Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
Summative performance assessments help tests knowledge acquisition and its application in nursing roles. Summative assessments are available at the end of a course and help the instructor assess their students to determine how they use their knowledge and skills. Instructors use performance to measure students’ knowledge acquisition and use it as the basis for evaluating course content, teaching, and learning strategies for future improvement. The summative assessments should thus be transparent and authentic, meaning that they elicit students’ knowledge (not group work) and test individuals’ knowledge acquisition. In nursing education, understanding information helps replication and practice; thus, performance assessments are significant. This narrative essay explores a summative performance assessment for the course module disaster management in the course “The role of the BSN Nurse in Community Health” and tests knowledge and application of the knowledge. Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
PLACE YOUR ORDER HERE NOW
B Elements of the Assessment
B1. Prompts Alignment to Course Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes
The first prompt discusses disaster management and its significance to nursing. The prompt discusses the reason for the modules’ existence in the course. This prompt aligns with the course objective; by the end of the course, the learner should be able to differentiate the stages of disaster management and their activities. It will reflect upon understanding all the stages of disaster management and the significance of understanding disaster management to a nurse. According to Alqurashi (2019), learners tend to take content seriously when they believe it is significant to the profession and their practice in the community. The second prompt is: There are various stakeholders in disaster management. Justify the significance of stakeholders in disaster management. The prompt aligns with the course objective; by the end of the course, the learner should be able to justify the stakeholders in disaster management and their involvement significance. It requires the nurse to understand disaster management and the stakeholders required to ensure all activities are implemented professionally. This prompt builds on the nurses’ understanding of the previous prompt. The prompt then requires the nurse to understand their roles and defend their presence in disaster management and the consequences of their absence. The prompt requires nurses to understand all the activities in all stages of disaster management to determine the relevant stakeholders. Understanding the stakeholders is significant because it will help nurses collaborate with them and plan disaster preparedness for the safety of their community. Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
The third item is; explain the various collaboration and coordination strategies you can use in disaster management. Collaboration and coordination in disaster management remain essential to successful activities. Many institutions that deal with disaster management, such as doctors without borders and local governments, invest in enhancing collaboration and coordination, such as preparing reliable communication technologies and appointing a leadership team to lead disaster management efforts (Shah et al., 2019). Lack of coordination and collaboration creates gaps in delivering services vital to all stages of disaster management. This prompt aligns with the student learning outcome: At the end of the course, the learner will explain collaboration and coordination strategies for effective disaster management. According to Porto et al. (2023), nurses’ knowledge of disaster preparedness must entail coordination and collaboration to ensure they all participate and play their roles. For example, knowledge of disasters can help them use autonomy to determine the number of beds required to help initiate processes such as discharge for stable patients to create room for patients with more urgent needs.
The fourth prompt is: Develop a disaster preparedness plan for your community that can be used to manage a disaster such as an earthquake, tsunami, or flood. This prompt is significant as it reflects the nurses’ understanding of the disaster preparedness module to develop a plan. It also requires the nurse to understand their community’s needs and how the plan will meet them. Among the priorities in disaster management are services to prevent further loss of lives. According to Zuccaro et al. (2020)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper, these priorities include water to put out fires, police, life-saving medications and equipment such as defibrillators, ambulances, helicopters for areas with poor access, and availability of professionals enough to respond to disasters without compromising other services delivery. Community resources such as homeless centers, churches, schools, community kitchens, and vital resources such as community centers also inform the activities in a disaster preparedness plan. Thus, this prompt aligns with the student learning objective: at the end of the course, the learner will sketch a disaster preparedness plan for their community disaster preparedness. The prompt will reflect upon a good understanding of all stages of disaster preparedness, their activities, and the nurses’ roles in each stage.
The fifth prompt, discuss your roles as a nurse in disaster management, is the backbone of the disaster management course. Unlike other specific prompts, this prompt discusses the overall significance of the module to the nurses. It thus resonates with all the course objectives and modules. By identifying and discussing these roles, the nurse understands the stakeholders and their significance and activities in all stages and will enable the nurse to develop collaboration and coordination strategies with other professionals. In addition, the prompt aligns with the overall course objectives, which are to equip the BSN nurse with knowledge and skills to practice independently in communities in various capacities.
