Assessment Development
Assessment Development
Use this document as a guide to the process of creating high quality, balanced assessments.
Learn to:

Use a common assessment vocabulary

Use a process to create assessments

Create balanced assessments
The Purpose of Assessment
The purpose of assessment is to improve learning, inform teaching, help students achieve
the highest standards they can, and provide meaningful reports on student achievement.
Assessment is used to:

Gather and interpret evidence to make judgments about student learning

Decide where learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and engage
students in self-reflection and self-directed learning
Assessment Best Practices
Assessment is more than a yes or no, or multiple-choice answer. Best practices include:

Measuring clearly stated standards/benchmarks

Using a variety of strategies to gather evidence of student mastery

Communicating expectations and results to students

Engaging students in self-reflection and self-directed learning
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
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Assessment Development
An Assessment Framework
Use the Florida Item Writer Cheat Sheet and DOK document for detailed instruction on item
writing. Review the Cognitive Complexity NGSSS and CCSS Definitions documents on
http://www.cpalms.org. Use the questions within the assessment framework below as a
guide.
Question
Explanation
Why am I assessing?
Is this an assessment of learning or for learning? How
detailed do the assessment and the results have to be?
What will I assess?
Do I have clearly articulated shared
standards/benchmarks? What knowledge and skills do I
want to assess? Have I connected instructional activities
to those standards/benchmarks?
How will I design the
assessment?
What is the best format to assess identified knowledge
and skills? Is the assessment balanced? Are rubrics
clear?
What resources will I
need to build the
assessment?
Are items coming from FL IBTP? Am I creating items? Is
my school or district creating items?
How will I view and use
the results?
What will I learn about my instruction from the results?
How will I communicate to other stakeholders about the
results? How do I organize results?
How will students use
the results?
Will students receive results in a timely manner? How
will students review results? How will students use
results for goal setting?
Common Assessment Vocabulary
Review the FL Comprehensive Reference for Item Writers document for detailed
explanations of these terms.
Term
Explanation
Stem
The stem is the question.
Stimulus
This prompts the stem.
Distractor
Answer choices that lead a student away from the correct answer.
Common misconceptions made by students are often used.
Depth of
Knowledge
(DOK)
DOK measures the cognitive demand of the task that students are
asked to perform.

Level 1 = Recall

Level 2 = Basic Application of Skills & Concepts

Level 3 = Strategic Thinking & Complex Reasoning

Level 4 = Extended Thinking & Complex Reasoning
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
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Assessment Development
Item Types

Selected Response (SR) (multiple choice)

Short Response (SHR)

Gridded Response (GR)

Constructed Response (CR)

Extended Response (ER)

Essay Response (ESR)

Performance Tasks
Formative
Assessment
A classroom-based assessment designed to assist the teacher when
gathering evidence of student thinking and skill in core concepts
and processes (http://www.cpalms.org)
Summative
Assessment
Summative Assessments are typically administered near the end of
the school year or academic term to give an overall perspective of
the effectiveness of the instructional program. They are typically
cumulative in that they cover content from previous interim
assessments and the term or year.
Interim
Assessment
An Interim Assessment is an assessment that is given at regular
and specified intervals throughout the school year. It is designed to
evaluate students’ knowledge and skills relative to a specific set of
learning targets, and produces results that can be aggregated (e.g.,
by course, grade level, school, or LEA) in order to inform teachers
and administrators at the student, classroom, school, and LEA
levels.
Standards/Ben
chmarks
Clear standards/benchmarks are statements that communicate to
teachers and students exactly what the student will understand and
be able to do at the conclusion of instruction. Each target is tied
explicitly to a measureable behavior or set of behaviors.
Assessment Development Process
Designing assessments is a process. Ensure the assessment design ties to specific learning
goals by reviewing:

Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS)
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
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Assessment Development
Develop learning propositions—statements of important facts, concepts, or understandings
that students will be held accountable for learning. Include knowledge, reasoning, and
results or consequences as specific indicators of student learning.
Review the Comprehensive Reference for Item Writers document for details about item
writing, rubrics, the principles of universal design, and best practices.
One Approach to Building an Assessment Blueprint
Use a blueprint to help ensure the creation of balanced assessments. Blueprints allow
teachers to assess achievement in a meaningful fashion.

Select the benchmark(s) to assess.

Design the assessment to assess knowledge acquisition.

Avoid bias and Florida’s sensitive issues.

Ensure that the Depth of Knowledge ranges are assessed.

Use a graphic organizer to visually represent the assessment.
A Second Approach to Building an Assessment Blueprint
Using a graphic organizer gives a second kind of visual to view the granular components of
building an assessment, as seen below.
Biology Baseline Assessment
Science
ard 14
L.14.1
4
3
1
3
1
2
3
3
3
36%
SC.912.
Students
might think
cells are
within the
human
body, but
do not
make up
the body.
Number of items
SC.912.
Errors of Knowledge,
Logic, or Skill
Stand
Misconcepti
ons
#Webb Level 4 Extend
Life
# Webb Level 3
Strategic
(Stan
dard)
Complexity
# Webb Level 2 Use
Skill
(Body of
Knowled
ge)
Type
# Webb Level 1 Recall
Most
Granula
r Level
(Bench
mark)
#Multiple Choice
Topic
Level
# Constructed
Response
Broades
t Level
4
L.14.3
Stand
SC.912.
ard 16
L.16.3
3
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
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Assessment Development
SC.912.
2
2
2
L.16.17
Stand
SC.912.
ard 18
L.18.1
SC.912.
2
1
1
2
5
1
4
5
3
1
2
3
L.18.9
SC.912.
L.18.12
Topic
Level
(Body of
Knowled
ge)
(Stan
dard)
Most
Granula
r Level
(Bench
mark)
Nature
Stand
SC.912.
of
ard 1
L.1.1
Stand
SC.912.
ard 15
L.15.1
Type
2
Complexity
1
Misconcepti
ons
Number of items
Broades
t Level
1
Errors of Knowledge,
Logic, or Skill
L.1.1
1
#Webb Level 4 Extend
ard 1
2
# Webb Level 3
Strategic
SC.912.
# Webb Level 2 Use
Skill
Stand
# Webb Level 1 Recall
Science
#Multiple Choice
of
# Constructed
Response
Nature
1
1
1
3
Science
23%
SC.912.
3
2
4
1
3
4
2
2
2
3
3
3
2
2
2
L.15.6
SC.912.
L.15.8
SC.912.
L.15.13
Total
Stand
SC.912.
ard 16
L.16.1
# of
64
15
41
8
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
64
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Assessment Development
Items
items
Total
Percent
23
%
64%
13%
Assessment Blueprint Considerations

Time allocated to assessment

Overall assessment design (timed vs. portfolio)

Individual benchmarks: cognitive complexity level

Representation of benchmark/standard as portion of entire course

Time considerations for item types
Using the Florida Interim Assessment Item Bank and Test Platform
(FL IBTP)
Create express tests or manually create tests within the IBTP. Selections can be at the sublevels of each benchmark and standard.
Advanced options enable an educator to select the number of items per
standard/benchmark to include on the test. Reading passages are available for the different
grade levels and difficulty ranges.
Additional Resources
•
www.cpalms.org
•
Comprehensive Reference for Item Writers
•
Item Writer Cheat Sheet
•
Initial Review of Assets (Items)
•
Project Core English Language Arts Item Writing Guidelines
•
Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Levels
Copyright © 2013 Florida Department of Education and Pearson
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