what is formative and summative assessment in education

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, what is the difference between formative and summative assessment, formative assessment.

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes , which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes , which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

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Assessment | Career and Technical Education (CTE) | Classroom Planning

Formative vs. Summative Assessments: What's the Difference?

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March 19th, 2024 | 8 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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Whether you’re an administrator, supervisor, or teacher, you’ve heard of formative assessments and summative assessments . They're both essential parts of any curriculum map . But what do these terms actually mean?

In a nutshell, formative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how someone is learning material throughout a course .

Summative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how much someone has learned throughout a course .

In the classroom, that means formative assessments take place during a course, while summative assessments are the final evaluations at the course’s end. 

That's the simple answer, but there's actually a lot more that makes formative and summative assessments different. To fully understand formative vs. summative assessments, you'll need to understand the details of these two important forms of assessment.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at formative and summative quizzing and assessing. When you've finished reading, you'll understand how to better test student knowledge in your classroom.

What Are Formative Assessments?

Formative assessments are evaluations of someone’s learning progress in a classroom.

Common formative assessments include:

• Presentations
• Group activities

Formative assessments work great when they’re used on a regular basis. That regularity could be based on a calendar (every Monday, every Thursday, etc.) or your lesson plans (every unit).

They’re also more flexible than summative assessments. You don’t always have to use pencil and paper to get a feel for your students’ progress. Instead, you can use in-class games, group presentations, and hands-on activities to evaluate student progress.

Ultimately, the formative assessments you use are up to you. After all, no one knows your classes better than you. So if you’d prefer to get an overview of how well your students are learning, you can use a group-style assessment like a game. If you want to know where each student struggles, you can use an individual assessment like a quiz.

This flexibility is perfect for keeping students engaged in your class. It lets you stick to a syllabus while mixing up the exact task each student has to perform. That way, you don’t fall into a predictable routine of teach-test-teach-test. Instead, you have a varied routine of teach-game-quiz-teach-presentation-project or another interesting format.

By the time your course ends, you’ll have a full understanding of how students are learning as you teach a subject. Then, you can keep all of your grades to look for patterns among different class sections.

Is there an area where students seem to do worse than others? Could you adjust a lesson and shoot for better results?

Naturally, you’ll never get a class that’s straight A’s from top to bottom. But you can still design your classroom assessments to work for as many students as possible!

Top 3 Formative Assessment Examples

Formative assessments are excellent opportunities to let your students flex their creative muscles.

Even if a student isn’t much of a writer or artist, they can still have a little fun with these assessments.

1. Make an Advertisement

Have your students create an advertisement for a concept they just learned. Use visuals and text to really sell an idea.

This makes students apply what they’ve learned into a creative exercise, which helps with long-term retention.

2. Idea Comparisons

Instruct students to lay out the main ideas of a new concept they learned. Then, have them compare that concept to another to see where they agree and disagree.

In addition to helping students remember these concepts, this exercise makes them apply previous knowledge to a new format so they can remember it better in the future.

3. Misconceptions

After you introduce a concept to students, introduce a popular misconception about it. Have students discuss why the misconception is false and where it may have started.

This exercise makes students think critically about what they’ve just learned while showing them how to debunk misinformation.  

How Do You Track Formative Assessments?

You can track formative assessments in one of three ways: by grade, by feel, and with student data .

Let's take a closer look at using each of these methods to monitor student progress.

Track by Grade

First, you can track them by grade . This gives you a specific, concentrated view of how a student (or group of students) learns. However, graded assessments are sources of stress for many students. So if you want to make a unit fun or loose, graded assessments may not work well for you. 

Track by Feel

Second, you can track them by feel . This is more based on your teacher instinct, allowing you to pick which students need additional support based on your observation. On the downside, you can’t “show” this information to your administrators. If you have certain standards to meet throughout a marking period, you won’t be able to prove you’ve fulfilled those standards without grades.

Track with Student Data

Finally, you can track formative assessments with  student data . This is non-graded information that may reflect how your students are learning, such as questions they've frequently answered incorrectly or subject areas where they've had trouble. After all, not everything has to be a grade!

When you have a comprehensive data management system in place, tracking with student data can be the most effective way to measure student progress.

With all of that said and done, let’s next consider summative assessments.

What Are Summative Assessments?

Summative assessments are evaluations of what someone has learned throughout a course. 

Common summative assessments include:

• Final exams
• End-of-class projects

Summative assessments almost always take place at the end of a course unless a teacher decides to break a course into more manageable chunks. They’re often cumulative, and they’re used to evaluate a student’s long-term information retention.

In summative assessments like final exams , you can include questions from the first week or two of a course to ensure students retained introductory information. In other assessments like papers, your students can pull from a full marking period of learning to apply to a topic.

Either way, your students have to do some serious reflecting and critical thinking to bring together the information from an entire course.

This is a great way to ensure students retain essential information from one course to another. So if you teach introductory courses, summative assessments are perfect to set students up for success in their next classes.

That’s important because a student’s success in your classroom is just one step for them. When you prepare them for the next step, you make it easier for them to succeed in the future as well.

In that way, summative assessments serve two purposes:

First , they evaluate what someone learned while they’ve been in your class.

Second , they evaluate how prepared someone is to go to the next academic level.

Combined with the rest of a student’s performance in class, summative quizzing and assessments are excellent ways to gauge progress while ensuring long-term information retention.

Top 3 Summative Assessment Examples

Summative assessments are traditionally more structured and standardized than formative assessments.

Still, you have a few options to shake things up that go beyond a pen-and-paper test.

1. In-depth reports

Instruct students to choose a topic that resonated with them in class and report in-depth on it. This is a great opportunity for students to take an idea and run with it under your supervision.

These reports often showcase a student’s interest, and you’ll be able to evaluate a student’s engagement level in the class by how they approach the report.

The goal is a passionate, intelligent, and comprehensive examination of a concept that matters to a student. 

2. Cumulative, individual projects

Have your students pick a project to complete. This project should somehow reflect what they’ve learned throughout the course.

Projects are great for any practical application class from health science to physics. Creating a cross-section of the human heart, designing a diet, or creating a protective egg-drop vessel are all fun ways students can show off their knowledge of a topic.

3. Personal evaluation papers

Require students to apply principles from your class to their personal lives. These papers are excellent fits for psychology, nutrition, finance, business, and other theory-based classes.

In a nutshell, personal evaluations let students look at themselves through a different lens while exploring the nuances of the principles they learned in class.  Plus, it lets students do something everyone loves — talk about themselves!

Now that you have a few ideas on summative assessments, how can you track their success?

How Do You Track Summative Assessments?

While everyone has their own ideas on this topic, grades are the best way to evaluate someone’s success with a summative assessment.

How you grade is ultimately up to you. Presentations are great ways to grade someone based on a number of factors, including soft skills like public speaking. Written exams or project-based assessments are ideal to see a student’s full-scope understand of your class after a marking period.

Whatever you choose, stick to a consistent grading scale so you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses in the classroom as students complete your course. 

What’s More Important: Formative or Summative Assessments?

Many new teachers have this question — are formative or summative assessments more important?

In a perfect world, they’re equally important. Formative assessments let students show that they’re learning, and summative assessments let them show what they’ve learned.

But American public education values summative assessments over formative assessments. Standardized tests — like the SATs — are great examples of high-value summative assessments.

It’s rare to find the same emphasis on formative quizzing and assessments. That’s because formative assessments act like milestones while summative assessments show the bottom line.

We encourage teachers to look at these assessments as two sides of the same coin. Formative and summative assessments work together flawlessly when implemented properly.

With all of that in mind, you only have one question left to answer. How are you going to add these assessments to your curriculum ?

Use Formative and Summative Assessments and Meet Your Challenges

As a teacher, you’ll likely need to employ both summative and formative assessments in your curriculum. An effective balance of these assessments will help you understand your students’ needs while meeting your standards.

However, CTE teachers face challenges in the classroom each day that sometimes get in the way of connecting with students and preparing them for these assessments.

If you want to feel less overwhelmed and spend more time helping your students succeed, download your free guide . You’ll learn about five of the most significant challenges teachers face and how you can overcome them.

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Formative, Summative, and More Types of Assessments in Education

All the best ways to evaluate learning before, during, and after it happens.

When you hear the word assessment, do you automatically think “tests”? While it’s true that tests are one kind of assessment, they’re not the only way teachers evaluate student progress. Learn more about the types of assessments used in education, and find out how and when to use them.

Diagnostic Assessments

Formative assessments, summative assessments.

• Criterion-Referenced, Ipsative, and Normative Assessments

What is assessment?

In simplest terms, assessment means gathering data to help understand progress and effectiveness. In education, we gather data about student learning in variety of ways, then use it to assess both their progress and the effectiveness of our teaching programs. This helps educators know what’s working well and where they need to make changes.

There are three broad types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, and summative. These take place throughout the learning process, helping students and teachers gauge learning. Within those three broad categories, you’ll find other types of assessment, such as ipsative, norm-referenced, and criterion-referenced.

What’s the purpose of assessment in education?

In education, we can group assessments under three main purposes:

• Of learning
• For learning
• As learning

Assessment of learning is student-based and one of the most familiar, encompassing tests, reports, essays, and other ways of determining what students have learned. These are usually summative assessments, and they are used to gauge progress for individuals and groups so educators can determine who has mastered the material and who needs more assistance.

When we talk about assessment for learning, we’re referring to the constant evaluations teachers perform as they teach. These quick assessments—such as in-class discussions or quick pop quizzes—give educators the chance to see if their teaching strategies are working. This allows them to make adjustments in action, tailoring their lessons and activities to student needs. Assessment for learning usually includes the formative and diagnostic types.

Assessment can also be a part of the learning process itself. When students use self-evaluations, flash cards, or rubrics, they’re using assessments to help them learn.

Let’s take a closer look at the various types of assessments used in education.

Diagnostic assessments are used before learning to determine what students already do and do not know. This often refers to pre-tests and other activities students attempt at the beginning of a unit.

How To Use Diagnostic Assessments

When giving diagnostic assessments, it’s important to remind students these won’t affect their overall grade. Instead, it’s a way for them to find out what they’ll be learning in an upcoming lesson or unit. It can also help them understand their own strengths and weaknesses, so they can ask for help when they need it.

Teachers can use results to understand what students already know and adapt their lesson plans accordingly. There’s no point in over-teaching a concept students have already mastered. On the other hand, a diagnostic assessment can also help highlight expected pre-knowledge that may be missing.

For instance, a teacher might assume students already know certain vocabulary words that are important for an upcoming lesson. If the diagnostic assessment indicates differently, the teacher knows they’ll need to take a step back and do a little pre-teaching before getting to their actual lesson plans.

Examples of Diagnostic Assessments

• Pre-test: This includes the same questions (or types of questions) that will appear on a final test, and it’s an excellent way to compare results.
• Blind Kahoot: Teachers and kids already love using Kahoot for test review, but it’s also the perfect way to introduce a new topic. Learn how Blind Kahoots work here.
• Survey or questionnaire: Ask students to rate their knowledge on a topic with a series of low-stakes questions.
• Checklist: Create a list of skills and knowledge students will build throughout a unit, and have them start by checking off any they already feel they’ve mastered. Revisit the list frequently as part of formative assessment.

Formative assessments take place during instruction. They’re used throughout the learning process and help teachers make on-the-go adjustments to instruction and activities as needed. These assessments aren’t used in calculating student grades, but they are planned as part of a lesson or activity. Learn much more about formative assessments here.

How To Use Formative Assessments

As you’re building a lesson plan, be sure to include formative assessments at logical points. These types of assessments might be used at the end of a class period, after finishing a hands-on activity, or once you’re through with a unit section or learning objective.

Once you have the results, use that feedback to determine student progress, both overall and as individuals. If the majority of a class is struggling with a specific concept, you might need to find different ways to teach it. Or you might discover that one student is especially falling behind and arrange to offer extra assistance to help them out.

While kids may grumble, standard homework review assignments can actually be a pretty valuable type of formative assessment . They give kids a chance to practice, while teachers can evaluate their progress by checking the answers. Just remember that homework review assignments are only one type of formative assessment, and not all kids have access to a safe and dedicated learning space outside of school.

Examples of Formative Assessments

• Exit tickets : At the end of a lesson or class, pose a question for students to answer before they leave. They can answer using a sticky note, online form, or digital tool.
• Kahoot quizzes : Kids enjoy the gamified fun, while teachers appreciate the ability to analyze the data later to see which topics students understand well and which need more time.
• Flip (formerly Flipgrid): We love Flip for helping teachers connect with students who hate speaking up in class. This innovative (and free!) tech tool lets students post selfie videos in response to teacher prompts. Kids can view each other’s videos, commenting and continuing the conversation in a low-key way.
• Self-evaluation: Encourage students to use formative assessments to gauge their own progress too. If they struggle with review questions or example problems, they know they’ll need to spend more time studying. This way, they’re not surprised when they don’t do well on a more formal test.

Find a big list of 25 creative and effective formative assessment options here.

Summative assessments are used at the end of a unit or lesson to determine what students have learned. By comparing diagnostic and summative assessments, teachers and learners can get a clearer picture of how much progress they’ve made. Summative assessments are often tests or exams but also include options like essays, projects, and presentations.

How To Use Summative Assessments

The goal of a summative assessment is to find out what students have learned and if their learning matches the goals for a unit or activity. Ensure you match your test questions or assessment activities with specific learning objectives to make the best use of summative assessments.

When possible, use an array of summative assessment options to give all types of learners a chance to demonstrate their knowledge. For instance, some students suffer from severe test anxiety but may still have mastered the skills and concepts and just need another way to show their achievement. Consider ditching the test paper and having a conversation with the student about the topic instead, covering the same basic objectives but without the high-pressure test environment.

Summative assessments are often used for grades, but they’re really about so much more. Encourage students to revisit their tests and exams, finding the right answers to any they originally missed. Think about allowing retakes for those who show dedication to improving on their learning. Drive home the idea that learning is about more than just a grade on a report card.

Examples of Summative Assessments

• Traditional tests: These might include multiple-choice, matching, and short-answer questions.
• Essays and research papers: This is another traditional form of summative assessment, typically involving drafts (which are really formative assessments in disguise) and edits before a final copy.
• Presentations: From oral book reports to persuasive speeches and beyond, presentations are another time-honored form of summative assessment.

Find 25 of our favorite alternative assessments here.

More Types of Assessments

Now that you know the three basic types of assessments, let’s take a look at some of the more specific and advanced terms you’re likely to hear in professional development books and sessions. These assessments may fit into some or all of the broader categories, depending on how they’re used. Here’s what teachers need to know.