B2. Assessment Results and Constructive Feedback Provision
Unlike objective assessments, this assessment does not provide immediate feedback because the instructor has to go through the assessment. The feedback will be delayed at most 72 hours to allow the instructor to review the work and provide the required feedback to the students. A written comprehensive report based on the rubric will be provided to the students by the instructor for all areas showing the areas the students have passed, the ones they failed, and how to improve their performance. The focus of the assessment is the development of a disaster preparedness plan, and students will be assessed based on skills in all the prompts as assessed using the rubric. The rubric has six criteria, each with 20 points, hence a cumulative total of 120 points. The assessment will be graded out of 120 points. The pass mark is scored between 80 points and above. Scores below 80 will be considered non-performance, and students must redo areas where they underperform. The instructor will provide feedback on why the students did not pass the criteria and how they will improve. Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
B3. Theory and How it Informed the Assessment’s Development
Theories in nursing practice and nursing education are significant in informing practice. Theories provide a solid framework that helps ensure work is systematic and logically flows. It also helps provide a rationale for the assessment and the significance of all the components and prompts. The constructivist learning theory focuses on ensuring that a learner is active in learning. It holds that people actively construct their understanding of concepts and reality, majorly determined by the learners’ experiences. This theory thus supports assessments that help determine the learner’s knowledge acquisition and application at a personal level. The theory holds that knowledge is constructed in the mind and is influenced by prior knowledge, and modified knowledge will occur from new learning experiences.
According to constructivists, an assessment aims to enhance learning and knowledge as they assess its acquisition (Farrell, 2020). It should not be responsible for making some students feel good about themselves and others to give up through negative feedback. Thus, constructive feedback is integral to the learner’s knowledge acquisition and development. The theory also holds that feedback is critical to learning and should be limited to the module’s requirements (Farrell, 2020). The theory thus helped develop an assessment rubric that determines performance within the module’s requirements. It also helped develop prompts that do not wander beyond the module or assess the knowledge that is not necessary to the nurses understanding and participation in disaster preparedness.
Constructivists believe in developing assessments that help assess personal learning, hence developing prompts that assess individual learning and avoidance of group assessment (Farrell, 2020). The theory helped develop each prompt to ensure its tests the nurses’ subjective understanding of information and reflects upon their understanding and application of the concepts. It also holds that learning is an active process that requires learners to construct their understanding and application of concepts actively. Chuang (2021) notes that the significant shortfall of the theory is its overreliance on the student’s evaluation of learning. However, this assessment deviates and focuses on the instructor’s performance evaluation as the basis for results. Performance in this assessment will help assess the learners’ understanding of concepts and their application. The constructivist’s theory, in particular, informed the development of the prompt “develop a disaster preparedness plan for your community that can be used to manage a disaster such as an earthquake, tsunami, or a flood.” This prompt requires learners to use their knowledge, creativity, and autonomy to translate their knowledge into practice. Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
Principles of assessment were also significant to this assessment. Fairness was an essential principle in this assessment. Fairness in assessments calls for a task that allows all students to equally do well and demonstrate the skills and knowledge being assessed (Poe & Elliot, 2019). Fairness includes ensuring the areas assessed have been taught or covered in the module. Discovery learning is significant to learning but should not be used in summative assessments. Summative assessments should only cover content the course module covers in the classroom or chosen learning environment. Fairness also requires assessments to accommodate learner needs and characteristics (Poe & Elliot, 2019)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper. The prompts developed for this assessment caters to patient needs and characteristics and accommodate the specific differences among the patients, such as geographical location. In this assessment, fairness was applied in various ways. Each student will receive a rubric that shows how the assessment will be assessed and why it is required of them to achieve a “competence level.” In addition, the assessment components assessed the learners’ subjective understanding of concepts and their construction of knowledge in specific areas. The constructivist theory and the principle of fairness in assessments thus helped develop the assessment prompt and the layout of the entire assessment.
B4. Procedures to Ensure Test Security
Test security is an essential aspect of test development. It helps ensures tests are safe and students do not engage in any irregularities that can affect their performance and also ensure the performances reflect genuine understanding and application of the knowledge by the learners. Procedures ensuring test security aim to prevent, detect, and respond to test irregularities and security breaches. The tests will only be uploaded and made available to students during the last week of the study to ensure the security of the tests. The tests will be stored securely in the institutional database to ensure students do not have access to it, and their access to the university database is also highly regulated. Password protection, proctoring, and ensuring browser security are the methods to harness test security. For this test, every student accessing the test must have a personally generated password specific to the exam. The technology helps detect other attempts to log in to the exam beyond the allowed limits and thus helps prevent cheating (Zhang et al., 2020). Proctoring in online exams requires the integration of technologies that allow webcam live to monitor students, which will help detect and respond to security breaches (Slusky, 2020)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper. However, this is not possible because the students will have the flexibility of doing the assignment at their time and pace for the whole week. However, each student is required to submit their work through Turnitin. The software helps ensure that the work submitted is the student’s work. The software will thus help detect and respond to cheating problems.
