If you are implementing any form of learning program, be it for a company or in the educational sector, then you need to gather metrics on its effectiveness.  Unfortunately, metrics are often overlooked, or just not implemented properly. Within education, assessments play a critical role within a student’s learning journey. Through effective assessments, teachers gain insight into a students’ comprehension of the material, which in turn assists them in helping their students learn by modifying instruction, delivery methods, and how to allocate resources.

On the flip side, poor assessment methodology can actually be detrimental to a student’s growth and understanding of the material.  Ideally, any assessment used (education or for-profit industries) needs to be both reliable and valid.  If you can develop an assessment model that meets both of these criteria, then you are on your way to generating meaningful data.

When building out your assessment, there are four areas to consider, in addition to validity and reliability.  Detailed in the infographic below (provided by McGrawHill Education, and designed by Santosh Kushwaha), these areas include:

• Assessment Types
• Question Types
• Delivery Methods
• Scoring Methods

I could go into each one of these areas, but I believe the infographic provides a good explanation and overview of each.  I think the one overall takeaway for each of these items is that their use can vary by situation.  Certain content and contexts will favor different assessment types, questions, delivery, and scoring.  The important thing is to analyze the situation first before just throwing a bunch of multiple-choice questions together.  Doing so will result in much more reliable, and valid data.