Criterion-Referenced Assessments

In this common type of assessment, a student’s knowledge is compared to a standard learning objective. Most summative assessments are designed to measure student mastery of specific learning objectives. The important thing to remember about this type of assessment is that it only compares a student to the expected learning objectives themselves, not to other students.

Many standardized tests are criterion-referenced assessments. A governing board determines the learning objectives for a specific group of students. Then, all students take a standardized test to see if they’ve achieved those objectives.

Find out more about criterion-referenced assessments here.

Norm-Referenced Assessments

These types of assessments do compare student achievement with that of their peers. Students receive a ranking based on their score and potentially on other factors as well. Norm-referenced assessments usually rank on a bell curve, establishing an “average” as well as high performers and low performers.

These assessments can be used as screening for those at risk for poor performance (such as those with learning disabilities) or to identify high-level learners who would thrive on additional challenges. They may also help rank students for college entrance or scholarships, or determine whether a student is ready for a new experience like preschool.

Learn more about norm-referenced assessments here.

Ipsative Assessments

In education, ipsative assessments compare a learner’s present performance to their own past performance, to chart achievement over time. Many educators consider ipsative assessment to be the most important of all , since it helps students and parents truly understand what they’ve accomplished—and sometimes, what they haven’t. It’s all about measuring personal growth.

Comparing the results of pre-tests with final exams is one type of ipsative assessment. Some schools use curriculum-based measurement to track ipsative performance. Kids take regular quick assessments (often weekly) to show their current skill/knowledge level in reading, writing, math, and other basics. Their results are charted, showing their progress over time.

Learn more about ipsative assessment in education here.

Have more questions about the best types of assessments to use with your students? Come ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, check out creative ways to check for understanding ..

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Explainer: what’s the difference between formative and summative assessment in schools?

Senior Lecturer in Educational Assessment, Macquarie University

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The recent Gonski report argues Australia needs assessment and reporting models that capture both achievement progress and long-term learning progress. This, according to the review panel, involves low-stakes, low-key, and regular formative assessments to support learning progressions. The report used international evidence on individualised teaching to demonstrate ongoing formative assessment and feedback is fundamental to supporting students to do better in school.

The NSW Education Minister, Rob Stokes, has called for NAPLAN to be replaced in “haste” with less high stakes tests. Mark Scott, the secretary of the NSW Department of Education, echoed Stokes’ remarks. He stated :

I think [NAPLAN] will become obsolete because the kinds of information that the new assessment schemes will give us will be richer and deeper and more meaningful for teachers, for parents and for education systems.

So, what’s the difference between formative and summative assessment? And when should each be used? Formative and summative assessment have different purposes and both have an important role to play in a balanced assessment program.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment includes a range of strategies such as classroom discussions and quizzes designed to generate feedback on student performance. This is done so teachers can make changes in teaching and learning based on what students need.

It involves finding out what students know and do not know, and continually monitoring student progress during learning. Both teachers and students are involved in decisions about the next steps in learning.

Read more: Marking answers with a tick or cross won't enhance learning

Teachers use the feedback from formative tasks to identify what students are struggling with and adjust instruction appropriately. This could involve re-teaching key concepts, changing how they teach or modifying teaching resources to provide students with additional support. Students also use feedback from formative tasks to reflect on and improve their own work.

Regular classroom tasks, whether formal (for example, traditional pen and paper tests) or informal (such as classroom discussions), can be adapted into effective formative tasks by:

making students aware of the learning goals/success criteria using rubrics and carefully tracking student progress against them

including clear instructions to guide students through a series of activities to demonstrate the success criteria. A teacher might, for example, design a series of activities to guide students through an inquiry or research process in science

providing regular opportunities for feedback from the teacher, other students or parents (this feedback may be face-to face, written, or online)

making sure students have opportunities to reflect on and make use of feedback to improve their work. This may involve asking students to write a short reflection about the feedback on their draft essay and using this to improve their final version.

There are many advantages of formative assessment:

feedback from formative assessment helps students become aware of any gaps between their goal and their current knowledge, understanding, or skill

tasks guide students through the actions necessary to hit learning goals

tasks encourage students to focus their attention on the task (such as undertaking an inquiry or research process) rather than on simply getting the right answer

students and teachers receive ongoing feedback about student progress towards learning goals, which enables teachers to adjust their instructional approach in response to what students need

students build their self-regulation skills by setting learning goals and monitoring their progress towards them

results of formative assessments can also be used for grading and reporting.

Summative assessment

This includes end of unit examinations and the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) examination.

Summative assessment provides students, teachers and parents with an understanding of the pupil’s overall learning. Most commonly thought of as formal, time-specific exams, these assessments may include major essays, projects, presentations, art works, creative portfolios, reports or research experiments. These assessments are designed to measure the student’s achievement relative to the subject’s overall learning goals as set out in the relevant curriculum standards.

The design and goals of summative assessments are generally standardised so they can be applied to large numbers of students, multiple cohorts and time periods. Data collected on individual student, cohort, school or system performance provides schools and principals with a tool to evaluate student knowledge relative to the learning objectives. They can also compare them with previous cohorts and other schools.

Read more: Evidence-based education needs standardised assessment

The measurement and evaluation of student achievement this way gives us necessary information about how we can continuously improve learning and teaching.

There are a number of limitations of summative assessment. While formative assessments usually provide feedback for the student to review and develop their learning, summative assessments are rarely returned to students. When assessments provide only a numerical grade and little or no feedback, as the NSW HSC does, it’s hard for students and teachers to pinpoint learning needs and determine the way forward.

Additionally, being a form of “high stakes” assessment, results may be perceived as a way of ranking students. For high achieving students there is recognition and reward, while for the lower performing students there is potential embarrassment and shame. Neither of these things should be associated with an equal opportunity education system.

The author would like to acknowledge the work of David McDonald, a PhD student at Macquarie University in assessment, in writing this article.

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Formative and Summative Assessment

Assessment helps instructors and students monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives. Formative assessment is used throughout an instructional period to treat misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps. Summative assessments evaluate learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period.

Below you will find formative and summative descriptions along with a diagram, examples, recommendations, and strategies/tools for the next steps.

Descriptions

Formative assessment  (Image 1, left) refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes practical tools for helping to shape learning. It can even bolster students’ ability to take ownership of their education when they understand that the goal is to improve learning and 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. 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 the classroom, formative assessment centers on practice and is often low-stakes. Students may or may not receive a grade.

In contrast,  summative assessments (Image 1, right) evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success after an instructional period, as 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 significant effect in conjunction and in alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches. 

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Formative: l earn and practice.

• In-class discussions
• Clicker questions (e.g., Top Hat)
• 1-minute reflection writing assignments
• Peer review
• Homework assignments

Summative: Assess performance

• Instructor-created exams
• Standardized tests
• Final projects
• Final essays
• Final presentations
• Final reports
• Final grades

Formative Assessment Recommendations

Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

1. Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance

Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (accomplish this through office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or  exam/assignment wrappers . Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout the term.

2. Encourage students' self-reflection.

Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or peers’ work and share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. Also, instructors can ask students to describe their best work qualities, either through writing or group discussion.

3. Give students detailed, actionable feedback

Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.

4. Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning

5. promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem.

Students will be more motivated and engaged when assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can design assignments to allow for rewrites/resubmissions in assignments to promote learning development. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.

6. Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance

Related to the above; instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use to succeed.

7. Collect information to help shape teaching

Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition, as students reflect upon their learning. 

Instructors may find various other formative assessment techniques through  CELT’s Classroom Assessment Techniques .

Summative Assessment Recommendations

Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the instruction’s goals and expected outcomes. 

1. Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications

Instructors can use a rubric to provide expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and “summarize” expected performance at the beginning of the term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion. 

2. Design Clear, Effective Questions

If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students the freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning.

3. Assess Comprehensiveness. 

Effective summative assessments allow students to consider the totality of a course’s content, make deep connections, demonstrate synthesized skills, and explore more profound concepts that drive or find a course’s ideas and content. 

4. Make Parameters Clear

When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards). Also, knowledge assessed relates clearly to the content covered in course; and provides students with disabilities required space and support.

5. Consider Anonymous Grading. 

Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, to provide feedback that speaks to a student’s term-long trajectory. If instructors want to give a genuinely unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of anonymous grading techniques (see hide student names in SpeedGrader Canvas guide ).

Explore Assessment Strategies and Tools

Instructional strategies.

CELT’s online resources are organized to help an instructor sequentially work through the teaching process.

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• Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31 (2): 2-19.
• Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development . KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.
• Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory . San Francisco: WestEd.

Formative and Summative Assessment, by the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at Iowa State University is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 . This work, Formative and Summative Assessment, is a derivative of Formative and Summative Assessment developed by the Yale University Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning(retrieved on June 23, 2020) from https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments.

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Formative And Summative Assessment: The Differences Explained

Tim handley.

The assessment landscape in schools is often confusing and ever-changing. With the debate between the merits of formative vs summative assessments raging on, it can be difficult to know when to use either of these assessment types in your classroom. That’s why, in this article, we will discuss when you should use either type of assessment and explain why.

• Formative vs summative assessments – what is the difference?

What is formative assessment?

What is summative assessment, formative and summative assessments should be adaptable, formative vs summative assessment comparison chart.

• Formative assessment – Constantly assessing ‘in the moment’.

How to bring formative assessments into your classroom

Formative assessment ideas for your class, ensure each formative assessment routine has a purpose.

• Don’t leave any potholes – why formative assessment is important

4 things you must remember regarding summative assessment

• Formative vs summative assessments – the pros and cons

Formative vs summative assessments – what is the difference?

When teachers discuss assessment, they often refer to two types – ‘formative’ and ‘summative’, however the distinctions and lines between the two types of assessment can often be blurred and misunderstood.

This article will compare and contrast formative and summative assessments to give you a true view of the difference between both types.

Formative assessment is the use of day-to-day assessments to gauge and explore students’ understanding of a topic.

It is best thought of as an assessment for learning. 

Formative assessments are what we carry out to help inform the learning ‘in the moment’. Formative assessment is continuous, informal and should have a central and pivotal role in every math classroom.

If used correctly, it will have a high impact on current learning and help you guide your instruction and teaching by giving ongoing feedback on learners’ progress.

Having an assessment with low stakes allows students to develop their skills, confidence and user experience before attempting a summative assessment with high stakes. It also makes room for self-assessment.

Summative assessments take place after students’ have completed a block of work, whether that be at the end of a unit or at the end of a quarter. They are a more formal way to sum up student progress and are often compared against a standard benchmark.

They are best thought of as assessments of learning.

There are different types of summative evaluations that we carry out ‘after the event’, often periodic (rather than continuous), and they are often measured against a set standard.

Summative assessment can be thought of as helping to validate and ‘check’ formative assessment – it is a periodic measure of how children are, overall, progressing in their mathematics learning.

If formative assessment has been continually carried out, then the results of summative assessment shouldn’t yield any surprises.

Some common examples of summative assessment include:

• Final projects

Importantly, it is not the ‘form’ that assessment takes that determines whether it is formative or summative, instead it is how it is being used.

For example, ‘test style questions’ can be used both as formative assessment (perhaps as exit tickets – questions given to students at the end of the lesson to check student understanding) or summative (perhaps as an end of an instructional unit test or check).

It is important that in all subjects, but especially in math, that we use a combination of both assessment strategies, but that formative assessment, due to its constant nature, makes up the bulk of our assessment activities.

This Venn diagram shows the difference and similarities between the two assessment types very clearly.

Formative assessment – Constantly assessing ‘in the moment’.

Formative assessment is an intrinsic part of both teaching and student progression. This form of assessment does not rely upon tests and results, but rather the ability to adapt to classroom blockers as they arise. 

It should indicate what a good piece of work is and why this is the case, but it also gives you as a teacher a chance to see when things are not going so well and act upon it and see improvements. 

Good formative feedback will enable both the teacher and student to plan together what the next stage of their progression will be and future learning goals.

During a lesson, all adults in the classroom should be on a ‘constant assessment mission’ through interactions with students. 

Teachers should be moving around the room, interacting with each child, and assessing their progress towards the learning objective in real-time.

In the moment, assessment can take many forms:

• You could use a question from your shared learning to assess where you need to give independent work, or which students need further support

• It could be as simple as asking key questions to students during their independent work 

• You could use ‘exit tickets’ to assess children’s understanding at the end of a lesson

However, it is important that this ‘in the moment’ assessment that is carried out has a purpose, and that this information is used to adapt the learning experiences and opportunities that you are providing to each child.

The information obtained from formative assessments can help you understand the student’s learning processes and adapt to this in future lesson plans.

If your assessment shows that students are secure, then how are you going to deepen their learning?

If your assessment shows that students have some misconceptions, then how are you going to support these?

These are just two of the questions you should be asking yourself throughout a formative assessment.

If you are looking for a way to bring formative assessments into your classroom, take a look at our blog containing your Math Intervention Must-Have: Formative Diagnostic Assessment Tests.

There are a lot of different assessment routines you can use to keep up with the progression of your math class.

Common types of formative assessment include:

• Group activities
• Class projects
• Presentations

Make sure that your assessment ‘routines’ have purpose and use. 

For example, if you are going to do the ‘math lesson classic’ and ask children to show you an answer on a mini-whiteboard, make sure you are actually looking at the answers given by all students. 

You should then be using these to inform the next step in your lesson and the learning for each student.

I have observed many lessons where teachers have carried out the mini-whiteboard ‘routine’, not actually looked at the responses given, and carried on with what they had planned regardless. 

Remember- it is not the activity or ‘thing’ that you do that represents effective assessment, but what you do with the information you gather from it. 

It is through effective in-lesson assessment that you can ensure that each student is supported and challenged, and that every student is learning rather than constantly rehearsing what they already know.

Don’t leave any potholes – why formative assessment is important

I often use a ‘pothole’ analogy with the schools I work with. Imagine a local council were filling in potholes but that their road maintenance vehicles were themselves creating new holes in the road.

They wouldn’t be doing a very good job at improving the overall quality of the road surface would they?

Yet, schools often inadvertently do the same with math. They are often very good at carrying out a plethora of intervention activities to fill gaps (or potholes) that have been ‘left’ from previous years, but, at the same time, often allow new gaps (or potholes) to be created.

It is therefore important that we use our constant, ‘in the moment’ assessment to help ensure that no new gaps are being allowed to form in a student’s mathematical understanding and learning.

Make sure that you use your ‘in the moment’ and ‘end of lesson’ assessment to help fill any new gaps that are starting to emerge.

Then, at the end of the math lesson, you formatively check that all students are secure with the objective for that lesson, and if not, you carry out some form of intervention to help address these gaps.