B5. Barriers to Online Assessment
One of the significant barriers to online testing is the lack of support for students with technical assistance and anxiety management (McDonald, 2017). Gaur et al. (2020) note lack of qualified IT professionals contributes significantly to these problems. Instructors may also have significantly large classes, making it challenging to address all student’s needs promptly. Anxiety can arise, especially with unfamiliarity with test materials. This class typically has forty students and considering the rates of anxiety and IT support needs, the anticipated problems are moderate. This assignment allows much flexibility, and students can do their exams in their free time within the allowed duration. In addition, the instructor and students’ support center will be available to offer assistance with anxiety and tips to complete the assignment and with revisions to ensure the students’ eventual performance is to the desired level before final submission.
B6. Subjective Assessment Results Analysis
Subjective assessments do not necessarily require assessment methods for analysis. The analysis of subjective assessment tests depends on the overall students’ performance. The results analysis will be based on the rubric. Analysis of the grading criteria/rubric will help assess results such as the number of students who passed and those who failed. Other analysis tests will include the most performed rubric areas and areas for their improvement. Assessment methods such as item difficulty can also be used to determine the most challenging areas and differentiate students from those who know to those who do not. Analysis of the underperformed rubric areas will lead to improvement of learning in those areas or revision of the rubric components to ensure better performance of the students (Lee et al., 2020). The student’s performance will all entail failure and pass rates. Analyzing each underperforming area will help determine the problematic areas to aid in their revision or improvement in learning and teaching strategies and content (Lee et al., 2020)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper.
B7. Authenticity in Assessments
Authentic means that something is of undisputed origin. In testing, an authentic piece means that the information encompassed is the student’s work without the input of others or signs of cheating. Authenticity reflects the faithfulness of the students and the accuracy of tests. Maintaining authenticity is difficult for online exams due to the flexibility allowed and the minimal proctoring provided. Soltiriadou et al. (2020) note that authenticity inspires loyalty and engagement. Authenticity increases learner dedication and self-confidence, promoting learning, retention, and replication of learned knowledge. It also ensures that test materials are relevant to the learner, increasing their significance and importance to nurses.
This assessment focuses on the nurse’s construction of knowledge and its utilization to develop a preparedness plan using their community’s needs. This assessment allows students to assess their local communities and use the knowledge to develop a plan that resonates with their community and solves real-life problems. It also focuses on the learners’ understanding of disaster management and using it to derive conclusions and construct new knowledge, enhancing authenticity. In addition, it also aligns with all the course objectives and expected student learning outcomes, as seen earlier (Ellis et al., 2020)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper. Ellis et al. (2020) note that alignment with these objectives and outcomes is essential in authenticity to ensure they are relevant to the student, educators, and learners. The assessment also required the nurse to show an understanding of course content and its application to real-life problems.
B8. Performance-Based Assessments in Improving teaching and learning
Performance-based assessments use a problem-solving approach, requiring the students to produce a product or answer a question demonstrating their skills and understanding (Logan et al., 2021). Students use their understanding and skills to perform an activity. They are thus the best assessments in determining if they have understood a concept and can successfully apply the learned material. They are advantageous both to the teachers and students and can help improve teaching and student learning. Performance-based assessments give educators/ instructors a deeper insight into the learners’ learning needs. With the information, they identify the most well-performing and the poorly performing areas and the teaching and learning strategies applied in these areas. Instructors can then change strategies used for the underperforming areas for better performance, hence improving the learning and teaching strategies the instructor implements.
Performance-based assessments also allow students to measure and critique their understanding and success (Logan et al., 2021)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper. Students can review their progress to competence and showcase the areas for improvement. They help reflect upon learning and areas for improvement and thus lead to better outcomes. They help stimulate personal efforts in learning because students understand areas of weakness as they attempt to complete the assessments. Thus, performance-based assessments are significant to learning and can help improve teaching and learning strategies, significant to learning.
