Summative Performance Assessment

Sample Answer

The summative performance assessment is important to measure the student’s progress upon completing the course module. The assessment is performance-based and ensures students can use the gained knowledge and skills to complete processes and develop products.

The assessment effectively evaluates student’s competencies and abilities to attain future success in their careers as BSN-prepared nurses in community settings. Through this assessment, the instructor ensures that students are well-equipped and prepared to meet the rising healthcare demands of the natural world and achieve expected goals (Oermann et al., 2024).

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate different aspects of the assessment, from alignment with course objectives to learning objectives and pass criteria and assessment theory or concept that guided the design choices for the performance.

Alignment with Course Objectives and Student Learning Objectives

The first prompt aligns with the course objective of the student understanding the roles and responsibilities of a BSN-prepared nurse in a community setting. The prompt allows students to explain these roles and responsibilities in various community health environments. The prompt enhances the cognitive aspect of the student by recognizing these roles and responsibilities to improve their competencies in care delivery and disease surveillance.

The second prompt explores the concept of social determinants of health (SDOHs) in the community (Billings & Halstead, 2020). The prompt aligns with the course objective which requires students to determine the different social determinants of health (SDOH) and their examples in the community and effects on individual and community health.

The third prompt requires students to develop a concept map with five factors that affect an SDOH of their choice. The prompt aligns with the student learning objective of explaining SDOHs as a critical aspect of community health and their effects on individual health (Tsimane & Downing, 2020).

The fourth prompt is a scenario depicting a patient with comorbidities and demonstrating a limited understanding of healthy living based on their health situation. The prompt aligns with the student learning objective that implores students to understand the social determinants of health and the roles and responsibilities of the community health nurse.

The fifth prompt focuses on the concept of the epidemiologic triangle and its importance in disease surveillance. The prompt aligns with the learning objective of students understanding the components of the epidemiologic triangle, its components, and their effects on disease surveillance. The prompt also aligns with student learning objective of students analyzing the effects of the triangle and also aligns with importance of developing interventions to mitigate disease occurrence in community settings.

Assessment of Results

In this summative non-reference assessment, the students will get results and constructive feedback through score reports, which will summarize the individual performance in the evaluation. Score reports usually include the student’s score and the average score of the norm group (Williamson et al., 2020). The report also offers information on the comparison of the score with others who also took the evaluation.

Feedback from the instructor will include written comments on the assessment, highlighting and explaining areas of strength and areas for improvement. The instructor will also schedule a one-on-one meeting with respective students based on their scores, especially those not meeting competency, to remediate the outcomes and offer personalized feedback (Mackintosh-Franklin, 2021).

The feedback will be constructive and offer specific areas in which the student performed well and what they should improve. The communication of results should be done promptly and sensitively by considering the student’s emotional wellness and the effects of the results. In this case, the instructor will be available to handle any questions and offer more feedback as well as support if required (Williamson et al., 2020). Effective communication of assessment results and feedback is essential in promoting student learning and growth in their academic work.

Pass and Fail Criteria

This is a graded assessment and worth 15% of the final grade for the class. Every question is worth 10 points. The student should pass this exam (final), and their mid-term with cumulative grade points averaging at least 76% of all the assessments. This implies that students cannot miss more than two questions on quizzes and cannot miss more than seven questions. They should not also miss more than three questions in the final examination.

These areas will provide a cumulative score of at least 76%. The final paper required at the end of the course will be graded pass or fail based on the student’s compliance with the criteria provided. A passing grade shows sufficient understanding or proficiency in the subject area while a failing grade still needs to meet the required standards (Oermann et al., 2024). The school also has specific policies concerning minimum passing final grades that should be maintained to be considered competent. In many nursing programs, any cumulative final grade below 75.0 at the end of a semester is considered a failing grade.

Assessment Theory, Concept, or Principle

The design of the assessment is essential to helping students understand and apply clear concepts and rules. Consequently, the assessment used Patricia Benner’s theory to develop the questions. According to this theory, when developing or designing questions, instructors must consider having a structured approach to assist students have a clear understanding and application of concepts and rules (Billings & Halstead, 2020).

Advanced beginner questions should be more open-ended and focus on knowledge application in practice situations. Competent nurse students should be able to answer questions that need an in-depth understanding of the principles underlying their practice. Proficient nurse students should be able to answer questions that need critical thinking and analysis of complex situations. Expert nurses should be able to answer questions that need them to draw on their extensive experience and intuition to make decisions (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2020).

