Title: THE IMPACT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS IN TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS
Christian Cervantes Mendejar, LPT.
christianmendejar@gmail.com
The role of formative assessments to gauge student understanding has
become more important than ever during COVID-19, when many teachers and
students are working in blended learning environments for the first time. But it can
be tough to switch from being test-oriented to learning-oriented. Focusing on
learning-oriented techniques like formative assessment may be a bit more time
consuming and require some extra strategy, but the results are well worth the
effort. That’s because these types of diagnostic check-ins are essential to guiding
lesson planning and adjusting instruction to support students’ growth.
Keywords: Formative assessments, teaching-learning process
INTRODUCTION
When teachers constantly monitor student growth and adjust instruction to
ensure continuous improvement, they find it easier and more predictable to
progress towards meeting the standards on summative assessments.
By understanding exactly what their students know before and during
instruction, educators have much more power to improve student mastery of the
subject matter than if they find out after a lesson or unit is complete.
The strength of formative assessment lies in the critical information it
provides about student comprehension throughout the learning process and the
opportunity it gives educators to provide students with timely and action-oriented
feedback and to change their own behavior so that every student has an
opportunity to learn and re-learn.
The students who are performing on the outer edges of the normal curve—
the struggling and the gifted—particularly benefit from formative assessment.
These students have learning needs that are often unique and specific, and the
teacher needs timely data in order to address them. Additionally, using consistent
formative assessment to address learning gaps enhanced by COVID-19 ensures that
teachers are able to provide timely remediation.
Formative assessment, when used effectively, can significantly improve
student achievement and raise teacher quality. Yet high quality formative
assessment is rarely a consistent part of the classroom culture. Teachers are
neither sufficiently familiar with it nor equipped with the knowledge or the skill to
put formative assessment to work for themselves and their students. This research
is intended as a resource for school leaders as they work with teachers to make the
formative assessment process an integral part of their classrooms. We focus on
classroom-level practices that affect student learning and achievement, build
capacity, and foster schoolwide outcomes that can meet the demands for highstakes accountability facing today’s education professionals. And amid calls for
data-driven decision making, we intentionally focus the book on practices that put
information about learning into the hands of the most important decision makers
of all—the students. I took the initiative to make this research so that school
leaders, school teams, and collaborative groups can use it as a guide to engage in
highly effective formative assessment practices that promote school improvement
and increase student achievement. We place particular emphasis on the ways that
the formative assessment process enables students to harness the workings of
their own minds to become intentional and skilled learners.
Theoretical Framework
When teachers join forces with their students in the formative assessment process,
their partnership generates powerful learning outcomes. Teachers become more
effective, students become actively engaged, and they both become intentional
learners. We can use the metaphor of a windmill to visualize the formative
assessment process and its effects. Just as a windmill intentionally harnesses the
power of moving air to generate energy, the formative assessment process helps
students intentionally harness the workings of their own minds to generate
motivation to learn. Propelled by the formative assessment process, students
understand and use learning targets, set their own learning goals, select effective
learning strategies, and assess their own learning progress. And as students
develop into more confident and competent learners, they become motivated
(energized) to learn, increasingly able to persist during demanding tasks and to
regulate their own effort and actions when they tackle new learning challenges.
As teachers and students actively and intentionally engage in learning, the
individual elements unite in a flurry of cognitive activity, working together and
depending on each other. Their power comes from their combined effort.
Statement of the Problem
This study aimed to investigate on the impacts of formative assessments in
teaching and learning process, moreover, the possible problems that the teachers
or learners may encounter while using this assessment.
Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:
1. What is the teacher’s attitude towards formative assessment?
2. What are the effects of formative assessment in student learning?
3. What are the problems encountered by the teachers and students in the
learning process?
4. What are the students’ suggestions towards formative assessment?
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
This study made use of mixed method research design to determine
students’ attitude toward formative assessment and to document their experience
with the assessment in terms of effects to learning and problems encountered. This
research design used both quantitative and qualitative data to answer a particular
question or set of questions. Qualitative data were gathered through a series of
observations of classroom activities and a semi-structured open-ended interview
with the students, while results from a Likert-scale survey generated data for
quantitative analysis.
Participants of the Study
The 50 participants of the study were randomly selected from the two Grade
5 classes at CIA First International School. The two classes are given with formative
assessments in their google classrooms in studying their different subjects.
Research Instruments
To determine student’s attitude towards formative assessment, a modified
google form survey questionnaires are distributed in their google chats. While the
effects and problems encountered of the formative assessment to teachers were
gathered through series of interview questions.
Data Collection Procedure
The students are given with formative assessments at the beginning of each
unit of their subjects and they are given a week or two to finish the tasks assigned
to them.
The students are then given with the google form to hear from them if they
find the assessments helpful in setting their goals as they move forward to their
lessons. The students are also given the opportunity to provide feedback of what
they want to learn for the whole academic year with CIA First International School.
At the end of the survey, the results are then recorded in the google form
document that will be analyzed and interpreted by the researchers.
The teachers are asked with open-ended questions regards to their feedback
with the effectiveness of formative assessments in teaching and learning process.
They are also asked about the problems they encountered in administering the
formative test questionnaires.
Data Analysis
Weighted mean was used to determine students’ attitude toward formative
assessment. A mean lower than 2.51 is interpreted as negative or unfavorable
while a mean higher than 2.50 is interpreted as positive or favorable.
Thematic content analysis was used to determine the effects of formative
assessments, problems encountered as well as the participants’ suggestions to
improve the formative assessments. Thematic content analysis involved working
with and organizing the data, breaking it into manageable units, synthesizing it in
order to search for certain patterns, deciding on vital aspects and disseminating the
findings.
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