

because in their woods class, thats the role that they were playing. I didnt put a grade value on
the number of answers they got correct or incorrect because this was just simply an analysis for
me and I didnt want to them to be concerned about if it was for a grade or not. The other
concepts I wanted to access them on was to see if they were able to identify at least three
occupations that they could go into with the knowledge they have now and if they were familiar
with the expected salary they could make and skills that are required. I thought that these were
important elements for them to know so they have an idea as to why what they are doing in class
is important and beneficial.
Before starting my lesson and with just a brief glance at the pre-assessments and the way
some students were struggling to answer the pre-assessment questions, it was evident to see that
they didnt have as much previous knowledge on this topic as a whole. This helped me to
continue to develop my lesson and made it easy to identify to myself that I had to thoroughly go
into detail in the lesson to ensure that they were going to be successful in answering the
questions on the post-assessment. I knew exactly what needed to be covered and perhaps reviewe
more than once in order to receive accurate results for my analysis.
Post- Assessment:
Once I finished the lesson and the students had a chance to do the hands-on activity, I
gave them the post assessment. Since the post assessment was the exact same assessment as the
pre-test, I still wanted to see if they understood the correct definition and if they were able to
identify what I was asking. I had higher expectations for them to do well on the post assessment
considering that we covered everything on the assessment throughout the lesson, and below you
will see the results that I received.

Actual Results After Lesson

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Definition

Name 1+
Woodworking Jobs
Pre-Test

List Salary
Catagorically

List 2+ Skills Needed

Post Test

The chart that you see above replicates the first chart, but with actual data. I can see that the
majority of the students understood the material that was given. The students as a whole had a
higher degree of success on the three concepts that they did their own research on in groups
(about specific wood related occupations), which in my mind tells me that they were able to
understand the information by doing hands on work of their own.
After examining the final results, I realized that there are some few questions that I would
have rather added or made clearer within the assessments. I determined that I should have went
over the definition of a woodworker more thoroughly. This could have been altered by simply
breaking down specific words in the definition that they needed to know and being more clear to
them on how I wanted the definition considering that it could be defined differently. I would
change this because in the post-assessment, they still had a very broad definition and I was
looking for something more precise as mentioned in the PowerPoint. Another scenario that I
should have changed was the question when I asked them to list the salaries made by those
workers chronologically. I think that it would have been more efficient to give them a specific

job with multiple choice salary questions for them to choose from so they had some sort of an
idea of what those numbers where and it was more narrowed down and specific. Lastly, simply
out of curiosity, I would have asked them to give me a short answer explaining which
woodworking occupation would they like to do and why, because this would have given me an
idea of what their interests were and if their choice would change after going through all of them
in the lesson.
Along with questions that should have been asked differently or added, I determined a few
things in the lesson that I would like to change to improve students achievement. First one I
would have done differently is while students were doing hands-on work and following along
with the PowerPoint, I should have had them take notes as they followed along with me just to
ensure that they are comprehending what they researched and what I was teaching them. The
reason for this is I think that all nine of them should have easily been able to list salary
occupations categorically after going over all of them. The disadvantage to this concept though is
that they may lose interest because of too much work, but it would be interesting to see if the
results would change. The other change I would have made was moving students closer to the
board. I noticed when grading the post assessments the two students that sat towards the back,
which both happened to be seniors, didnt do as well as the rest of the class on the post
assessment. These two didnt answer all of the post assessment questions to the best of their
ability and I think that could have been altered by being sure that all of the students were closer
to the front of the classroom.

Lesson Comprehension by Graduating Class

15%

25%

Sophomores

60%

Juniors

Seniors

The pie chart that you see above is the representations by graduation class of which class
answered the most questions correctly. You can see that the juniors answered most of the
questions correctly followed by the sophomores and then the two seniors. I used this comparison
to show how the two senior boys learning was impacted by sitting in the back. Sure, the seniors
only make up one fifth of the class but yet they are still effected and it show in the chart above.
Conclusion:
Overall, I think that the results demonstrated that the students were able to properly identify
possible occupations and benefits that they are getting from being in this woods class. I was very
pleased with the results that I got from these assessments and I learned so much putting this
lesson together for the students. I concluded that my teaching was effective to the majority of the
class according to the results that I received. I had an issue with the seniors, but as a class as a
whole, I did an effective job with room for improvement. If I could do this lesson and these
assessments again, I know exactly what I would change for better student achievement and
understanding.

Pre and Post Assessment

A. What is the definition of a woodworker?

B. List three specific occupations that someone could pursue as a woodworker.

1.
2.
3.

C. Of those three occupations listed above, list them accordingly based on salary made per
year (most to least).
1.
2.
3.

D. List five skills needed to have a career of a woodworker.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.