If you are not going to address the gaps now, then who is and when?

Summative assessment helps to demonstrate the extent of students’ success in meeting specific goals. It is a method that can be used to quantify achievement, and due to its data driven nature, it is a great way to provide a numerical basis for a student’s next step.

However, while the principles of summative assessment are simple, there are 4 key points you need to consider before implementing it in your classroom.

1- Assessment systems vs framework – What are you assessing against?

Despite the power of ‘in the moment’ formative assessment, schools do need a way to track the attainment and progress of students throughout the school. 

It is this need that means that schools also need to consider the assessment framework they are using- i.e. what you are assessing against. This decision is often one that is taken at district level.    

However, it is important that you are clear about the difference between your assessment system and the framework you are using. 

Often with my work in schools, I am told that they are using ‘student asset’, ‘classroom monitor’, ‘target tracker’ (and many others) as their assessment. In fact, these are all assessment systems – bits of software that allow you to record and track student’s progress against a framework that has been chosen by your school. 

They are not what you are using to ‘assess’- merely what you are using to record your assessment.   

These assessment systems all allow you to select (and often create your own) framework upon which to assess your students – and it is these frameworks that are vitally important.

2- Balancing the frameworks is crucial

When choosing, or creating, the assessment framework that you are using, it’s important to consider the balance of objectives and target areas of mathematics within the framework.

Some end-of-grade tests may give a higher weight towards number based objectives, with number, calculations and proportionality making up between 75-85% of a child’s final result. 

Yet, most grades have an even split between all standard domains.

This essentially means that a child could be legitimately marked as ‘secure’ or ‘working at aged related expectations’ against the whole curriculum, on the basis of their strength in geometry, but they wouldn’t be classed as ‘secure’ or ‘working at aged related expectations’ in a standardized test.

It is therefore important that whatever framework you use is balanced, and includes an equal weighting of standards-based questions.

There are many ways in which you can do this, including:- 

• Use built-in ‘weighting’ functions of some assessment systems that allow you to weight each objective. 

• Assess against key objectives only, which overall, have the balance of number vs non-number objectives.

• Group objectives together, creating the overall numbers vs non-number balance. 

• Use a commercially available assessment framework which has the weighting work done for you.

3- Teacher assessment plays a huge role in summative assessment

Once your school has decided on a framework to use for assessment, next comes the question of how it is actually used. 

These frameworks can be used both in a purely ‘summative’ way, or in a formative way that leads to, over time, an accurate summative assessment. 

The traditional use of these frameworks is for schools to ask for each child to be assessed against the framework at set points – for example, midway through the school year or end-of-grade tests. 

This often leads to ‘assessment panic’ with teachers feeling overwhelmed having to create the assessment against many objectives for all students in their task in a short period of time.

If this is the only way in which these frameworks are used, then these are being used purely summatively – it is the teacher’s judgment at the end of a quarter/year. 

Due to the stress of having to meet a deadline and make a judgment against each objective for all students in your class, this can often mean that these summative only teacher assessments are not as accurate as many would like.

Luckily, you can adapt these assessments very easily

However, these frameworks can also be used in a more formative way – with teachers being encouraged to record the learning progress towards objectives on the framework or rubric as they are being taught .

An example of this is recording and amending judgements each week as a result of the ‘ongoing’ assessment. This leads to an ever-changing snapshot of each child’s performance, which can be really powerful.

This can be used to inform interventions and subsequent teaching, and help to identify common misconceptions, giving the assessment framework used by your school both a summative and formative use. 

These assessments can then just be finalized in time for whatever deadline of ‘snapshot’ date your school set.

It is fantastic that many schools and districts are favoring teacher assessment to provide this ‘data.’ 

Teacher assessment is incredibly powerful, and gives teachers the professional autonomy that they deserve. 

4- Testing can’t be forgotten about either

Many schools will also choose to use some form of testing alongside their assessment frameworks.

This can be seen as helping to validate teacher assessment judgments, and can also help to ensure there are no ‘nasty’ surprises when it comes to state standardized tests.

However, testing is only as good as the quality of the tests that you use. It is important that the tests your schools rely on have the same degree of ‘standardization’.

They should be standardized so you know how children across the country perform, and be based on a clear test development framework, and have been trialed and refined in schools. 

Some popular tests that have been developed in this way include STAR Math and Terra Nova.

Regardless of what tests are used, it is also important that schools and teachers understand that they provide a snapshot of the performance on the day the test was taken.

Children, just like adults, all have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days, and it is important that these tests are seen as a supplement to good quality teacher assessment, not a replacement for it.

Formative vs summative assessments – the pros and cons

Both formative and summative assessment have a very important role to play in the classroom and in schools. However, it is very important to ensure that you find the right balance between the two approaches for your own class’s learning needs.

Constant formative assessment can prove difficult if not implemented properly, but consistent assessment of students strengths and weaknesses can prove invaluable in helping them to progress.

Summative assessment can often not show the whole picture of a students’ progression, but it is a fantastic way of getting a data driven overview of how a student has progressed and grown over a period of time.  

The goal of this blog was to summarize the difference between formative and summative assessment, and the conclusion is that both approaches have their flaws, but they can also both provide a valuable insight into how a class is getting on throughout the school year.

All that is left is to use assessments of both kinds to inform your teaching!

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The content in this article was originally written by math consultant and author Tim Handley and has since been revised and adapted for US schools by elementary math teacher Katie Keeton.

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Formative and Summative Assessment

Definition of   formative and summative assessment and what is the difference between them?

Assessments allow both teacher and student to (a) monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives (b) improve the teaching and learning progress.

As both formative and summative assessments have a distinct purpose, they are used simultaneously in educational settings.

See also: How to align assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies

The goal of assessment is to evaluate the progress achieved towards a learning goal. This can be monitored in a variety of ways by both the teacher and the student. Formative assessment is ongoing and serves as a benchmark of progress towards the learning objective. Identifying common misconceptions, using strategies, and closing gaps in understanding help students experience growth. Formative assessment is generally low stakes, commonly known as ‘assessment for learning,’ as it is used to improve student understanding and encourage personal accountability.

In comparison, summative assessment is used as ‘assessment of learning,’ or more commonly, what we would consider a test or evaluation. A summative assessment is usually performed in a more formal manner, such as at the end of a course or unit, and seeks to outline the extent of students’ knowledge. They may be weighted more heavily for that program, which means that the summative assessment would be worth more of the total grade. Generally, instructors seek to incorporate both formative and summative assessments in their evaluation as they can be combined in effective ways.

See also: How to use Wiki in education

Formative Assessment

Providing feedback is one of the greatest advantages of formative assessment. Feedback can be used on both sides of the learning process by helping both instructors and students improve. Formative assessments are used specifically in:

• identifying the strengths and weaknesses of students
• addressing the areas of need for each student
• helping teachers identify gaps in learning
• working to close those gaps

One of the reasons that formative assessments are so valuable is because they are not time-consuming and are perceived as low-risk from a student standpoint. Some examples of formative assessments include:

• submitting a presentation early for teacher feedback before submission
• in class discussions
• low stakes group works
• Peer review
• outlining the main ideas of a lecture using a two-sentence thought exchange
• demonstrating their understanding of a topic using a concept map
• Clicker questions

See also: Just in time teaching

Formative Assessment Recommendations:

In an ideal situation, formative assessment would simultaneously benefit both teachers and students. Teachers could provide guidance in the form of clear feedback and next steps while students reflect on their areas of need and what strategies they could implement in their learning journey. There are a few recommendations for instructors when implementing formative assessment:

• Encourage students to reflect on their best work – Using the program’s learning objective or criteria, students are encouraged to reflect on what was successful and what wasn’t. As a teacher, it is important to foster discussions on what feedback proved to be the most valuable and helpful to the students.
• Offer clear, concise feedback – Formative assessment is used to improve student work while helping them move towards the learning goal. Providing actionable steps allows them multiple opportunities to meet the success criteria of the program. Some examples of providing feedback could be a discussion or 1-on-1 conference, a multiple choice quiz online, or comments left on a draft of a project.
• Encouraging relationships and positive self-esteem – Making connections with your students is still widely considered to be a key factor in their success. If students believe that you care about them, they are more likely to be motivated and engaged in their learning. In terms of formative assessment, this may resemble multiple chances to resubmit an assignment or anonymous quizzes online. These may have a low value towards their grade, but the goal is to highlight the opportunity for learning itself.
• Closing learning gaps and meeting the learning objective – Similar to the point above, teachers are encouraged to specifically target gaps in understanding by allowing work to be resubmitted, recommending next steps, and providing strategies to achieve success. Offering a pathway to success also builds on that positive relationship with students and helps them remain motivated and engaged.
• Using information gathered to direct teaching – As outlined above, formative assessment is used as assessment for learning, which means that much valuable information can be gathered from it. Evaluations will highlight where students are struggling, which lessons may need to be re-taught, and which topics some students may excel in. Formative assessment helps determine the next steps for teachers to address either in class or with a just a small group of students.

Summative Assessment

Summative evaluations are often high stakes and used to assess student learning at the end of the learning journey, and usually compares their progress to the course criteria or learning goals.

Generally, summative assessments have a high value, which means that they account for a large portion of the grade or mark. Some examples of summative assessments are:

• a final paper
• a final test / project / essay
• a research project
• a recital or presentation
• a midterm exam
• Standardized tests

The information gathered from summative assessments is often used when applying to the following grade or course. Both teachers and students may use summative assessments guidelines for the next steps in the learning journey.

Summative Assessment Recommendations:

It is imperative that summative assessments align with the learning objectives and success criteria of the course as they are generally weighted more heavily in terms of total grade. Some summative assessment recommendations for instructors are as follows:

• Using a rubric to outline performance range – Rubrics or tables can be used to outline expected criteria for the assignment, including details on what below expected level, meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations would look like. Giving the rubric to the students before the assignment would offer guidelines to completion and allow them to evaluate their own work.
• Concise essay questions – As the formative assessment would stem from the question itself, it is important that they are well-structured, clear, and allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge. Good essay questions would offer them the ability to be creative while expressing their understanding of the topic.
• Prioritize comprehension – Summative assessments should offer the opportunity to demonstrate a broad understanding of the course, including making connections, synthesizing information, and expanding on the main ideas of the course’s content.
• Clear guidelines and criteria – The framework for a final summative assessment should be clearly defined, including the date, time, and criteria for grading. It should also include how long and how deep the responses to the questions need to be, and how students who require support will access it.
• Blind grades – A common technique to reduce marking bias is to offer blind grading, which can be done in a few ways. Having the students write their name on the back of the last page, marking the same question for all students, or assessing the same section all at the same time helps the instructor focus on the quality of the answer and keep grades fair.

See also: How to use blogs in teaching and learning 

I am a professor of Educational Technology. I have worked at several elite universities. I hold a PhD degree from the University of Illinois and a master's degree from Purdue University.

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Formative Assessment of Teaching

What is formative assessment of teaching.

How do you know if your teaching is effective? How can you identify areas where your teaching can improve? What does it look like to assess teaching?

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment of teaching consists of different approaches to continuously evaluate your teaching. The insight gained from this assessment can support revising your teaching strategies, leading to better outcomes in student learning and experiences. Formative assessment can be contrasted with summative assessment, which is usually part of an evaluative decision-making process. The table below outlines some of the key differences between formative and summative assessment: 

By participating in formative assessment, instructors connect with recent developments in the space of teaching and learning, as well as incorporate new ideas into their practice. Developments may include changes in the students we serve, changes in our understanding of effective teaching, and changes in expectations of the discipline and of higher education as a whole.

Formative assessment of teaching ultimately should guide instructors towards using more effective teaching practices. What does effectiveness mean in terms of teaching?

Effectiveness in Teaching

Effective teaching can be defined as teaching that leads to the intended outcomes in student learning and experiences. In this sense, there is no single perfect teaching approach. Effective teaching looks will depend on the stated goals for student learning and experiences. A course that aims to build student confidence in statistical analysis and a course that aims to develop student writing could use very different teaching strategies, and still both be effective at accomplishing their respective goals. 

Assessing student learning and experiences is critical to determining if teaching is truly effective in its context. This assessment can be quite complex, but it is doable. In addition to measuring the impacts of your teaching, you may also consider evaluating your teaching as it aligns with best practices for evidence-based teaching especially in the disciplinary and course context or aligns with your intended teaching approach. The table below outlines these three approaches to assessing the effectiveness of your teaching:

What are some strategies that I might try? 

There are multiple ways that instructors might begin to assess their teaching. The list below includes approaches that may be done solo, with colleagues, or with the input of students. Instructors may pursue one or more of these strategies at different points in time. With each possible strategy, we have included several examples of the strategy in practice from a variety of institutions and contexts.

Teaching Portfolios

Teaching portfolios are well-suited for formative assessment of teaching, as the portfolio format lends itself to documenting how your teaching has evolved over time. Instructors can use their teaching portfolios as a reflective practice to review past teaching experiences, what worked and what did not.

Teaching portfolios consist of various pieces of evidence about your teaching such as course syllabi, outlines, lesson plans, course evaluations, and more. Instructors curate these pieces of evidence into a collection, giving them the chance to highlight their own growth and focus as educators. While student input may be incorporated as part of the portfolio, instructors can contextualize and respond to student feedback, giving them the chance to tell their own teaching story from a more holistic perspective.

Teaching portfolios encourage self-reflection, especially with guided questions or rubrics to review your work. In addition, an instructor might consider sharing their entire teaching portfolio or selected materials for a single course with colleagues and engaging in a peer review discussion. 

Examples and Resources:

Teaching Portfolio - Career Center

Developing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy and Teaching Portfolio - GSI Teaching & Resource Center

Self Assessment - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Advancing Inclusion and Anti-Racism in the College Classroom Rubric and Guide

Course Design Equity and Inclusion Rubric

Teaching Demos or Peer Observation

Teaching demonstrations or peer classroom observation provide opportunities to get feedback on your teaching practice, including communication skills or classroom management.

Teaching demonstrations may be arranged as a simulated classroom environment in front of a live audience who take notes and then deliver summarized feedback. Alternatively, demonstrations may involve recording an instructor teaching to an empty room, and this recording can be subjected to later self-review or peer review. Evaluation of teaching demos will often focus on the mechanics of teaching especially for a lecture-based class, e.g. pacing of speech, organization of topics, clarity of explanations.

In contrast, instructors may invite a colleague to observe an actual class session to evaluate teaching in an authentic situation. This arrangement gives the observer a better sense of how the instructor interacts with students both individually or in groups, including their approach to answering questions or facilitating participation. The colleague may take general notes on what they observe or evaluate the instructor using a teaching rubric or other structured tool.

