This guide was developed to help teachers continue to build confidence in their assessment skills in order to provide useful feedback to students about their intellectual progress. It includes sections on identifying the purpose of assessment, choosing an appropriate assessment format, adopting/writing/revising assessment items or tasks, evaluating the effectiveness of assessments, and using assessment data effectively and ethically. It also includes a guide to writing higher order multiple-choice questions and a rubric to help teachers evaluate assessment strategies.
This guide was developed by the Working Group on Assessing Student Knowledge and Skills in Psychology from the APA Summit on High School Psychology Education (July 2017). This guide was specifically written for high school psychology teachers, but its content may be useful to teachers from other disciplines.
All high school psychology teachers are invited to join APA TOPSS. For additional information and to join, please visit the TOPSS website.
