What type of assessment tests a student's recall of associations and discrimination?

The matching type of assessment is specifically designed to evaluate a student's ability to recall associations and make discriminations between similar concepts or terms. This format usually presents a set of items in one column that must be paired with a corresponding set of items in another column. As students engage in matching, they are not only recalling facts but also recognizing relationships between the terms, which requires an understanding of the content and the ability to discriminate between different concepts based on their definitions or characteristics.

In contrast, short answer questions typically assess recall in a more open-ended format, requiring students to generate responses without the cues provided in a matching format. True/false questions generally test binary understanding, where students decide if a statement is correct or not, and while they involve recall, they don't emphasize associations as strongly. Essay questions require more in-depth analysis and critical thinking, focusing on comprehensive responses, rather than simple recall or discrimination. Therefore, the matching assessment is particularly effective for measuring how well students can connect related concepts and distinguish between them based on learned information.