Peer Review of Course Instruction

Preparing for a Teaching Demonstration - UC Irvine Center for Educational Effectiveness

Based on Peer Feedback - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Teaching Practices Equity and Inclusion Rubric

Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS)

Student Learning Assessments

Student learning can vary widely across courses or even between academic terms. However, having a clear benchmark for the intended learning objectives and determining whether an instructor’s course as implemented helps students to reach that benchmark can be an invaluable piece of information to guide your teaching. The method for measuring student learning will depend on the stated learning objective, but a well-vetted instrument can provide the most reliable data.

Recommended steps and considerations for using student learning assessments to evaluate your teaching efficacy include:

Identify a small subset of course learning objectives to focus on, as it is more useful to accurately evaluate one objective vs. evaluating many objectives inaccurately.

Find a well-aligned and well-developed measure for each selected course learning objective, such as vetted exam questions, rubrics, or concept inventories.

If relevant, develop a prompt or assignment that will allow students to demonstrate the learning objective to then be evaluated against the measure.

Plan the timing of data collection to enable useful comparison and interpretation.

Do you want to compare how students perform at the start of your course compared to the same students at the end of your course?

Do you want to compare how the same students perform before and after a specific teaching activity?

Do you want to compare how students in one term perform compared to students in the next term, after changing your teaching approach?

Implement the assignment/prompt and evaluate a subset or all of the student work according to the measure.

Reflect on the results and compare student performance measures.

Are students learning as a result of your teaching activity and course design?

Are students learning to the degree that you intended?

Are students learning more when you change how you teach?

This process can be repeated as many times as needed or the process can be restarted to instead focus on a different course learning objective.

List of Concept Inventories (STEM)

Best Practices for Administering Concept Inventories (Physics)

AAC&U VALUE Rubrics

Rubric Bank | Assessment and Curriculum Support Center - University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Rubrics - World Languages Resource Collection - Kennesaw State University

Student Surveys or Focus Groups

Surveys or focus groups are effective tools to better understand the student experience in your courses, as well as to solicit feedback on how courses can be improved. Hearing student voices is critical as students themselves can attest to how course activities made them feel, e.g. whether they perceive the learning environment to be inclusive, or what topics they find interesting.

Some considerations for using student surveys in your teaching include:

Surveys collect individual and anonymous input from as many students as possible.

Surveys can gather both quantitative and qualitative data.

Surveys that are anonymous avoid privileging certain voices over others.

Surveys can enable students to share about sensitive experiences that they may be reluctant to discuss publicly.

Surveys that are anonymous may lend to negative response bias.

Survey options at UC Berkeley include customized course evaluation questions or anonymous surveys on bCourses, Google Forms, or Qualtrics. 

Some considerations for using student focus groups in your teaching include:

Focus groups leverage the power of group brainstorming to identify problems and imagine possible solutions.

Focus groups can gather both rich and nuanced qualitative data.

Focus groups with a skilled facilitator tend to have more moderated responses given the visibility of the discussion.

Focus groups take planning, preparation, and dedicated class time.

Focus group options at UC Berkeley include scheduling a Mid-semester Inquiry (MSI) to be facilitated by a CTL staff member.

Instructions for completing question customization for your evaluations as an instructor

Course Evaluations Question Bank

Student-Centered Evaluation Questions for Remote Learning

Based on Student Feedback - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

How Can Instructors Encourage Students to Complete Course Evaluations and Provide Informative Responses?

Student Views/Attitudes/Affective Instruments - ASBMB

Student Skills Inventories - ASBMB

How might I get started?

Self-assess your own course materials using one of the available rubrics listed above.

Schedule a teaching observation with CTL to get a colleague’s feedback on your teaching practices and notes on student engagement.

Schedule an MSI with CTL to gather directed student feedback with the support of a colleague.

Have more questions? Schedule a general consultation with CTL or send us your questions by email ( [email protected] )!

References:

Evaluating Teaching - UCSB Instructional Development

Documenting Teaching - UCSC Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning

Other Forms of Evaluation - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Evaluation Of Teaching Committee on Teaching, Academic Senate

Report of the Academic Council Teaching Evaluation Task Force

Teaching Quality Framework Initiative Resources - University of Colorado Boulder

Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness - University of Kansas  Center for Teaching Excellence

Teaching Practices Instruments - ASBMB

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Home » Blog » Formative and Summative Assessments: Examples and Differences

Formative and Summative Assessments: Examples and Differences

One of the primary benefits of using formative and summative assessments is that you aren’t forced to choose between them. They work exceptionally well when used in combination.

In this article, we’ll be breaking down precisely what formative and summative assessments are, the key differences between them, the benefits of their use, and providing a range of examples to help illustrate how they can be implemented in the classroom.

If you’re looking for an effective way to assess student learning and measure progress, read on to find out how formative and summative assessments can help.

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Formative assessments: definition and purpose.

Before we get into examples of their use, it’s essential that we first define precisely what both formative and summative assessments are and how they differ.

Formative assessments are employed regularly throughout a set learning period, be that a chapter, unit, or term, and help track progress and identify areas where students may struggle or need more support.

They also give the teacher and course designer the data they need to improve the learning experience and make any necessary changes that may be required throughout a system.

Rather than strict exams, formative assessments are usually relatively low-stakes, meaning they do not always need to be graded or even marked. This helps to create a non-threatening atmosphere and encourages students to take risks in their learning without fear of failure.

Formative assessment tasks usually rely on feedback from both students and the teacher, with learners receiving feedback on performance as soon as possible.

Uses of Formative Assessments

As mentioned, one of the primary uses of a formative assessment is to gauge student understanding and identify knowledge gaps that may need extra work.

Formative assessments can also be used to help inform curricular decisions, provide valuable data on the effectiveness of a course or lesson, and allow students to monitor their progress over time.

In addition, formative assessments are valuable in helping teachers gain real-time insight into a group’s collective understanding, allowing them to rapidly adapt their training or lessons accordingly.

Benefits of Using Formative Assessments

There are a range of benefits to employing formative assessments as part of your teaching strategy, including the following:

• Improved student or employee engagement and motivation – By allowing students to track their learning journey, you can help them take ownership of their learning experience. This can be highly motivating for students, as it encourages a sense of progress and accomplishment.
• Better assessment of real-world understanding – By using formative assessments that involve practical skills or application, you can better understand how well your students understand the real-world implications of the content they are studying.
• Enables rapid identification of areas of difficulty for learners – Through formative assessments, you can quickly identify areas that students may be struggling with. This helps to ensure that these areas are addressed rapidly and effectively.
• Allows teachers to tailor their lessons to the needs of the group – Teachers and course designers can use the data from formative assessments to tailor their studies according to the group’s needs and ensure that they meet all learning objectives.

Examples of Formative Assessments

To clarify how formative assessments can be used, below are a few examples of tasks that could be used both in the classroom and in a digital learning environment.

Classroom-Based Examples

The following examples can be valuable to employ in a classroom setting:

1. Quizzes and polls

Simple and easy to execute, quizzes and polls are a low-effort way of gauging student understanding at regular intervals throughout a lesson.

2. Peer feedback and self-assessment

Peer-based feedback sessions and self-assessment questionnaires can help identify areas where students may need extra support or guidance while giving vital insight into how students perceive their progress.

3. Class discussions and debates

Encouraging students to discuss their different perspectives on a given topic or concept allows teachers to better understand how well they comprehend the material. It also gives students the opportunity to have their ideas heard and helps create a sense of solidarity within the classroom.

Online and Digital Examples

With the rise in the use of digital learning tools and technologies , there is also a range of online-based practices that can be used as formative assessments, including:

1. Interactive quizzes and games

The gamification of quizzes or other learning activities can provide an engaging way to assess student understanding and offer real-time feedback.

2. Virtual simulations and case studies

Where more vocational skills are being taught, virtual simulations and case studies can test students’ problem-solving capabilities in a low-stakes environment.

3. Online discussion forums and feedback platforms

One of the benefits of using an online learning platform is the wide range of features available to assess student understanding. Discussion forums, peer feedback platforms, and automated feedback systems can all be used as formative assessment tools.

Summative Assessments: Definition and Purpose

Compared to formative assessments, summative assessments are conducted at the end of a defined learning period and often represent the final grade for the course.

To provide a comprehensive assessment grade, summative assessments evaluate a student’s overall understanding and performance of the skill or concept studied.

They can also be used to track educational progress over time, such as in standardised testing, as well as help to inform curricular decisions and the effectiveness of teaching methods.

Uses of Summative Assessments

Summative assessments test student mastery of content, assess their overall understanding of a subject or topic area and generally give them a final mark.

For teachers and course designers, a summative assessment allows them to measure the effectiveness of their teaching and make any necessary changes or improvements.

Summative assessments can also be used to compare student performance across different classes, courses, and programs.

Benefits of Summative Assessments

As with formative assessments, there is a range of benefits associated with the use of summative assessments, including:

• Provides an overall assessment score – Summative assessments can provide a more accurate assessment of student understanding and performance, offering an overall grade or score.
• Helps track educational progress over time – Educators can track student progress to identify improvement areas through standardised testing or other summative assessments.
• Helps inform curricular decisions – Summative assessments can assess the effectiveness of a particular course or program and help inform future curricular choices.
• Offers an efficient way to measure learning outcomes – By providing an overall assessment grade, summative assessments offer a convenient way to measure the success of a teaching strategy in one go.

Examples of Summative Assessments

To clarify how summative assessments can be implemented, here are a few examples of traditional assessment methods, such as essays and exams, and performance-based assessments, such as presentations and projects.

Traditional Assessment Methods

Below are some examples of traditional assessment methods:

1. Examinations and final tests

Examinations are widely used to assess student knowledge and understanding at the end of a course or program. They are easy to implement and provide a quick and efficient way to evaluate student performance.

2. Term papers and essays

Essays and term papers are another traditional assessment method used alongside examinations. Essays test students’ ability to analyse a given topic or concept in detail, providing insight into their understanding of the subject matter.

3. Projects and presentations

Where skill-based or vocational courses are being taught, projects and presentations can test a student’s performance in class. These assessments allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter and show their ability to apply and transfer the knowledge in a practical context.

Performance-Based Assessments

Performance-based assessments are best employed when assessing practical skills or processes. Examples of performance-based summative assessments include:

1. Practical exams and demonstrations

Practical tests and demonstrations are often used to assess students’ physical abilities, such as in sports or vocational courses. These assessments test a student’s understanding of a particular skill or concept by having them demonstrate it in a real-world setting.

2. Portfolios and showcases

Where creative or design-based courses are being taught, portfolios and showcases allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts in a practical way. These assessments require students to use their creative skills to produce a tangible output, such as an artwork or multimedia presentation.

3. Capstone projects and dissertations

Dissertations and capstone projects are often used to assess students’ understanding of complex topics or skills. These assessments require students to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter by producing an in-depth research or project that meets specific criteria.

Critical Differences Between Formative and Summative Assessments

Now that you have a fuller understanding of what both formative and summative assessments represent and how they can be employed, here’s a summary outlining the key differences between the two:

Timing and Frequency

One of the most essential distinctions between the two types of assessment is when they are conducted. Formative assessments occur throughout the course and act as checkpoints to monitor student progress.

In contrast, summative assessments are shown at the end of a defined learning period and only count towards an overall grade or score.

Purpose and Focus

Formative assessments are designed to provide feedback on understanding and inform instruction in real-time. In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student performance of a skill or concept and can help inform curriculum decisions.

Feedback and Evaluation Process

The feedback and evaluation process for formative and summative assessments differs significantly. Formative assessments are designed to offer real-time feedback on performance.

In contrast, summative assessments provide an overall assessment score or grade that reflects the student’s understanding of the subject matter at the end of a course or program.

Which is the Right Assessment Approach to Utilise?

Choosing the correct assessment approach for your students ultimately depends on the goals you are trying to achieve, the type of course or program being taught and the knowledge and skills that need to be assessed.

To help you decide, consider the following:

Considerations for Selecting Formative Assessments

Some of the critical considerations for making use of formative assessments include:

• Regular feedback – Formative assessments should be implemented regularly to ensure students receive regular feedback on their understanding and performance.
• Low-stakes testing – As formative tests don’t count towards an overall grade, they should be designed as low-stakes tests to help encourage participation.
• Inform instruction – Formative assessment results can inform instruction in real-time, allowing educators to tailor their teaching approach to student needs.

Considerations for Selecting Summative Assessments

When making use of summative assessments, it’s essential to consider the following points:

• Assessment goals – Before designing a summative assessment, clearly define the purposes of the evaluation and how it will be used to evaluate student performance.
• Assessment criteria – When creating a summative assessment, ensure that you set clear and concise evaluation criteria that allow students to demonstrate their understanding fully.
• Inter-rater reliability – To ensure fairness and accuracy, consider having multiple assessors score each student’s work when creating a summative assessment.

Using Both Formative and Summative Assessments in Learning and Development

As mentioned, one of the primary benefits of using formative and summative assessments in learning and development is that they can provide a more comprehensive evaluation of student performance.

By implementing both assessment forms, educators can better understand their student’s progress and tailor their instruction for maximum impact.

Formative assessments can measure progress and inform instruction in real-time, while summative assessments provide an overall score or grade that indicates learning success.

Final Thoughts

While formative and summative assessments have apparent differences, such as in their purpose, timing and feedback mechanisms, there are significant benefits to using both assessment types in learning and development.

Educators can better assess student performance and tailor instruction by implementing formative and summative assessments. Additionally, the use of both reviews provides a comprehensive view of understanding that can be used to inform curriculum decisions.

If you are looking for more guidance and resources on creating and implementing formative and summative assessments, check out the other articles on the Skillshub blog .

As an eLearning company , we are committed to creating efficient and impactful learning experiences. Our team are experts in developing eLearning content , so skillshub can help create customised learning materials tailored to your organisation’s needs. To learn more about our services, get in touch with us today.

Sean McPheat

Sean is the CEO of Skillshub. He’s a published author and has been featured on CNN, BBC and ITV as a leading authority in the learning and development industry. Sean is responsible for the vision and strategy at Skillshub, helping to ensure innovation within the company.

Updated on: 20 September, 2023

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• Formative and Summative Assessment

Assessment is the process of gathering data. More specifically, assessment is the ways instructors gather data about their teaching and their students’ learning (Hanna & Dettmer, 2004). The data provide a picture of a range of activities using different forms of assessment such as: pre-tests, observations, and examinations. Once these data are gathered, you can then evaluate the student’s performance. Evaluation, therefore, draws on one’s judgment to determine the overall value of an outcome based on the assessment data. It is in the decision-making process then, where we design ways to improve the recognized weaknesses, gaps, or deficiencies.

