AP Assessment © 2014–2015 A. Perdicoúlis Systems Planning

Assessment judges the value of one’s ability or quality, and value judgments require special references known as criteria — from κρίνειν [Gk], to judge. People’s sense of justice may warrant either unique criteria for each assessment, or uniform criteria across assessments. Internal / External: Criteria can be internal to the object or situation to be assessed, such as the objectives or intended outcomes, or external, such as community expectations (Perdicoúlis, 2010, 2011a). Qualitative / Numerical: Assessments can be qualitative (e.g. ‘satisfactory’), or numerical, as marks on linear scales (e.g. ‘five out of ten’), depending on the nature of the assessed object or situation (Perdicoúlis, 2013a,b). Positioning / Classification: Rankings are post-assessment operations that mark the relative position of an assessed entity among its peers (e.g. ‘seventh out of forty’), or its classifi-cation (e.g. ‘top 5 percent’, or ‘A ’ grade), and are usually signs of performance or success. Specialist Assessments: Particular interests and points of view (PoV) focus on selected facets of reality — e.g. finance, environment, society, health, safety, risk. Although complementary, specialist assessments rarely share a common base of communication