The following definitions are consistent with those used by Alberta Education and endorsed by the Alberta Assessment Consortium.
| achievement | a student’s demonstration of knowledge, skills and attitudes relative to grade level learner outcomes |
| assessment | process of collecting information on student achievement and performance that includes a variety of assessment tasks designed to monitor and improve student learning |
| assessment for learning | assessment experiences that result in an ongoing exchange of information between students and teachers about student progress toward clearly specified learner outcomes (also called diagnostic and formative assessment; refers to information not used for grading purposes) |
| assessment of learning | assessment experiences designed to collect information about learning to make judgements about student performance and achievement at the end of a period of instruction to be shared with those outside classrooms (also called summative assessment; refers to performance data compiled as a grade) |
| evaluation | making decisions about the quality, value or worth of a response for the purpose of providing descriptive feedback (formative) and marks (summative) |
| learner outcomes | what we expect students to learn; the provincially mandated knowledge, skills and attitudes we expect students to demonstrate as a result of schooling |
| mark | a letter, number or comment as a statement of student performance |
| performance | how well a student demonstrates grade level learner outcomes |
| performance assessment | a meaningful, real-life task that enables students to demonstrate what they know and can do in situations like those they will encounter outside the classroom as well as in situations that simulate how people do their work |
NOTE: The term ‘progress report’ is sometimes used interchangeably with report card.