Types of Assessment

There are three types of assessment: diagnostic, formative, and summative. Although are three are generally referred to simply as assessment, there are distinct differences between the three.

There are three types of assessment: diagnostic, formative, and summative.

Diagnostic Assessment

Diagnostic assessment can help you identify your students’ current knowledge of a subject, their skill sets and capabilities, and to clarify misconceptions before teaching takes place (Just Science Now!, n.d.). Knowing students’ strengths and weaknesses can help you better plan what to teach and how to teach it.

Types of Diagnostic Assessments

• Pre-tests (on content and abilities)
• Self-assessments (identifying skills and competencies)
• Discussion board responses (on content-specific prompts)
• Interviews (brief, private, 10-minute interview of each student)

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment provides feedback and information during the instructional process, while learning is taking place, and while learning is occurring. Formative assessment measures student progress but it can also assess your own progress as an instructor. For example, when implementing a new activity in class, you can, through observation and/or surveying the students, determine whether or not the activity should be used again (or modified). A primary focus of formative assessment is to identify areas that may need improvement. These assessments typically are not graded and act as a gauge to students’ learning progress and to determine teaching effectiveness (implementing appropriate methods and activities).

A primary focus of formative assessment is to identify areas that may need improvement.

Types of Formative Assessment

• Observations during in-class activities; of students non-verbal feedback during lecture
• Homework exercises as review for exams and class discussions)
• Reflections journals that are reviewed periodically during the semester
• Question and answer sessions, both formal—planned and informal—spontaneous
• Conferences between the instructor and student at various points in the semester
• In-class activities where students informally present their results
• Student feedback collected by periodically answering specific question about the instruction and their self-evaluation of performance and progress

Summative Assessment

Summative assessment takes place after the learning has been completed and provides information and feedback that sums up the teaching and learning process. Typically, no more formal learning is taking place at this stage, other than incidental learning which might take place through the completion of projects and assignments.

Rubrics, often developed around a set of standards or expectations, can be used for summative assessment. Rubrics can be given to students before they begin working on a particular project so they know what is expected of them (precisely what they have to do) for each of the criteria. Rubrics also can help you to be more objective when deriving a final, summative grade by following the same criteria students used to complete the project.

Rubrics also can help you to be more objective when deriving a final, summative grade by following the same criteria students used to complete the project.

High-stakes summative assessments typically are given to students at the end of a set point during or at the end of the semester to assess what has been learned and how well it was learned. Grades are usually an outcome of summative assessment: they indicate whether the student has an acceptable level of knowledge-gain—is the student able to effectively progress to the next part of the class? To the next course in the curriculum? To the next level of academic standing? See the section “Grading” for further information on grading and its affect on student achievement.

Summative assessment is more product-oriented and assesses the final product, whereas formative assessment focuses on the process toward completing the product. Once the project is completed, no further revisions can be made. If, however, students are allowed to make revisions, the assessment becomes formative, where students can take advantage of the opportunity to improve.

Summative assessment...assesses the final product, whereas formative assessment focuses on the process...

Types of Summative Assessment

• Examinations (major, high-stakes exams)
• Final examination (a truly summative assessment)
• Term papers (drafts submitted throughout the semester would be a formative assessment)
• Projects (project phases submitted at various completion points could be formatively assessed)
• Portfolios (could also be assessed during it’s development as a formative assessment)
• Performances
• Student evaluation of the course (teaching effectiveness)
• Instructor self-evaluation

Assessment measures if and how students are learning and if the teaching methods are effectively relaying the intended messages. Hanna and Dettmer (2004) suggest that you should strive to develop a range of assessments strategies that match all aspects of their instructional plans. Instead of trying to differentiate between formative and summative assessments it may be more beneficial to begin planning assessment strategies to match instructional goals and objectives at the beginning of the semester and implement them throughout the entire instructional experience. The selection of appropriate assessments should also match course and program objectives necessary for accreditation requirements.

Hanna, G. S., & Dettmer, P. A. (2004). Assessment for effective teaching: Using context-adaptive planning. Boston, MA: Pearson A&B.

Just Science Now! (n.d.). Assessment-inquiry connection. https://www.justsciencenow.com/assessment/index.htm

Selected Resources

Suggested citation

Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2012). Formative and summative assessment. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide

• Active Learning Activities
• Assessing Student Learning
• Direct vs. Indirect Assessment
• Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Peer and Self-Assessment
• Reflective Journals and Learning Logs
• Rubrics for Assessment
• The Process of Grading

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What are formative and summative assessments?

People talk about formative and summative assessments. what’s the difference.

These two types of assessment serve different purposes. Simply put, formative means assessment for learning—the results can help teachers plan instruction to meet their students’ current needs. Summative means assessment of learning—the results are for evaluation or accountability.

Examples of formative assessments might include exit tickets, running records, student work, checks for understanding during instruction, or non-evaluative interim tests that cover recently taught material and align with the standards.

Examples of summative assessments might include unit tests, final exams, teacher evaluations, benchmark interim assessments, and state standardized tests.

Are formative assessments better than summative assessments?

That depends on your goals. Are you asking if your third graders have mastered the learning from that grade before advancing to fourth grade? That’s an important question to ask at the end of the year. That’s summative .

Are you asking how well your students understand a concept—say, of multiplication as equal groups—to decide if you need to re-teach it before moving on? That’s formative . This is what ANet interim assessments are designed for.

Isn’t there too much assessing going on?

Yes! The pressure and high stakes surrounding summative assessments has made teachers and school leaders want to better understand their student’s performance during the course of the year, and that has led to more and more testing.

But the reality of over-testing doesn’t change the fact that those teachers and school leaders do need actionable formative data to guide their instruction and planning. To be useful, that data must be based on high-quality, standards-aligned assessments, like ANet interims .

How do you assess the quality of assessments?

This is a conundrum educators have long struggled to solve. Good news! The Louisiana DOE has solved it for us with the first rigorous, independent review.

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Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards (2001)

Chapter: 4 the relationship between formative and summative assessment -- in the classroom and beyond, the relationship between formative and summative assessment—in the classroom and beyond.

This chapter discusses the relationships between formative and summative assessments—both in the classroom and externally. In addition to teachers, site-and district-level administrators and decision makers are target audiences. External test developers also may be interested.

Teachers inevitably are responsible for assessment that requires them to report on student progress to people outside their own classrooms. In addition to informing and supporting instruction, assessments communicate information to people at multiple levels within the school system, serve numerous accountability purposes, and provide data for placement decisions. As they juggle these varied purposes, teachers take on different roles. As coach and facilitator, the teacher uses formative assessment to help support and enhance student learning. As judge and jury, the teacher makes summative judgments about a student's achievement at a specific point in time for purposes of placement, grading, accountability, and informing parents and future teachers about student performance. Often in our current system, all of the purposes and elements of assessment are not mutually supportive, and can even be in conflict. What seems effective for one purpose may not serve, or even be compatible with, another. Review Table 2-1 in Chapter 2.

The previous chapters have focused primarily on the ongoing formative assessment teachers and students engage in on a daily basis to enhance student learning. This chapter briefly examines summative assessment that is usually prescribed by a local, district, or state agency, as it occurs regularly in the classroom and as it occurs in large-scale testing. The chapter specifically looks at the relationship between formative and

summative assessment and considers how inherent tensions between the different purposes of assessment may be mitigated.

HOW CAN SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT SERVE THE STANDARDS?

The range of understanding and skill called for in the Standards acknowledges the complexity of what it means to know, to understand, and to be able to do in science. Science is not solely a collection of facts, nor is it primarily a package of procedural skills. Content understanding includes making connections among various concepts with which scientists work, then using that information in specific context. Scientific problem-solving skills and procedural knowledge require working with ideas, data, and equipment in an environment conducive to investigation and experimentation. Inquiry, a central component of the Standards, involves asking questions, planning, designing and conducting experiments, analyzing and interpreting data, and drawing conclusions.

If the Standards are to be realized, summative as well as formative assessment must change to encompass these goals. Assessment for a summative purpose (for example, grading, placement, and accountability) should provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate conceptual understanding of the important ideas of science, to use scientific tools and processes, to apply their understanding of these important ideas to solve new problems, and to draw on what they have learned to explain new phenomena, think critically, and make informed decisions (NRC, 1996). The various dimensions of knowing in science will require equally varied assessment strategies, as different types of assessments capture different aspects of learning and achievement (Baxter & Glaser, 1998; Baxter & Shavelson, 1994; Herman, Gearhart, & Baker, 1993; Ruiz-Primo & Shavelson, 1996; Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1991; Shavelson & Ruiz-Primo, 1999).

FORMS OF SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE CLASSROOM

As teachers fulfill their different roles as assessors, tensions between formative and summative purposes of assessment can be significant (Bol and Strange, 1996). However, teachers often are in the position of being able to tailor assessments for both summative and formative purposes.

Performance Assessments

Any activity undertaken by a student provides an opportunity for an assessment of the student's performance. Performance assessment often implies a more formal assessment of a student as he or she engages in a performance-

based activity or task. Students are often provided with apparatus and are expected to design and conduct an investigation and communicate findings during a specified period of time. For example, students may be given the appropriate material and asked to investigate the preferences of sow bugs for light and dark, and dry or damp environments (Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1991). Or, a teacher could observe while students design and conduct water-quality tests on a given sample of water to determine what variables the students measure, and what those variables indicate to them, and how they explain variable interaction. Observations can be complemented by assessing the resultant products, including data sheets, graphs, and analysis. In some cases, computer simulations can replace actual materials and journals in which students include results, interpretations, and conclusions can serve as proxies for observers (Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1991).

By their nature, these types of assessments differ in a variety of ways from the conventional types of assessments. For one, they provide students with opportunities to demonstrate different aspects of scientific knowledge (Baxter & Shavelson, 1994; Baxter, Elder, & Glaser, 1996; Ruiz-Primo & Shavelson, 1996). In the sow bug investigation, for example, students have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to design and conduct an experiment (Baxter & Shavelson, 1994). The investigation of water quality highlights procedural knowledge as well as the content knowledge necessary to interpret tests, recognize and explain relationships, and provide analysis. Because of the numerous opportunities to observe students at work and examine their products, performance assessments can be closely aligned with curriculum and pedagogy.

Duschl and Gitomer (1997) have conducted classroom-based research on portfolios as an assessment tool to document progress and achievement and to contribute to a supportive learning environment. They found that many aspects of the portfolio and the portfolio process provided assessment opportunities that contributed to improved work through feedback, conversations about content and quality, and other assessment-relevant discussions. The collection also can serve to demonstrate progress and inform and support summative evaluations. The researchers document the challenges as well as the successes of building a learning environment around portfolio assessment. They suggest that the relationship between assessment and instruction requires reexamination so that information gathered from student discussions can be used for instructional purposes. For

this purpose, a teacher's conception and depth of subject-matter knowledge need to be developed and cultivated so that assessment criteria derive from what is considered important in the scientific field that is being studied, rather than from poorly connected pieces of discrete information.

Researchers at Harvard's Graduate School of Education (Seidel, Walters, Kirby, Olff, Powell, Scripp, & Veenema, 1997) suggest that the following elements be included in any portfolio system:

collection of student work that demonstrates what students have learned and understand;

an extended time frame to allow progress and effort to be captured;

structure or organizing principles to help organize as well as interpret and analyze; and

student involvement in not only the selection of the materials but also in the reflection and assessment.

An example for the contents for a portfolio of a science project could be as follows:

the brainstorming notes that lead to the project concept;

the work plan that the student followed as a result of a time line;

the student log that records successes and difficulties;

review of actual research results;

photograph of finished project; and

student reflection on the overall project (p. 32).

Using Traditional Tests Differently

Certain kinds of traditional assessments that are used for summative purposes contain useful information for teachers and students, but these assessments are usually too infrequent, come too late for action, and are too coarse-grained. Some of the activities in these summative assessments provide questions and procedures that might, in a different context, be useful for formative purposes. For example, rescheduling summative assessments can contribute to their usefulness to teachers and students for formative purposes. Tests that are given before the end of a unit can provide both teacher and student with useful information on which to act while there is still opportunity to revisit areas where students were not able to perform well. Opportunities for revisions on tests or any other type of assessment give students another chance to work through, think about, and come to understand an area they did not fully understand or clearly articulate the previous time. In reviewing for a test, or preparing for essay questions, students can begin to make connections between aspects of subject matter that they may not have related previously to one another. Sharing designs before an experiment gets under way during a peer-assessment session gives each student a chance to comment on and to improve his or her own investigation as well as

those of their classmates. When performed as a whole class, reviewing helps make explicit to all students the key concepts to be covered.

Selected response and written assessments, homework, and classwork all serve as valuable assessment activities as part of a teacher 's repertoire if used appropriately. The form that the assessment takes should coincide with careful consideration of the intended purpose. Again, the use of the data generated by and through the assessment is important so that it feeds back into the teaching and learning.

As shown in Table 4-1 , McTighe and Ferrara (1998) provide a useful framework for selecting assessment approaches and methods. The table accents the range of common assessments available to teachers. Although their framework serves all subject-matter areas, the wide variety of assessments and assessment-rich activities could be applicable for assessments in a science classroom.

TABLE 4-1 Framework of Assessment Approaches and Methods

GRADING AND COMMUNICATING ACHIEVEMENT

One common summative purpose of assessment facing most teachers is the need to communicate information on student progress and achievement to parents, school board officials, members of the community, college admissions officers. In addition to scores from externally mandated tests, teacher-assigned grades traditionally serve this purpose.

A discussion in Chapter 2 defends the use of descriptive, criterion-based feedback as opposed to numerical scoring (8/10) or grades (B). A study cited (Butler, 1987) showed that the students who demonstrated the greatest improvement were the ones who received detailed comments (only) on their returned pieces of work. However, grading and similar practices are the reality for the majority of teachers. How might grading be used to best support student learning?

Though they are the primary currency of our current summative-assessment system, grades typically carry little meaning because they reduce a great deal of information to a single letter. Furthermore, there is often little agreement between the difference between an A and a B, a B and a C, a D and an F or what is required for a particular letter grade (Loyd & Loyd, 1997).

Grades may symbolize achievement, yet they often incorporate other factors as well, such as work habits, which may or may not be related to level of achievement. They are often used to reward or motivate students to display certain behaviors (Loyd & Loyd, 1997). Without a clear understanding of the basis for the grade, a single letter often will provide little information on how work can be improved. As noted previously, grades will only be as meaningful as the underlying criteria and the quality of assessment that produced them.

A single-letter grade or the score on an end-of-unit test does not make student progress explicit, nor does either provide students and teachers with information that might further their understandings or inform their learning. A “C” on a project or on a report card indicates that a student did not do exemplary work, but beyond that, there is plenty of room for interpretation and ambiguity. Did the student show thorough content understanding but fall short in presentation? Did the student not convey clear ideas? Or did the student not provide adequate explanation of why a particular phenomenon occurred? Without any information about these other dimensions, a single-letter grade does not provide specific guidance about how work can be improved.

Surrounded by ambiguity, a letter grade without discussion and an understanding of what it constitutes does little to provide useful information to the student, or even give an indication of the level of performance. Thus, when a teacher establishes criteria for individual assessments and makes them explicit to students, they also need to do so for grading criteria. The criteria also should be clear to those who face interpreting them, such as parents and future teachers, and incorporate priorities and goals important to science as a school subject area.

Careful documentation can allow formative assessments to be used for summative purposes. The manner in which summative assessments are reported helps determine whether they can be easily translated for formative purposes—especially by the student, teacher, and parents. In the vignette in Chapter 3 , a middle school science teacher confers with students as they engage in an ongoing investigation. She keeps written notes of these exchanges as well as from the observations she makes of the students at work. When it is time for this teacher to assign student grades for the project, she can refer to these notes to provide concrete examples as evidence. Using ongoing assessments to inform summative evaluations is particularly important for inquirybased work, which cannot be captured in most one-time tests. Many teachers give students the opportunity to make test corrections or provide other means for students to demonstrate that they understand material previously not mastered. Documenting these types of changes over time will show progress and can be used as evidence of understanding for summative purposes.

Teachers face the challenge of overcoming the common obstacle of assigning classroom grades and points in such a way that they drive classroom activity to the detriment of other, often more informative and useful, types of assessment that foster standards-based goals. Grading practices can be modified, however, so that they adhere to acceptable standards for summative assessments and at the same time convey important information that can be used to improve work in a way that is relatively easy to read and understand. Mark Wilson and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have devised one such plan for the assessment system designed for the SEPUP (Science Education for Public Understanding Program) middle school science curriculum (Wilson & Sloane, 1999; Roberts, Wilson, & Draney, 1997; Wilson & Draney, 1997).

The SEPUP assessment system serves as an example of possible alternatives to the traditional, current single-letter grade scheme. As shown in Table 4-2 , the SEPUP assessment blueprint indicates that a single assessment will not capture all of the skills and content desired in any particular curricular unit. However, teachers do not need to be concerned about getting all the assessment information they need at a single time with any single assessment.

TABLE 4-2 SEPUP Assessment Blueprint

By using the same scale for the entire unit, the SEPUP assessment system allows teachers to obtain evidence about the students' progress. Without the context or criteria that the SEPUP scoring guide ( Table 4-3 ) provides, a score of “2” on an assessment, could be interpreted as inadequate, even if the scale is 0-4. However, as the scoring guide indicates, in this example, a “2” represents a worthwhile step on the road to earning a score of “4”. In practice, the specific areas that need additional attention are conveyed in the scoring guide, thus a student could receive a “2” as feedback and know what they need to do to improve the piece of work. The scoring guide also can provide summative assessments at any given point.

TABLE 4-3 SEPUP Scoring Guide

Scoring Guide: Evidence and Tradeoffs (ET) Variable

The SEPUP assessment system provides one such example, but teachers can employ other forms of assessment that capture progress as well as achievement at a specific point in time. Keyed to standards and goals, such systems can be strong on meaning for teachers and students and still convey information to different levels of the system in a relatively straightforward and plausible manner that is readily understood. Teachers can use the standards or goals to help guide their own classroom assessments and observations and also to help them support work or learning in a particular area where sufficient achievement has not been met.

Devising a criterion-based scale to record progress and make summative judgments poses difficulties of its own. The levels of specificity involved in subdividing a domain to assure that the separate elements together represent the whole is a crucial and demanding task (Wiliam, 1996). This becomes an issue whether considering performance assessments or ongoing assessment data and needs to be articulated in advance of when students engage in activities (Quellmalz, 1991; Gipps, 1994).

Specific guidelines for the construction and selection of test items are not offered in this document. Test design and selection are certainly important aspects of a teacher's assessment responsibility and can be informed by the guidelines and discussions presented in this document (see also Chapter 3 ). Item-writing recommendations and other test specifications are topics of a substantial body of existing literature (for practitioner-relevant discussions, see Airasian, 1991; Cangelosi, 1990; Cunningham, 1997; Doran, Chan, and Tamir, 1998; Gallagher, 1998; Gronlund, 1998; Stiggins, 2001). Appropriate design, selection, interpretation and use of tests and assessment data were emphasized in the joint effort of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), and the National Education Association (NEA) to specify pedagogical skills necessary for effective assessment (AFT, NCME, & NEA, 1990).

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY IN SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Regardless of what form a summative assessment takes or when it occurs, teachers need to keep in mind validity and reliability, two important technical elements of both classroomlevel assessments and external or large-scale assessments (AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999). These concepts also are discussed in Chapter 3 .

Validity and reliability are judged using different criteria, although the two are related. Validity has different

dimensions, including content (does the assessment measure the intended content area?), construct (does the assessment measure the intended construct or ability?) and instructional (was the material on the assessment taught?). It is important to consider the uses of assessment and the appropriateness of resulting inferences and actions as well (Messick, 1989). Reliability has to do with generalizing across tasks (is this a generalizable measure of student performance?) and can involve variability in performance across tasks, between settings, as well as in the consistency of scoring or grading.

What these terms mean operationally varies slightly for the kinds of assessments that occur each day in the classroom and in the form of externally designed exams. For example, the ongoing classroom assessment that relies on immediate feedback provides different types of opportunities for follow-up when compared to a typical testing situation where follow-up questioning for clarification or to ensure proper interpretation on the part of the respondent usually is not possible (Wiliam & Black, 1996). The dynamic nature of day-to-day teaching affords teachers with opportunities to make numerous assessments, take relevant action, and to amend decisions and evaluations if necessary and with time. Wiliam and Black (1996) write, “the fluid action of the classroom, where rapid feedback is important, optimum validity depends upon the self-correcting nature of the consequent action ” (pp. 539-540).

With a single-test score, especially from a test administered at the end of the school year, a teacher does not have the opportunity to follow a response with another question, either to determine if the previous question had been misinterpreted or to probe misunderstandings for diagnostic reasons. With a standardized test, where on-the-spot interpretation of the student's response by the teacher and follow-up action is impossible, the context in which responses are developed is ignored. Measures of validity are decontextualized, depending almost entirely on the collection and nature of the actual test items. More important, all users of assessment data (teachers, administrators and policy makers) need to be aware of what claims they make about a student's understanding and the consequential action based on any one assessment.

Relying on a variety of assessments, in both form and what is being assessed, will go a long way to ensuring validity. Much of what is called for in the standards, such as inquiry, cannot be assessed in many of the multiplechoice, short-answer, or even two-hour performance assessments that are currently employed. Reliability, though more straightforward, may be more difficult to ensure than validity. On external tests, even when scorers

are carefully calibrated (or done by a machine), variations in a student's performance from day to day, or from question to question, poses threats to reliability.

Viable systems that command the same confidence as the current summative system but are free of many of the inherent conflicts and contradictions are necessary to make decisions psychometrically sound. The confidence that any assessment can demand will depend, in large part, on both reliability and validity (Baron, 1991; Black, 1997). As Box 4-1 indicates, there are some basic questions to be asked of both teacher-made and published assessments. Teachers need to consider the technical aspect of the summative assessments they use in the classroom. They also should look for evidence that disproves earlier judgments and make necessary accommodations. Likewise, they should be looking for further assessment data that could help them to support their students ' learning.

LARGE-SCALE, EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT—THE CURRENT SYSTEM AND NEED FOR REFORM

Large-scale assessments at the district, state and national levels are conducted for different purposes: to formulate policy, monitor the effects of policies and enforce them, make

comparisons, monitor progress towards goals, evaluate programs, and for accountability purposes (NRC, 1996). As a key element in the success of education-improvement systems, accountability has become one of the most important issues in educational policy today (NRC, 1999b). Accountability is a means by which policy makers at the state and district levels—and parents and taxpayers—monitor the performance of students and schools.

Most states use external assessments for accountability purposes (Bernauer & Cress, 1997). These

standardized, externally designed tests are either norm-referenced tests (NRTs), criterion-referenced tests (CRTs), or some combination of the two. A “standardized” test is one that is to be carried out in the same way for all individuals tested, scored in the same way, and scores interpreted in the same way (Gipps, 1994). NRTs are developed by test publishers to measure student performance against the norm. Results from these tests describe what students can do relative to other students and are used for comparing groups of students. The norm is a rank, the 50th percentile. For national tests, the norm is constructed by testing students all over the country. (It also is the score that test-makers call “at grade level” [Bracey, 1998]). On a norm-referenced test, half of all students in the norm sample will score at or above the 50th percentile, or above grade level, and half will score below the 50th percentile, or below grade level. These tests compare students to other students, rather than measuring student mastery of content standards or curricular objectives (Burger, 1998).

Increasingly, states and districts are moving towards criterion-referenced tests (CRTs), usually developed by state departments of education and districts, which compare student performance to a set of established criteria (for example, district, state or national standards) rather than comparing them to the performance of other students. CRT's allow all students who have acquired skills and knowledge to receive high scores (Burger, 1998).

A well-designed and appropriately used standardized test can generate data that can be used to inform different parts of the system and to assess a range of understandings and skills. Currently, they generally concentrate on the knowledge most amenable to scoring in multiple-choice and short-answer formats. These formats most easily capture factual knowledge (Shavelson & Ruiz-Primo, 1999) and are the most inexpensive in terms of resources necessary for test development, administration, and scoring (Hardy, 1995). Although many of the current standardized tests are intended to assess student achievement, too often they are used only to stimulate competition among students, teachers or schools, or to make other judgments that are not justified by student scores on such tests.

The lack of coherence among the different levels of assessment within the system, often leaves teachers, schools and districts torn between mandated external testing policies and practices, and the responsibilities of teachers to use assessment in the service of learning. These large-scale tests, which often command greater esteem than classroom assessments, create a tension for formative and summative assessment and a challenge for exemplary classroom

practice (Black, 1997; Frederiksen, 1984; Smith & Rottenberg, 1991). Teachers are left facing serious dilemmas.

BUILDING AN EXTERNAL STANDARDS-BASED SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM

The foundations for a standards-based summative assessment system are assessments that are systemically valid: aligned to the recommendations of the national standards, grounded in the educational system, and congruent with the educational goals for students. Alignment of assessment to curriculum and standards ensures that the assessments match the learning goals embodied in the standards and enables the students, parents, teachers and the public to determine student progress toward the standards (NRC, 1999b).

Assessment and accountability systems cannot be isolated from their purpose: to improve the quality of instruction and ultimately the learning of students (NRC, 1999b). They also must be well understood by the interested parties and based on standards acceptable to all (Stecher & Herman, 1997).

An effective system will provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and skills in a variety of ways and formats. The form the assessment takes must follow its purpose. Multiple-choice tests are easy to grade and can quickly assess some forms of science-content knowledge. Other areas may be better tapped through open-ended questions or performance-based assessments, where students demonstrate their abilities and understandings such as with an actual hands-on investigation (Shavelson & Ruiz-Primo, 1999). Assessing inquiry skills may require extended investigations and can be documented through portfolios of work as it unfolds.

Educators need to be cautious, deliberate, and aware of the strong influence of high-stakes, external tests on classroom practice specific to the instruction emphasis and its assessment (Frederiksen, 1984; Gifford & O'Connor, 1992; Goodlad, 1984; Popham, 1992; Resnick & Resnick, 1991; Rothman, 1995; Shepard, 1995; Smith et al., 1992; Wolf et al., 1991) when considering, implementing, and evaluating large-scale assessment systems. No assessment form is immune from negative influences. Messick (1994) concludes

It is not just that some aspects of multiple-choice testing may have adverse consequences for teaching and learning, but that some aspects of all testing, even performance testing, may have adverse as well as beneficial educational consequences. And if both positive and negative aspects, whether intended or unintended, are not meaningfully addressed in the validation process, then the concept of validity loses its force as a social value. (p. 22)

Even well-designed assessments will need to be augmented by other assessments. Most criterion-referenced tests are multiple-choice or short-answer tests. Although they may align closely to a standards-based system, other assessment components, such as performance measures, where students demonstrate their understanding by doing something educationally desirable, also are necessary to measure standards-based outcomes. A long-term inquiry that constitutes a genuine scientific investigation, for example, cannot be captured in a single test or even in a performance assessment allotted for a single class period.

LEARNING FROM CURRENT REFORM

Beyond a single test.

Several states and districts are making strides in expanding external testing beyond traditional notions of testing to include more teacher involvement and to better align classroom and external summative assessments, so to better support teaching and learning. The state of Vermont (VT) was one pioneer. The state sought to develop an assessment system that served accountability purposes as well as generated data that would inform instruction and improve individual achievement (Mills, 1996). The system had three components: Students and teachers gathered work for portfolios, teachers submitted a “best piece” sample for each student, and students took a standardized test. Scoring rubrics and exemplars were used by groups of teachers around the state to score the portfolios and student work samples. Despite the different pieces in place (which also included professional development) the VT experiment faced mixed results and is still evolving. The scoring of the portfolios and student work samples lacked an adequate reliability (in the technical sense) to be used for accountability purposes (Koretz, Stecher, Klein, & McCaffrey, 1994). Many teachers saw a positive impact on student learning, due in part to the focus and feedback on specific pieces of student work that teachers provided to students during the collection and preparation process (Asp, 1998) but also acknowledged the additional time needed for portfolio preparation (Koretz, Stecher, Klein, McCaffrey, & Deibert, 1993).

Kentucky (KY) is another state that made changes to their system and faced similar challenges. The portfolio and performance-based assessment system in that state also did not achieve consistently reliable scores (Hambleton et al., 1995). Both states demonstrate that consistency across scores for samples of work requires training and time. Research on performance assessments in large-scale systems shows that variability in student performance across tasks also can be significant (Baron, 1991).

Involving Teachers

Teachers who are privy to student discussions and able to making ongoing observations are in the best position to assess many of the educational goals including areas such as inquiry. Therefore, teachers need to become more involved in summative assessments for purposes beyond reporting on student progress and achievement to others in the system. Practices within the United States and in other countries provide us with possibilities of how to better tap into teachers ' summative assessments to augment or complement external exams.

