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2.2 Formative and summative issues in assessment

The main strategies considered important for AfL include sharing learning outcomes, providing feedback, eliciting evidence (through questioning), self and peer assessment, and the formative use of summative tests. According to Black and

William (1998), effective use of FA has the potential to significantly raise standards in schools. They suggest that there are five areas of FA; including self-assessment, peer assessment, questioning, feedback and sharing criteria.

In the classroom, assessment falls into two categories: summative assessment, which aims to provide students with their ‘current capability’ and identify where further progress needs to be made, and formative assessment, which is focused on ‘enhancing’ student development through teacher-student interactions (Crooks 2002, p. 241). Formative assessment, according to Bell and Cowie (2001), is a process by which in order to enhance learning, teachers recognise and respond to students’ individual learning, whereas summative assessment provides teachers with information on students’ level of proficiency. Wyse and Torrance (2009) state that teacher/student interaction is significant to successful formative assessment strategies. As indicated, summative assessment is performance based, and formative assessment focuses on the process of learning (or mastery) and on goal orientations. Summative assessment, the assessment that teachers make at the end of the process of learning, identifies student’s current capability, and requires that the teacher grade the students’ proficiency or competence. This provides opportunities for policy makers, teachers, parents, and students themselves to monitor the educational progress a student makes, compared to external standards or the performance of their peers (Bell & Cowie, 2001). Summative assessment has shortcomings, such as being individualistic and isolated from the learning process, but is still relevant to the assessment process.

Formative assessment, on the other hand, is conceptualized as a contextualised and integral part of learning, and has a multi-method approach instead of a single score. Thus, formative assessment offers a holistic alternative to summative assessment, something that has been recognized within constructivist learning theory (Gipps, 1994; Holt-Reynolds, 2000), psychological theories of learning (Boud, 1995; Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2003; Hall & Burke, 2004; Nichol & MacFarlane-Dick, 2006) and socio-cultural theories of learning (Black & Wiliam, 2006; Gipps, 1999; Pryor & Crossouard, 2008). Additionally, a number of studies have taken into account Bordieu’s sociological perspective on the influence of different assessment systems, particularly those asserting that formative assessment affects learners’ identity formation and disposition for learning (Ecclestone, 2002; Ecclestone & Pryor, 2003; Torrance & Pryor, 1998).

However, surveys on teachers’ understanding of formative assessment have revealed that assessment is still typically deployed by teachers as either a measurement or a co-inquiry (Hargreaves, 2005), a tendency which echoes Gipps’ (1994) observations made nearly a decade earlier. Assessment becomes formative when the evidence it generates is used to adapt teaching to enhance learning. Other definitions have stressed that formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students to enhance learning (Cowie & Bell, 1999), or is carried out during instruction to improve teaching/learning (Shepard, 2005, 2008). Black and Wiliam (1998b) defined formative assessment as all activities carried out by teachers and students in assessing themselves, provided the information is used to modify teaching and learning activities by both teachers and students. Therefore, in order to ensure effective formative assessment, they advise teachers to carry out formative assessment during learning, and to employ carefully chosen activities designed to enhance learning by involving students in the process, using the collected information to feedback into their teaching.

These differing definitions reveal a second complication for teachers implementing the new paradigm: the term formative assessment is open to multiple interpretations and often means no more than the assessment process being frequently carried out, or improvised in the process of teaching. Formative assessment has been defined as frequent and interactive assessment of students’ progress, where teachers identifying learning needs is essential to modifying their teaching to this end (Looney, 2007), and as a tool to be used by teachers to identify specific misconceptions and mistakes made by students while teaching (Kahl, 2005). In practice, however, it commonly provides teachers with information on their teaching, but does not involve or inform students about their learning (Harlen et al., 1992).

Further, the purposes for using formative assessment in the classroom vary widely: as information and feedback to students on their performance to enhance their learning (Irons, 2008; Shute, 2008; Wiliam & Thompson, 2008); as part of classroom activity and instruction (Boston, 2002; Wiggins, 2011); as something that engages students in self-directed learning environments (Stiggins & Chappuis, 2005), and as an effective element of instruction in learning (Wiliam, 2011). Overall, a developing shift in the understanding of assessment has resulted in changes to the language used by, and the roles and responsibilities assigned to both teachers and students in the assessment process. However, for many teachers, the changes have not been uniform. As noted, formative assessment is focussed on enhancing student development during learning, through teacher/student interaction (Crooks, 2002), but as researchers have found, the distinction between the two strategies is often blurred in teachers’ understanding, particularly regarding strategies for implementation of both types of assessment in classrooms. Especially, this is because teachers are still unsure of how the formative aspects of assessment work in practice. In their classroom, they might view themselves as providing formative assessment, when in fact they are conducting an on-going summative assessment. Harlen (2000) illustrates there is still lack of theoretical coherence between espoused theory and practice (Schon, 1983), which raises questions about teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, and how they should underpin classroom teaching.

Harlen and James (1997) argue that one of the major influences on teachers’ predicament was the lack of understanding they had of differentiating between assessment for summative purposes and formative assessment. According to these researchers, teachers often struggled to differentiate assessment for two distinct purposes, meaning that the task itself became a challenge to them (Dixon & Wiliams, 2003; Harris & Brown, 2009; Taras, 2008). In response to these findings, researchers recommended professional development to help clarify formative and summative assessment, and to develop teachers’ understanding of the practice of providing feedback (Dixon, 1999; Hill, 2000).

As established above, formative assessment should support the learning process, and summative assessment should verify attainment of individual standards. While researchers argue that the main feature of formative in the assessment process should enhance students’ learning, the rising agreement among educators is that assessment can be used to establish students’ achievement and measure their performance and attainment in learning (Black & Wiliam, 2004), and that this information should be used to enhance students learning and performance during the learning process.

Formative assessment brings together the cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning. Firstly, from the cognitive perspective, formative assessment supports teachers and students to work consistently in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). The ZPD is the area where learning takes place and when utilising formative assessment effectively, teachers are in fact involved in a process of gathering and interpreting evidence to structure learning through scaffolding information with the students. As prerequisite to leading learning, rather than reacting retrospectively to it, teachers need be aware of students’ abilities through careful observation of emerging moments of learning, using formative assessment and determine what is within students’ reach. Formative assessment in this context enables teachers to provide students with experiences and support that ideally enables students to incorporate new learning into their generally developing learning skills.

Secondly, from the sociocultural perspective, formative assessment involves the process of teacher/student interaction in the learning process. According to most (if not all) models of formative assessment, the assessment process should not be unidirectional, but should involve both teachers and students in reciprocal activity within a learning community (teacher/student engagement should take place within a community of practice). The teacher/student roles, goals and interaction are designed to support learning, which is realized through the gathering of evidence and using feedback to inform learning.

Definition of formative and summative assessment

The first difference is of course their definition.

Formative assessment is used to monitor student’s learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors or teachers to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.

Summative assessment, however, is used to evaluate student’s learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Assessment allows both instructor and student to monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives, and can be approached in a variety of ways. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). It can include students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more. In short, formative assessment occurs throughout a class or course, and seeks to improve student achievement of learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs (Theal and Franklin, 2010, p. 151). 

In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches.