Page 216 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes through a system of marking in an institution. A marking system is basically a system of
communication. If teachers do not assign ranks in conformity with the policies reflecting the
system, the marks tend to loose their significance and marking system fails to serve its needed
function. The degree to which the marks have the same meaning for all those who use them
serves the purposes of communication meaningfully. Marking system of an institution is of
concern to teachers of other schools, departments and other institutions, and hence the meaning
of each mark must be clearly defined.
Two major types of marking system are in vogue. The numerical marks in terms of percentage
varying from zero to 100 marks. Since a student’s mark is independent of other students’ marks,
the system to percentage marking is called ‘Absolute marking’. Second type of marking system
is based on the use of a small number of letter marks, often five letter A, B, C, D and F, to express
various levels of performance. We will discuss only Marking system.

18.2 Need of Making System

18.2.1 Needs of students
(i) To know their present performance and rate of progress.
(ii) To know their adequacies and inadequacies in learning.
(iii) To compare their performance with their class-mates.
(iv) To know their potentials and limitations in various subject areas.

18.2.2 Needs of parents
(i) To know whether their ward is progressing satisfactorily in the class.
(ii) To alert them if some problems are developing.
(iii) To help them plan for the future of their child.
(iv) To know how to use marks on standardised test scores for decision making for further
education of the child.
18.2.3 Needs of teachers
(i) To know in general the performance of students in terms of syllabus tested.
(ii) To identify the areas of weaknesses for remedial teaching.
(iii) To judge the effectiveness of their instruction on the basis of students’ performance.
(iv) To find out if certain topics or concepts in the prescribed curriculum are beyond the students’
level.
18.2.4 Needs of administrators or principals
(i) To compare inter-school performance of students.
(ii) To judge whether tests from different schools compare well in terms of instructional objectives
tested.
(iii) To ensure that the intended learning outcomes are being tested properly.
(iv) To maintain inter subject-intra school parity of performance standard.
18.2.5 Needs of curriculum specialists
(i) To find out if certain curriculum objectives need to be reviewed.
(ii) To identify whether curriculum content (syllabus) of certain subjects needs to be revised.

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