In Queensland, Australia, for example, the state moved away from their state-wide examination and placed the certification of students in the hands of teachers (Butler, 1995). Teachers meet in regional groups to exchange results and assessment methods with colleagues. They justify their assessments and deliberate with colleagues from other schools to help ensure that the different schools are holding their students to comparable standards and levels of achievement. Additional examples of the role of teacher judgment in external assessment in other countries are discussed in the next chapter.

Accountability efforts that exclude teachers from assessing their students' work are often justified on grounds that teachers could undermine the reliability by injecting undue subjectivity and personal bias. This argument has some support based on results of efforts in VT and KY. However, as the teachers in Queensland engage in deliberation and discussion (a procedure called moderation ), steps are taken that mitigate the possible loss of reliability. To help ensure consistency among different teachers in moderation sessions, teachers exchange samples of student work and discuss their respective assessments of the work. These deliberations, in which the standards for judging quality work are discussed, have proved effective in developing consistency in scoring by the teachers. Moderation also serves as an effective form of professional development because teachers sharpen their perspectives about the quality of student work that might be expected, as is illustrated in the next chapter. In the United States, teacher-scoring committees for Advanced Placement exams follow this model.

Moderation is expensive and not always practical. There are other ways to maintain reliability and involve teachers in summative assessments that serve accountability and reporting purposes. In Connecticut, the science portion of the state assessment system involves teachers selecting from a list of tasks and using them in conjunction with their own curriculum and contexts. The state provides the teachers with exemplars and criteria, and the teachers are responsible for scoring

their own student work. Teachers can use the criteria in other areas of their curriculum throughout the year.

Douglas County Schools in Colorado rely heavily on teacher judgments for accountability purposes (Asp, 1998). Teachers collect a variety of evidence of student progress towards district standards. Teacher-developed materials that include samples of work, evaluation criteria, and possible assessment tasks guide them. The county uses these judgments to communicate to parents and district-level monitors and decision makers.

Examples and research can help inform large-scale assessment models so that systems produce useful data that inform the necessary purposes while not creating obstacles for quality teaching and learning. Policy and decision makers must look to and learn from reforms underway. After examining large scale testing practices, Asp (1998) offers keys to building compatibility between classroom and large-scale summative assessment systems. His recommendations include the following:

make large-scale assessment more accessible to classroom teachers;

embed large-scale assessment in the instructional program of the classroom in a meaningful way; and

use multiple measures at several levels within the system to assess individual student achievement (pp. 41-42).

When data on individual achievement is not the desired aim (as is often the case when accountability concerns focus on an aggregate level, such as the school, district or region), the use of sampling procedures to test fewer students and to test less frequently can be options.

The assessment systems and features discussed above are not flawless, yet there is much to learn from the experiences of these reforms. Current strategies and systems need to be modified without compromising the goal of a more aligned system. Changes of any kind will require support from the system and resources for designing and evaluating options, informing and training teachers and administrators, and educating the public

Tensions between formative and summative assessment do exist, but there are ways in which these tensions can be reduced. Some productive steps for reducing tensions include relying on a variety of assessment forms and measures and considering the purposes for the assessment and the subsequent form the assessment and its reporting takes.

Test results should be used appropriately, not to make other judgments that are not justified by student scores on such tests.

A testing program should include criterion-referenced exams and reflect the quality and depth of curriculum advocated by the standards.

For accountability purposes, external testing should not be designed in such a way as to be detrimental to learning, such as by limiting curricular and teaching activities.

A teacher's position in the classroom provides opportunities to gain useful information for use in both formative and summative assessments. These teacher assessments need to be developed and tapped to best utilize the information that only teachers possess to augment even the best designed paper-and-pencil or performance-based test.

System-level changes are needed to reduce tensions between formative and summative assessments.

The National Science Education Standards address not only what students should learn about science but also how their learning should be assessed. How do we know what they know?

This accompanying volume to the Standards focuses on a key kind of assessment: the evaluation that occurs regularly in the classroom, by the teacher and his or her students as interacting participants. As students conduct experiments, for example, the teacher circulates around the room and asks individuals about their findings, using the feedback to adjust lessons plans and take other actions to boost learning.

Focusing on the teacher as the primary player in assessment, the book offers assessment guidelines and explores how they can be adapted to the individual classroom. It features examples, definitions, illustrative vignettes, and practical suggestions to help teachers obtain the greatest benefit from this daily evaluation and tailoring process. The volume discusses how classroom assessment differs from conventional testing and grading-and how it fits into the larger, comprehensive assessment system.

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Created by the Great Schools Partnership , the GLOSSARY OF EDUCATION REFORM is a comprehensive online resource that describes widely used school-improvement terms, concepts, and strategies for journalists, parents, and community members. | Learn more »

Summative Assessment

Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. Generally speaking, summative assessments are defined by three major criteria:

• The tests, assignments, or projects are used to determine whether students have learned what they were expected to learn. In other words, what makes an assessment “summative” is not the design of the test, assignment, or self-evaluation, per se, but the way it is used—i.e., to determine whether and to what degree students have learned the material they have been taught.
• Summative assessments are given at the conclusion of a specific instructional period, and therefore they are generally evaluative, rather than diagnostic—i.e., they are more appropriately used to determine learning progress and achievement, evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs, measure progress toward improvement goals, or make course-placement decisions, among other possible applications.
• Summative-assessment results are often recorded as scores or grades that are then factored into a student’s permanent academic record, whether they end up as letter grades on a report card or test scores used in the college-admissions process. While summative assessments are typically a major component of the grading process in most districts, schools, and courses, not all assessments considered to be summative are graded.

Summative assessments are commonly contrasted with formative assessments , which collect detailed information that educators can use to improve instruction and student learning while it’s happening. In other words, formative assessments are often said to be for learning, while summative assessments are of learning. Or as assessment expert Paul Black put it, “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When the customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.” It should be noted, however, that the distinction between formative and summative is often fuzzy in practice, and educators may have divergent interpretations and opinions on the subject.

Some of the most well-known and widely discussed examples of summative assessments are the standardized tests administered by states and testing organizations, usually in math, reading, writing, and science. Other examples of summative assessments include:

• End-of-unit or chapter tests.
• End-of-term or semester tests.
• Standardized tests that are used to for the purposes of school accountability, college admissions (e.g., the SAT or ACT), or end-of-course evaluation (e.g., Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams).
• Culminating demonstrations of learning or other forms of “performance assessment,” such as portfolios of student work that are collected over time and evaluated by teachers or capstone projects that students work on over extended periods of time and that they present and defend at the conclusion of a school year or their high school education.

While most summative assessments are given at the conclusion of an instructional period, some summative assessments can still be used diagnostically. For example, the growing availability of student data, made possible by online grading systems and databases, can give teachers access to assessment results from previous years or other courses. By reviewing this data, teachers may be able to identify students more likely to struggle academically in certain subject areas or with certain concepts. In addition, students may be allowed to take some summative tests multiple times, and teachers might use the results to help prepare students for future administrations of the test.

It should also be noted that districts and schools may use “interim” or “benchmark” tests to monitor the academic progress of students and determine whether they are on track to mastering the material that will be evaluated on end-of-course tests or standardized tests. Some educators consider interim tests to be formative, since they are often used diagnostically to inform instructional modifications, but others may consider them to be summative. There is ongoing debate in the education community about this distinction, and interim assessments may defined differently from place to place. See  formative assessment  for a more detailed discussion.

While educators have arguably been using “summative assessments” in various forms since the invention of schools and teaching, summative assessments have in recent decades become components of larger school-improvement efforts. As they always have, summative assessments can help teachers determine whether students are making adequate academic progress or meeting expected learning standards, and results may be used to inform modifications to instructional techniques, lesson designs, or teaching materials the next time a course, unit, or lesson is taught. Yet perhaps the biggest changes in the use of summative assessments have resulted from state and federal policies aimed at improving public education—specifically, standardized high-stakes tests used to make important decisions about schools, teachers, and students.

While there is little disagreement among educators about the need for or utility of summative assessments, debates and disagreements tend to center on issues of fairness and effectiveness, especially when summative-assessment results are used for high-stakes purposes. In these cases, educators, experts, reformers, policy makers, and others may debate whether assessments are being designed and used appropriately, or whether high-stakes tests are either beneficial or harmful to the educational process. For more detailed discussions of these issues, see high-stakes test , measurement error , test accommodations , test bias , score inflation , standardized test , and value-added measures .

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Using Formative Assessment to Measure Student Progress

Teachers can use the feedback they gain from assessing to drive instructional outcomes and help students understand what success looks like.

Perhaps my favorite commentary on formative assessment is this analogy offered by education professor Dylan Wiliam : “I flew back from Seattle a few weeks ago. Just imagine what the pilot would have done if he would have flown east for nine hours and then after nine hours he’d say, ‘It’s time to land.’ So he’ll put the plane down and he’ll ask, ‘Is this London?’ And of course, even if it’s not London, he says, ‘Well, everybody’s gotta get off, because I have to get off to the next journey.’ And that’s exactly the way that we’ve assessed in the past.” 

Formative assessment, implemented correctly, is a continuous measure of student success throughout any unit of study. When we provide students with quick, real-time information about their progress, they gain valuable knowledge that transcends any grade. 

Ensure that grades accurately measure student performance 

Although many teachers would love to abandon grades from an ideological perspective, that is not usually possible given school or district constraints. When thinking about grading, teachers can become mired in details that distract from the overall purpose of formative assessment. For example, some education experts argue that assessments cannot be formative if any data is recorded in the grade book.

By placing too much emphasis on grades over performance, however, this perspective overlooks the most important benefits that formative assessment produces: the delivery of “no secrets” instruction that is aligned to transparent and equitable feedback . To that end, formative assessments can be graded, but with two provisos: 

• Any formative grade should not be weighted heavily enough to have a significant impact on overall success, and students must also have the opportunity to reassess their work and make improvements. Otherwise, the grade is summative, not formative.
• Formative grades must be a true reflection of student success toward a goal. If they are arbitrary or placed in the grade book for completion, the entire formative process is compromised. 

In essence, formative assessment supports the idea that process is more important than product; therefore, the ultimate goal is centered on learning, not a grade. Any grade that either is given as a formality or is not grounded in criteria for success cannot be formative.

Understand the purpose of formative assessment

As education writer Stephen Chappuis explains, formative assessment is designed to deliver information about student progress during instruction. Thinking back to Dylan Wiliam’s comparison of the assessment process to a flight plan, consider the difference between a classroom in which there is little to no transparency and one in which “no secrets” learning outcomes are clear to all. In Classroom A, students read a short article about why exercise is important. The teacher explains that their task is to read silently and then fill out short-answer responses to the questions.

After class, the teacher collects their work, checks that students have answered the questions, and enters a grade in the “completion” category. While the teacher may feel that she has done something to help students make progress, she has only provided an activity that is devoid of any opportunity for assessment. Therefore, she has no way of determining whether students reached a learning goal that was never explicitly communicated to them.

In Classroom B, the teacher has the same content and curricular focus, but her process is different as she begins by explicitly sharing the desired learning outcome: “Today, we will examine the reasons that exercise is considered beneficial.” To begin, students sit in groups to read an assigned section of the article about the importance of exercise. Then, using a jigsaw-style method , students move into different groups so that each member can teach the rest of their classmates about what they learned in their assigned portion. At the end of the class, students complete an exit ticket with the following prompts:

• Share the reasons listed in the article that exercise is important, writing a brief explanation for each reason (one or two sentences).
• Of the reasons given in the article about the importance of exercise, which one do you most agree with, and why? Fully explain your answer.

The teacher in Classroom B can determine, based on the answers on the exit ticket, how fully students understood the objective of the day and develop next steps that accurately reflect progress toward learning outcomes.

Clearly, the teacher in Classroom B is engaging in formative assessment that provides insight into where her students are in terms of their learning. When instruction is planned with the outcome at the forefront of focus, formative data is far more likely to reflect accurate measures of success. However, when students complete tasks for a grade that does not connect to any kind of specific target, there is no way to determine where they stand in relation to the goal.

Remember that feedback, not grades, should drive instruction

Teachers often call grades “feedback,” but the truth is that an evaluative measure like a numerical score does not tell students that much about their progress toward a skill or standard, nor does a letter grade. However, effective feedback protocols based on clear, student-friendly criteria demystify how success on any given assignment is defined. 

Going back to the kids in Classroom B who are learning about the importance of exercise, imagine that their formative assessment (in this case, an exit ticket) includes the following criteria for success:

• You have accurately summarized the ideas in the article about the importance of exercise.
• Your response fully answers both questions in complete sentences.
• You have provided details that help to explain what reasons for exercise are the most meaningful to you.

If students have this list before they complete the formative assessment, they fully understand what a successful product should incorporate. Then, the teacher can point out where they are not yet seeing success in the feedback with comments like “You have not yet mentioned your own reasons that exercise is important, which is a necessary step in showing that you can apply the concepts in this article to your own experience.” 

With a process like the one above, the formative assessment is easily streamlined, as the teacher directly indicates which criteria have been met and which need improvement. For example, sorting students into categories of “meets” and “not yet” provides a helpful snapshot of where the class generally stands with reaching academic goals.

Ultimately, the goal of formative assessment is for teachers to clearly indicate a leaning target so that students can accurately attribute their academic performance to clear criteria for success with aligned, streamlined feedback. This helps us meet our true goal: helping kids understand what makes them successful so they can continue to grow and thrive.

What about your thoughts on the role of grades in formative assessment—do you use them? Why or why not? Answer in the comments.

Formative Assessment Tools

Table of Contents

1. What are Formative Assessment Tools?

2. Why are Formative Assessment Tools Important in Higher Education?  

3. Formative Assessment Examples

4. What Tools Help with Formative Assessments?

5. Formative Assessment Resources

What are Formative Assessment Tools?

Formative assessment tools are instruments or methods used by educators to gather ongoing information about students' understanding, skills, and progress throughout the learning process. 

Unlike summative assessments, which typically occur at the end of a unit or course, formative assessment tools are used throughout the course to evaluate student learning and gather immediate feedback. This helps educators adjust their teaching strategies and tailor instruction to better meet the needs of their students. Examples of formative assessment tools include quizzes, polls, observations, discussions, peer assessments, and concept maps.

Why are Formative Assessment Tools Important in Higher Education?

Formative assessment tools are vital in higher education classrooms. They foster active learning, enhance student engagement, and facilitate personalized instruction, which contributes to improved learning outcomes.

Formative assessment tools provide real-time feedback to students, enabling them to instantly assess their comprehension and progress. Educators can utilize the data obtained from formative assessments to make more informed instructional decisions, identifying areas of struggle and adapting teaching strategies accordingly. Formative assessment tools promote active student participation through discussions and interactive quizzes, encouraging a more profound understanding and retention of material.

