Erin Yaremcio

001185125

Dr. David Slomp

ED 3604

February 27, 2019

Portfolio Defense Paper

When it comes to testing it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that the students are

given the most valid, reliable and fair assessment possible. As the old saying goes, you wouldn’t

expect a fish to perform the same way as a monkey when it comes to climbing trees – and the

same goes for our students. By examining how classroom assessments are created, defining

validity, reliability and fairness, and focusing on the importance of these factors present in our

assessments, I will draw connections between my own assessment portfolio artefacts and the

relevant literature to demonstrate my understanding of creating and administering assessments.

To begin this paper, I shall first start with defining our terms. In the instance of “validity”

Gareis and Grant state that “when we say valid, we’re likely to mean truthful, suitable,

legitimate, applicable, convincing or compelling… in short, validity is concerned with the

truthfulness or appropriateness of decisions resulting from assessments” (24, 25-26). Thus, I

chose to interpret validity as the means by which an assessment correctly states and assesses the

information being assessed, and to which the teacher is able to extrapolate the student’s grasp of

knowledge. While Gareis and Grant pose reliability as “the degree to which a student’s

performance on an assessment is not unduly influenced by raw chance, systematic error, bias or

cheating” (40). From the definition presented to me, I was able to determine that reliability

concerned itself with the replicability of results across different testing scenarios. Although
Gareis and Grant do not outright provide a definition for the term fairness, I have created my

own definition of fairness based on our in-class discussion, activities and required readings. As

such; fairness concerns itself with how an assessment appears to different types of people and

groups, and with fairness each group should yield similar results. Thus, in order to create

fairness, an assessment must be free of bias, error and unrequired skills – essentially fairness is

created when there is a balance of validity and reliability.

It matters that assessments are valid, reliable and fair because we as teachers are charged

with the responsibility of educating tomorrow’s leaders. If we cannot guarantee that our

assessments are valid, reliable and fair – we may be (unconsciously) be taking away

opportunities for success from our students. Each student deserves the opportunity to show how

they have grown and if an assessment is biased and does not allow the student to show their

knowledge in a multitude of ways – we are doing our students a disservice. Equality, equity,

fairness – all terms that vary slightly in their understanding but are essential to level the playing

fields between students from different backgrounds. We do not know what our students

experience outside of our own classroom (and sometimes even in the classroom thanks to social

media and the internet) and these experiences shape them into the characters that they are today.

We must, for the sake of tomorrow, continue to provide valid, fair and reliable assessments in

order to help our students grow and prosper.

In order to create classroom assessment that are valid, reliable and fair we first have to

“actually [know] about the content being tested” (23). Gareis and Grant (Chapter 3) lay out a

seven-step process to create a good assessment. Step one: unpack the intended learning outcomes

– a skill which we learned by unpacking the curricular objectives in the programs of study in our

program of studies map. We boiled the essence of the program of studies down into the smallest
most comprehendible parts and looked for relationships between the specific and general

learning outcomes. Step two: create a table of specifications that “details the content and level of

cognitive demand assessed on an assessment, as well as the types and emphases of assessment

items” (64). Using my unit plan from Curriculum and Instruction I was able to create my own

Content Chart using the modified chart given to us. By plotting my assignments against the

learning objectives, I am able to see how I can focus on individual learning outcomes in order to

cover all the learning objectives in a unit. Step three: clarify your purposes for and circumstances

of assessing student learning. By determining in our modified Content Chart and the following

Assessment Tool Overview, I was able to determine which assessments could be formative and

which should be summative and what skills I was requiring the students to have mastered. I

understood that, from the readings, in order to give large projects (such as the paper and jury

debate that I have planned in my unit plan) I must give students multiple opportunities to succeed

in class. By using a combination of allotted time in class to do the assignments and helpful mini-

lessons I feel like my students are well prepared for these assessments. Step four: determine the

appropriate types of assessment items and activities to use. Though I do not have a test in my

unit plan, we were able to create sample tests in class. I learned so many valuable things about

creating tests and know that I will continuously reference this textbook in the future when it

comes to designing more tests. Step five: determine the appropriate number and weight of

assessment items. Step six: create and select assessment items that are valid and reliable. For the

purposes of this explanation I have chosen to group steps five and six together as I feel as if they

are necessary for the other’s success. Using the Quiz/Test Blueprint provided, we were able to

plot each question of an exam against the cognitive demands of the question and the type of

question in order to see how each outcome was being assessed. By having balanced scores across
the borders we were able to ensure that every outcome was thoroughly assessed in a manner

conducive to the content. And finally – step seven: assemble the assessment. In our Quiz we

were able to demonstrate what we had learned throughout this whole process and thus our

objective of designing a classroom assessment that is valid, reliable and fair was complete.

Throughout the course of this paper I have used examples from the appropriate literature

and my own assessment portfolio to demonstrate my understanding of reliability, validity and

fairness. In the course of doing so, I have been reminded of why we teach and why it is essential

that we provide the best assessments that we possibly can. Our students are the voices of

tomorrow and without validity, reliability and fairness we could be robbing our students of their

true potential. It is our duty to teach and foster our students, and I understand now more than

ever how reliable, valid and fair assessment ensures that our students are able to grow.