- C. ADDIE Instructional Model
ADDIE Instructional Model influenced the development of this module assessment design. The ADDIE model is a vital framework in informing the development of courses and evaluation of courses and modules. The instructional model is thus a vital instructor’s companion. The first step, analyze, entails preparing a course module and its details, settings the goals for a new program, and researching the intended audience. Information includes their existing knowledge and appropriate level and environment to determine the appropriate accompanying interventions. The second step is design. In this step, all the information during the analysis step is internalized to develop a design for the program’s development, which entail learning and course objectives, content, course outlines, and learning activities (Anupama, 2021)Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper.
The third step, develop, creates the assets outlined in the design stage. This stage was significant to this assessment because it informed its development of assessment prompts. Unlike formative assessment, which occurs in every step of the model, summative assessment development begins at this stage, considering the content covered, course objectives, and expected student learning objectives (King & Venkatesh, 2021). Various issues considered include curriculum and its delivery, use of resources and assets, and any feedback or procedures. The last step, evaluation, entails determining the program’s performance. More so, it requires the instructor to assess learning from all aspects of the course. It thus helped inform the development of prompts that cover all course objectives and learning outcomes. ADDIE model was thus vital to the development of this module assessment.
Conclusion
Summative performance assessments are given to students at the end of the course to test knowledge acquisition and application to that knowledge. The prompts in these assessments align with the course objectives and student learning outcomes. Feedback will be delayed for this assessment and entail the instructor’s competence assessment, depending on the rubric. The learners will receive a pass or fail in the specific rubric areas, accompanied by instructions on improving and why a student did not pass. This summative assessment tests the student’s knowledge and skills development. Feedback instructors help students understand their underperforming areas and improve them for the overall acquisition and application of knowledge. Selecting designs that match the learning environments and needs helps learners acquire knowledge significant to successful learning.
References
Alqurashi, E. (2019). Predicting student satisfaction and perceived learning within online learning environments. Distance Education, 40(1), 133-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2018.1553562
Chuang, S. (2021). The applications of constructivist learning theory and social learning theory on adult continuous development. Performance Improvement, 60(3), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.21963
Ellis, C., Van Haeringen, K., Harper, R., Bretag, T., Zucker, I., McBride, S., Newton, P., & Saddiqui, S. (2020). Does authentic assessment assure academic integrity? Evidence from contract cheating data. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(3), 454–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1680956 Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
Farrell, C. (2020). Do international marketing simulations provide an authentic assessment of learning? A student perspective. The International Journal of Management Education, 18(1), 100362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2020.100362
King, C. S., & Venkatesh, K. A. (2022). Performance Assessments in the Context of Developing and Assessing Competencies. In Development of Employability Skills Through Pragmatic Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes (pp. 135-166). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4210-4.ch008
Lee, J. E., Recker, M., & Yuan, M. (2020). The validity and instructional value of a rubric for evaluating online course quality: An empirical study. Online Learning, 24(1), 245. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i1.1949
Logan, R. M., Johnson, C. E., & Worsham, J. W. (2021). Development of an e-learning module to facilitate student learning and outcomes. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 16(2), 139–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2020.10.007
Poe, M., & Elliot, N. (2019). Evidence of fairness: Twenty-five years of research in assessing writing. Assessing Writing, 42, 100418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2019.100418
Porto, B. M., Terra, S. X., & Philippi, D. A. (2023). A qualitative analysis of the main factors in bed management in high complexity hospital emergencies. Revista de Gestão e Secretariado (Management and Administrative Professional Review), 14(2), 1682-1717. https://doi.org/10.7769/gesec.v14i2.1650
Shah, S. A., Seker, D. Z., Hameed, S., & Draheim, D. (2019). The rising role of big data analytics and IoT in disaster management: recent advances, taxonomy, and prospects. IEEE Access, 7, 54595-54614. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2913340
Slusky, L. (2020). Cybersecurity of online proctoring systems. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 29(1), 56–83. https://doi.org/10.58729/1941-6679.1445
Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A., & Guest, R. (2020). The role of authentic assessment to preserve academic integrity and promote skill development and employability. Studies in Higher Education, 45(11), 2132-2148. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1582015
ORDER HERE NOW
Zhang, Y., Xu, C., Li, H., Yang, K., Cheng, N., & Shen, X. (2020). PROTECT: efficient password-based threshold single-sign-on authentication for mobile users against perpetual leakage. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 20(6), 2297-2312. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMC.2020.2975792
Zuccaro, G., Leone, M. F., & Martucci, C. (2020). Future research and innovation priorities in the field of natural hazards, disaster risk reduction, disaster risk management, and climate change adaptation: A shared vision from the ESPREssO project. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 51, 101783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101783 Developing A Summative Performance Assessment Paper
