Difference and Relationship Between Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation in Education
Back to: Assessment for Learning
Difference and Relationship Between Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation in Education
Assessment
Assessment refers to the process of collecting information that reflects the performance of a student, school, classroom, or an academic system based on a set of standards, learning criteria, or curricula. It contains both qualitative and quantitative information regarding students’ performance.
Measurement
Measurement refers to a process through which a learning phenomena, context, or experience is translated into a set of numerical variables that are representative. It contains purely quantitative data and information regarding student’s academic performance.
Evaluation
“Evaluation is the process of gathering and interpreting evidences on the changes in behaviour of the students as they progress through school.”
Kwilane and Hunna
Evaluation provides a teacher feedback to understand the academic performance and achievement. Through evaluation, a teacher can bring about certain required changes and modifications in the teaching methods and education system as a whole.
Differences between Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation in Education
The differences between measurement assessment and evaluation in education are as follows:
| Measurement | Assessment | Evaluation |
| 1. Measurement is the process of the delegation of a numerical index to the object consistently and meaningfully. It has quantitative information. | Assessment is a process by which the information is obtained to achieve a particular goal. It has qualitative and quantitative information. | 1. Evaluation refers to the comparison made between the score of one learner with that of other learners to judge the results. It has quantitative information + qualitative informative + value judgment |
| 2. It involves observations which can be expressed in numerical terms. | It contains the information with marks, grades as well as the interest and goals of the student. | 2. It includes observations which are quantitative as well as qualitative. |
| 3. It is the assessment of numerals as per certain standards. | Assessment has the specific goal to find out the learning difficulties. | 3. It is the assessment of symbols, grades, or levels as per the established standards. |
| 4. It does not express the student’s logical assumption. | It contains diagnostic tests, personal interactions and discussion with other teachers. | 4. The student’s logical assumption can be made. |
| 5. It requires relatively less energy and time and is content oriented. | It requires some energy and time to find out the learning behaviour of the student. | 5. It requires more energy and time and is objective oriented. |
Relationship between Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation
The relationship between measurement assessment and evaluation is as follows:
1. Evaluation and Assessment involve all the tasks of education and not merely tests, measurements, and examination. It goes beyond these things and although it depends on measurement, the two terms are not synonymous.
2. Measurement explains a situation and evaluations and assessment describe the judgment of its worth and value.
3. Without evaluation, measurement is quite meaningless because evaluation adds a little significance to it.
4. Evaluation is a process which is continuous as well as comprehensive and measurement is a quantitative assessment of instructional outcomes.
5. Measurement makes a quantitative determination of an individual’s performance and evaluation makes a qualitative determination of the individual’s performance.
These are the various factors that differentiate and form a relationship between measurement assessment and evaluation.