By customizing questions to the proficiency level of the nurse being assessed, instructors and practitioners ensure that the assessment accurately reflects the nurse’s knowledge and skills and offers growth and development opportunities. Every stage represents a different level of knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience (Mackintosh-Franklin, 2021). A nurse’s performance is assessed through their ability to perform tasks at each stage of their evaluation. The goal is for nurses to progress through every stage, gaining more experience and knowledge along the way to become experts in their areas of specialty.

Test Security Procedures

The instructor will administer the test in a secure environment like a classroom or designated testing center to ensure the test’s security. Being an online assessment, the students will be required to select an appropriate place with a web camera to observe how they conduct the assessment. Only authorized students will access the test material by logging in using the credentials that will be offered to them.

The instructor will ensure that tests occur at the same time and will use proctoring. Proctoring ensures that no unnecessary material or personal belongings are accessible to students (Billings & Halstead, 2020). These include phones and associated digital devices. The instructor will also give students the current policies and procedures concerning any cheating or troubling situations.

The instructor will give students unique passwords that they will use during the quiz implying that only those with the credentials will access the platform. The test will happen simultaneously to reduce any breach. The instructor will ensure that the platform is encrypted to avoid any leakages during the test and possible breaches will be detected if a student attempts to use a wrong password given during the log in process.

Other measures will include those specified by the university on the overall conduct of students during assessments to avoid unethical practices and the associated penalties. Cheating will result into automatic dismissal of the test results and student facing disciplinary measures based on the university’s guidelines and code of ethics.

Potential Implementation Barriers

Online assessments can encounter practical challenges due to their nature. The most prevalent of these entail bandwidth issues and connectivity (technical factors), lack of immediate feedback (pedagogical factors), inequality in access to internet connectivity (individual factor), and security or enabling factors. Students may not have reliable access to the Internet and technical devices for effective transmission of the assessment information and aspects (Barrot et al., 2021).

Therefore, those with these issues may take the online exam in the classroom or computer laboratory. They can also have designated places in their workplace where they will take the online final exam. Overall, in-person testing offers a more comprehensive evaluation of how the products or services work in practical situations which are essential in reducing the implementation barriers.

Analytical Methods

Instructors use assessment analysis to collect data and evaluate pertinent information to ascertain the most important students’ demands and the instructor’s approach to the test. Consequently, the analytical method will entail gathering relevant data and information related to the assessment to analyze the summative performance of the assessment results. They will include scores of all students who took the examination and any feedback or comments from them (Tsimane & Downing, 2020).

The instructor will categorize the data into groups based on various factors like the subject, type, and questions. This will help in identifying any trends and patterns in the data and offer insights into strengths and weak areas for consideration for improvement. The instructor will compare the assessment results and the course objectives and student learning objectives to determine if the assessment entails accurate measurement of the student’s understanding of the subject (Bastable, 2019).

Based on the analysis, the instructor will recommend necessary changes or improvements to the assessment process and develop relevant strategies to assist students in enhancing their performance in weak areas. The assessment results will help the instructor make informed decisions to enhance student learning and improve the efficacy of the assessment procedures and aspects.

Importance of Explanation and Authenticity

Authentic competency-based assessments are increasingly becoming prevalent in education and training settings because of their significance. They possess construct validity and consequential validity. Construct validity of authentic competency-based assessment focuses on the breadth of the assessment measures on knowledge, skills, and abilities (Abualhaija, 2020).

Authentic assessment mirrors real-life situations, tasks, and challenges that students encounter in future career and educational endeavors. They also offer a more accurate and dependable measure of a student’s competency than traditional assessments like multiple choice tests. Secondly, authentic competency-based assessments impact student learning through consequential validity.

These assessments encourage insightful learning, integral thinking, and the development of problem-solving skills by offering students opportunities to apply their knowledge and mastery in practical situations. As such, authentic assessments have a direct impact on student learning and contribute to the development of relevant competencies for their future careers and educational pursuits (Abualhaija, 2020). Therefore, authentic competency-based assessments are important due to their validity and offer more accurate and reliable aspects of students.

Performing the assessment represents an authentic activity relevant to community health nursing as the students will evaluate their competencies based on their abilities and knowledge that they can translate to clinical practice (Billings & Halstead, 2020). The authentic activity of developing knowledge based on the PowerPoint presentation will demonstrate the ability of students to leverage such tools and pass on information in their practice setting.

Using Assessment Results

Performance-based assessments are effective tools for evaluating students’ skills, knowledge, and abilities. Through analyzing the results of the assessments, instructors can gain insightful and helpful discernment in developing instructional strategies to improve students’ learning. They can use this information to enhance teaching strategies and improve students’ learning (Innis et al., 2023).

The assessment results will show areas where students are struggling to enable educators to change or modify the instruction approaches to meet students’ learning needs and expectations better. Through this approach, students can grasp complicated concepts and enhance their performance. Furthermore, by validating the effectiveness of their teaching strategies, instructors provide a more engaging and successful learning environment for the students.

The results of the performance-based assessments can be used to identify gaps in learning. The results offer instructors a chance to revisit convoluted areas and offer additional instructions to ensure students understand course materials and content (Mackintosh-Franklin, 2021). This strategy helps create an equitable learning environment and ensures all learners succeed. Instructors adjust their teaching strategies to address gaps and assemble a more engaging learning environment for all learners.

ADDIE Model and Development of Module Assessment

The instructional design of this module is to develop a detailed evaluation approach. The ADDIE model is an appropriate instruction design that comprises five stages. These are analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Through the analysis stage, the instructor evaluates the learning needs of students and determines the goals of the instructional program (Suratnu, 2023).

The design stage focuses on the instructional strategy, content, and assessment methods. Instructors use the development stage to create and produce actual instructional materials while in the implementation phase, they deliver the materials to learners. The final stage is evaluation where the instructors assess the effectiveness of their instructions and make necessary changes and improvements (Shakeel et al., 2023).

Therefore, the ADDIE model was influential in all the stages of designing and developing this module assessment. The instructor developed the module following these stages to ensure that it meets students’ learning needs.

Conclusion

Performance assessment is an essential aspect of developing and creating an effective model to ascertain the effectiveness of students in getting and understanding course objectives and content. The summative performance assessment will demonstrate the level of understanding, abilities, skills, and competencies among students based on the course outcomes. Through the performance assessment, students will enhance their competencies and meet their learning needs.

References

• Abualhaija, N. (2020). Using constructivism and student-centered learning approaches in nursing education. International Journal of nursing and health care research, 5(7), 1-6. DOI 10.29011/IJNHR-093.100093
• Barrot, J. S., Llenares, I. I., & Del Rosario, L. S. (2021). Students’ online learning challenges during the pandemic and how they cope with them The case of the Philippines. Education and information technologies, 26(6), 7321-7338. DOI 10.1007/s10639-021-10589-x
• Bastable, S. B. (2019). Nurse as educator principles of teaching and learning for nursing Practice (5th ed.). Burlington, MA Jones & Bartlett Learning. Billings, D. M., & Halstead, J.A. (Eds.). (2020). Teaching in nursing A guide for faculty (6th ed.).
• Elsevier. Innis, J., Johnston, S., & Cambly, E. (2023). Concept Mapping in Simulation within Nursing Education A Scoping Review Protocol. Nursing reports, 13(1), 109-113. DOI 10.3390/nursrep13010011
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• Oermann, M. H., Gaberson, K. B., De Gagne, J. C., & NPD-BC, C. N. E. (2024). Evaluation and testing in nursing education. Springer Publishing Company.
• Shakeel, S.I., Al Mamun, M. & Haolader, M. (2023). Instructional design with ADDIE and rapid prototyping for blended learning validation and its acceptance in the context of TVET Bangladesh. Education and Informational Technologies, (28)7601–7630. https //doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11471-0
• Stanhope, M. & Lancaster, J. (2020). Public health nursing Population-centered health care in the community (10th ed.). Elsevier. Suratnu, R. (2023). The adoption of the ADDIE model in designing an instructional module The case of Malay language remove students. IJIET international journal of Indonesian education and teaching, 7(2), 262-270. DOI 10.24071/ijiet.v7i2.3521
• Tsimane, T. A., & Downing, C. (2020). Transformative learning in nursing education A concept analysis. International journal of nursing sciences, 7(1), 91-98. DOI 10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.12.006.
• Williamson, G. R., Plowright, H., Kane, A., Bunce, J., Clarke, D., & Jamison, C. (2020). Collaborative learning in practice A systematic review and narrative synthesis of the research evidence in nurse education. Nurse education in practice, 43, 102706. https //doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2020.102706