Integrating these tools into higher education classrooms cultivates a dynamic learning environment where students are actively supported and empowered to achieve their academic goals.

Formative Assessment Examples

Higher education educators have a variety of formative assessment tools at their disposal to gather ongoing feedback and monitor student progress. Here are some examples:

• Classroom Response Systems: These systems allow instructors to pose multiple-choice, true/false, or short-answer questions to students during lectures or discussions. Students respond using their mobile devices or laptops, providing immediate feedback to both the instructor and the class.
• Quizzes and Polls: Instructors can create quick quizzes or polls using online platforms such as Poll Everywhere. These tools enable educators to assess student understanding, gather opinions, or gauge class consensus on a topic in real time.
• Peer Assessment: Peer assessment involves students evaluating the work of their classmates based on established criteria. This can be done through activities like peer review of essays, presentations, or group projects, fostering collaboration and providing diverse perspectives on student work.
• Concept Mapping: Concept mapping allows students to visually organize and connect key concepts, ideas, and relationships. Instructors can use concept maps as formative assessments to assess students' understanding of complex topics and identify areas of confusion or misunderstanding.
• One-Minute Papers: At the end of a class session or lecture, instructors can ask students to write a brief response to a prompt or question related to the day's material. Use a Poll Everywhere Open-ended question to send out this prompt and students can submit answers from their devices. This quick formative assessment provides insight into students' comprehension, questions, or areas requiring further clarification. 
• Think-Pair-Share: This strategy involves students individually reflecting on a question or prompt, and then discussing their thoughts with a partner before sharing with the larger group. Instructors can use think-pair-share as a formative assessment to encourage active participation, check for understanding, and promote peer learning.
• Exit Tickets : At the end of a class session, instructors can ask students to respond to a prompt or question on a small slip of paper or through a Poll Everywhere Activity. Exit tickets provide feedback on students' understanding of the day's lesson and help instructors gauge whether learning objectives were met.
• Observations and Checklists: Instructors can use observational techniques and checklists to assess student performance during activities, discussions, or presentations. This formative assessment method allows educators to provide feedback on specific skills, behaviors, or competencies in real time.

Course Planning Template

Simplify your semesters and design your own course plan with our free customizable template. Created with hybrid and online higher ed classrooms in mind, our free printable course planning template includes multiple helpful resources:

• A quick questionnaire to help you brainstorm ideas and consider requirements
• A customizable class plan template with options to track lesson plan status
• Actionable tips for keeping students engaged and improving participation

What Tools Help with Formative Assessments? 

Educators have access to a wide range of tools and technologies to facilitate formative assessments in their classrooms. Here are some examples of tools commonly used for formative assessments:

• Learning Management Systems (LMS): Platforms like Moodle, Canvas, or Blackboard provide features for creating quizzes, surveys, and assignments that can be used for formative assessments. They also offer grading and feedback functionalities to support the assessment process.
• Classroom Response Systems (CRS): Clickers or mobile device-based response systems, such as Poll Everywhere, allow educators to pose questions to students in real time and receive instant feedback on their understanding of the material.
• Online Quiz and Survey Tools: Survey tools enable educators to create quizzes, surveys, and polls that students can access remotely. These tools provide flexibility in designing assessments and collecting data from students.
• Interactive Whiteboard Apps: Interactive whiteboard apps have features that allow educators to engage students in collaborative activities, brainstorming sessions, or concept mapping exercises during formative assessments.
• Peer Review and Collaboration Tools: Collaboration tools like Google Docs enable peer assessment and collaboration on assignments, essays, or projects. These tools promote active learning and provide opportunities for students to give and receive feedback from their peers.
• Video and Audio Recording Tools: Students can record video or audio responses to prompts, questions, or assignments. Educators can use these tools to assess students' communication skills, presentations, or problem-solving abilities.
• Data Analytics and Assessment Dashboards: Some educational platforms like Poll Everywhere and LMSs provide data analytics and dashboards that allow educators to track student progress, identify trends, and analyze assessment data to inform instructional decisions.

By leveraging these tools and technologies, educators can effectively implement formative assessments in their classrooms, engage students in active learning, and provide timely feedback to support student success.

Formative Assessment Resources

Discover new ways to deliver formative assessments.

Gamifying formative assessment to increase engagement

Different Types of Formative and Summative Assessments

How to Use Performance Assessments in the Classroom

How Diagnostic Assessments Can Foster Positive Learning

How to Engage Higher-Ed Classrooms With Online Assessment Tools

Achievement Tests: Definition, Types & Best Practices for Educators

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Comprehensive Assessments in Education: A Detailed Guide

Ravneet Kaur

Senior Instructional Designer

Review Board Member

Ravneet Kaur is a Senior Instructional Designer with a rich portfolio, including hundreds of courses and assessments built across categories, such as leadership, employee skill enhancement, and compliance training. She ... Read more

Ravneet Kaur is a Senior Instructional Designer with a rich portfolio, including hundreds of courses and assessments built across categories, such as leadership, employee skill enhancement, and compliance training. She is passionate about creating engaging and impactful learning experiences. Her role with the ProProfs Quiz Maker Review Board is to ensure accurate and consistent content that drives better online training initiatives. Ravneet is dedicated to enhancing learning through her innovative design and storyboarding skills. Read less

Author & Editor at ProProfs

Vipul is a seasoned e-learning expert, specializing in crafting impactful learning experiences and designing employee training assessments. His passion lies in writing about tools that enhance online learning and training outcomes.

In the intricate world of education, assessments serve as the vital thread to weave teaching, learning, and progress together. But relying solely on a single thread can limit the richness and depth of understanding. 

Enter comprehensive assessments with their multifaceted approach.

They offer a range of benefits that contribute to the overall improvement of the learning process, the teaching methods, and the educational system as a whole.

Here is a detailed guide on comprehensive assessments, their roles, benefits, and the key elements that contribute to their successful implementation.

Let’s get started.

What Is a Comprehensive Assessment?

A comprehensive assessment is a multifaceted approach to evaluating a student’s understanding, skills, and knowledge. This approach goes beyond traditional testing methods, encompassing various evaluation forms such as standardized tests, performance-based assessments, portfolios, teacher observations, and self/peer reviews. 

This broad spectrum of student assessment tools allows for a more in-depth understanding of a student’s abilities, learning styles, and areas for improvement.

A comprehensive assessment can also be used in professional settings to evaluate employees for specific job roles and tasks and assess skill competencies.

Let’s see a comprehensive assessment example:

Consider a school where students learn about World War II. The evaluation might include a traditional exam on key historical facts, a group project analyzing the war’s impact, and a reflective essay connecting historical events to current global issues. This approach assesses the students’ factual knowledge and the ability to apply understanding and work collaboratively.

Watch this Case Study: How Luc Viatour Transformed Education for 1500+ Daily Learners with ProProfs

Power of Comprehensive Assessment in Shaping Future Education

Comprehensive assessments play a critical role in education in understanding and improving student learning, teaching methodologies, and curriculum design. It involves evaluating student skills, knowledge, attitudes, and learning experiences to gain a complete picture of their educational progress. 

Here are the key aspects of comprehensive assessment in education:

• Holistic Understanding of Student Learning : Unlike traditional assessments that may focus narrowly on specific content areas or skills, comprehensive assessments aim to evaluate a broad spectrum of student abilities and knowledge. This includes cognitive skills (like problem-solving and critical thinking), technical skills, and soft skills (like teamwork and communication).
• Formative and Summative Assessments : Comprehensive assessment incorporates both formative (ongoing, feedback-focused) and summative (evaluating student learning at the end of an instructional period) approaches to evaluate students in a timely manner. 
• Data-Driven Decision-Making : Educators and administrators use data from comprehensive assessments to inform decisions about curriculum changes , resource allocation, and teaching strategies. An example of comprehensive assessments with a data-driven approach can be obtained from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the USA, which provides essential data to influence educational policy and practice at national and state levels.
• Identification of Learning Gaps : By covering a wide range of areas, comprehensive assessments can help identify specific learning gaps or areas where students excel. For example, international assessments like the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) help identify particular subject areas where students from different countries may need additional support.
• Supports Personalized Learning : The detailed insights gained from comprehensive assessments can support personalized learning paths for students, tailoring education to meet individual needs and learning styles.
• Professional Development for Educators : The results of comprehensive assessments can highlight areas where educators might need further professional development or support to enhance their teaching practices.

Pro Tip: Embrace a variety of assessment methods to capture a complete picture of student learning and use regular, constructive feedback to guide and improve their learning journey.

Exploring Comprehensive Assessments in Classroom

A comprehensive assessment for classrooms involves a variety of methods and tools to gather data about student performance across a wide range of skills and knowledge areas. 

Here’s a detailed look at what it entails:

• Diverse Assessments : A comprehensive assessment system includes different types of assessments, such as formative assessments, summative assessments, diagnostic assessments, performance-based assessments, etc.
• Use of Technology : Modern comprehensive assessments often leverage technology for administering assessments and analyzing data. Nowadays, you can use AI to generate quizzes in seconds. Besides, tools like learning management systems (LMS) can track student progress over time, and adaptive learning platforms can provide personalized assessments.
• Inclusion of Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles : A comprehensive assessment recognizes that students have different learning styles and intelligences. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, for instance, suggests including assessments that cater to different strengths, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.
• Feedback Mechanisms : Effective assessments provide feedback that is timely, constructive, and specific. This feedback helps students understand their progress and areas for improvement. Studies show that feedback is highly effective in improving academic performance; Hattie and Timperley (2007) emphasized the importance of feedback in learning processes.
• Cultural Responsiveness : A comprehensive assessment is culturally responsive, ensuring that assessments are fair and equitable for students from diverse backgrounds. This involves being aware of cultural biases in test questions and interpreting results in the context of a student’s cultural and linguistic background.
• Self-Assessment and Peer Assessmen t: This includes reflective practices where students assess their own work or that of their peers. This fosters self-regulation and critical thinking skills.
• Alignment with Curriculum and Standards : Assessments should be aligned with curriculum goals and standards. This ensures that what is taught is what is tested, maintaining the validity of the assessment process.
• Data-Driven Decision Making : Teachers use data from assessments to inform instruction. This might mean reteaching concepts, providing additional support to certain students, or adjusting teaching strategies.

Watch: How to Review Quiz Reports & Statistics

Practical Benefits of Comprehensive Assessments

Comprehensive assessments offer a range of benefits that contribute to the overall improvement of the learning process, the teaching methods, and the educational system as a whole. 

Here are some of the major benefits of the process:

• Holistic Understanding of Student Learning : Comprehensive assessments evaluate not just academic knowledge but also skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world scenarios. 
• Improved Teaching Strategies : These assessments provide teachers with detailed insights into each student’s strengths and weaknesses. According to research by the National Council on Teacher Quality in the USA, data-driven instruction leads to improved educational outcomes as teachers can tailor their teaching methods to meet the specific needs of their students.
• Enhanced Student Engagement and Motivation : By encompassing a variety of formats (like projects, presentations, and group work), comprehensive assessments can cater to different learning styles , thereby increasing student engagement. You can also offer custom certifications to enhance the engagement of your students.
• Long-term Academic and Career Success : These assessments prepare students for the demands of the modern workforce, which values critical thinking and problem-solving skills. 
• Feedback for Continuous Improvement : They provide valuable feedback to educators and policy-makers about the effectiveness of the curriculum and teaching methods. 
• Accountability and Standards Compliance: Comprehensive assessments help ensure that schools are meeting certain educational standards. 
• Promotion of Equity in Education : Assessing a wide range of competencies can help identify and address gaps in educational opportunities and outcomes for students from different backgrounds. The Education Equity Research Initiative , a collaborative partnership, uses comprehensive assessment data to inform policies that promote equity and inclusion in education globally.
• Global Benchmarking : Comprehensive assessments allow for international benchmarking, providing a global perspective on educational standards and effectiveness. The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, for example, are used by countries worldwide to gauge the global competitiveness of their education systems.

Watch this Case Study: How DMS Boosted Student Scores Using ProProfs Quiz Maker | Case Study

Keys to Successful Comprehensive Assessments

A comprehensive assessment depends on a number of factors for success. Here are the most important ones:

• Alignment with Learning Objectives : The assessment must align with the learning objectives or outcomes that it is intended to measure. This ensures that the assessment accurately reflects what students are expected to learn.
• Variety of Assessment Methods : Utilizing a range of assessment methods, such as tests, projects, portfolios, presentations, and peer assessments, caters to different learning styles and provides a more holistic view of student abilities.
• Validity and Reliability : Validity ensures that the assessment measures what it is supposed to measure, and reliability ensures that it yields consistent results over time. Both are crucial for the credibility of the assessment.
• Fairness and Inclusivity: The assessment should be fair to all students, regardless of their backgrounds or learning differences. This might involve providing accommodations or alternative assessment methods for students with special needs.
• Clear Criteria and Rubrics : Providing students with clear criteria and rubrics for assessment helps them understand what is expected of them and how they will be evaluated.
• Feedback and Reflection : Offering constructive feedback helps students understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Encouraging student reflection on their performance can further enhance learning.
• Use of Technology : Leveraging technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning , can enhance assessment by providing diverse and engaging ways to evaluate student learning, as well as efficient methods for data collection and analysis.
• Continuous Improvement : Regularly reviewing and revising assessment strategies based on student performance and feedback ensures they remain effective and relevant.
• Collaboration Among Educators : Collaboration among teachers in designing and implementing assessments can lead to more consistent and comprehensive approaches to evaluating student learning.

Unlock Student Potential With Comprehensive Assessments

A comprehensive student assessment is a detailed evaluation process to understand an individual’s skills or knowledge thoroughly. It integrates various assessment tools and methods to form a complete and nuanced picture.

You can use a smart assessment tool such as ProProfs Quiz Maker to create a comprehensive assessment for students at any level. ProProfs Quiz Maker comes with an AI quiz maker to help you instantly create quizzes (with explanations) on any topic. It also offers 100,000+ quiz templates that you can modify according to your requirements. You can also easily secure your quizzes with anti-cheating settings, get detailed reports on learner performance, and integrate your quizzes with a learning management system.

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About the author

Vipul bhagia.

Vipul Bhagia is an e-learning expert and content creator, specializing in instructional design. He excels in crafting compelling e-learning modules and designing effective employee training assessments. He is passionate about leveraging digital solutions to transform work culture and boost productivity. Vipul enjoys exploring emerging tech innovations and sharing his insights with fellow industry professionals.

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