Identification and Assessment of Student Development

Identification and Assessment of Student Development 1. Meaning of Student Assessment Assessment is needed as early detection, which is an effort and initial step of intervention, for child growth and development. With child development assessment, it can be seen whether the development stages passed by the child are progressive or not, then the triggers of problems that inhibit the growth and development of the child are identified, so that appropriate stimulation can be given so that the child can develop optimally. In essence, assessment needs to be carried out as a step to correct, reduce, and improve delays in aspects of child development. 2. Purpose of Student Development Assessment Specifically, the purpose of child development assessment is as follows: a) Provide specific development information, b) Help teachers set goals and plan programs, c) Get a child profile (teachers and parents), d) Useful for diagnosing children with special needs so that individual education programs and services for families can be created, and e) Evaluate the success of the program. According to Yuliani (2009) the purpose of early childhood development assessment, among others, is to: a) Detecting development and direction in conducting diagnostic assessments when indicated, which include detection of early childhood health status, sensory sensitivity, language, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and social-emotional development; b) Identifying the interests and needs of early childhood, c) Describing the progress of early childhood development and learning, d) Developing curriculum, e) Improving and developing learning activities that are in accordance with the development and needs of early childhood, and f) Assessing programs and institutions (program and institutional accountability). 3. Function of Student Development Assessment The results of early childhood development assessments can be used for the following purposes: a. Administrative Needs The results of child development assessments can be used for: 1) development reports from various areas of development, namely cognitive, language, physical/motor, social and emotional, behavior (moral habits and religious attitudes, discipline). In addition, it is also used to determine interests, special skills; 2) as a written report to parents about child development; and 3) used to provide periodic reports on the progress of the institution to related parties. b. Usefulness of Learning Activities The results of child development assessments can be used for learning/activity purposes, namely in terms of: 1) providing data that can be used to improve and develop learning/activities; 2) identifying child development during learning/activities. c. Diagnostic Use The results of child development assessments can be used as a diagnostic tool in guidance and counseling in analyzing various child problems. d. Research Uses The results of child development assessments can be used as research materials related to development. This research was conducted in an effort to develop potential optimally. This assessment can be used as a basis for research related to children to better understand behavior and measure the suitability of the experiences provided for them. 4. Principles of Student Development Assessment (Early Childhood) The principles of assessment are in accordance with the article from the Staff Workshop Teacher Handout (2014) which discusses the principles and recommendations for assessment for early childhood, namely as follows: a. Assessment must provide benefits for children. Collecting accurate information from children is quite difficult. Formal assessments may also be useful and sourced directly from programs and services for children. To ensure the implementation of the assessment, there must be clear benefits both in direct services for children and in improving the quality of education programs. b. Assessments must be tailored to specific purposes and must be reliable, valid, and fair Assessments are designed for one purpose that is not necessarily applicable if used for other purposes. Previously, there have been many violations of assessments with children that have occurred due to misuse. The recommendations in this section are tailored specifically to the purpose of the assessment. Assessment policies should be designed to ensure that the reliability and validity of the assessment are tailored to the age of the child. The younger the child, the more difficult it is to obtain reliable and valid assessment data. It is difficult to accurately assess cognitive abilities in children before the age of six. Because of the reliability and validity issues, some types of assessments should be postponed until the child reaches a certain age, while other types of assessments can be conducted but only as necessary. c. Assessment should be appropriate to the child's age and data collection methods Assessment of children should address a range of learning and development issues including physical well-being and motor development, social and emotional development, approaches to learning, language and cognitive development and general knowledge. Assessment methods should take into account that children need contexts that they can access in order to demonstrate their abilities. For example, paper and pencil for abstract drawing can make it difficult for children to demonstrate what they know. d. Assessment should be tailored to the appropriate language, so that assessment can be a measure of language Regardless of whether the assessment is intended to measure a child's early reading ability, knowledge of color names or early learning potential. Assessment results can change and depend on the child's language skills, especially for children who have been taught language by their parents from an early age and have more language skills than children who have not received good language instruction from their families. e. Parents should be an important source of assessment information and observers of assessment results Some direct assessments of children can be wrong, so assessments should include several sources, especially reports from parents and teachers. The assessment results must also be given to parents as part of the process of involving parents in their child's education. Sharing and communicating with families about the child's behavior and development must be with the consent of the relevant parties, such as the child and the teacher.