Overview of
Formative Assessment (Diagnostic & Feedback)
vs.
Summative Assessment (Mastery & Standardised)
Presented by
Philip Holmes-Smith
School Research Evaluation and Measurement Services
www.sreams.com.au
Definitions
• Formative Assessment
•
Black and Wiliam (1998)* define formative assessment as
“all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by students, which
provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and
learning activities in which they are engaged.”
•
As such, formative assessment is generally carried out both prior to teaching
(Diagnostic or Pre-Assessment) and during a learning activity (Feedback).
• Formative assessment informs teaching and learning.
• Summative Assessment
•
Summative assessments are typically used to assign students to a course grade
or to place students along a continuum of development.
•
As such, summative assessment is usually administered at the completion of a
unit of work (Mastery Assessment) or at some standardised point in time
(Standardised Assessment).
• Summative assessment evaluates teaching and learning.
*Black, Paul & Wiliam, Dylan (1998). "Assessment and classroom learning". Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy &
Practice 5 (1).
Formative vs. Summative
Assessment.
When the cook tastes the soup, that's formative.
When a guest tastes the soup, that's summative.
Robert E. Stake*
*In: Scriven, M. (1991). Evaluation thesaurus. 4th ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Formative Diagnostic (or Pre-) Assessment
• Main Purpose (main question answered):
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To discover what the student already knows and what they don’t know.
• Assessment tools such as:
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Marie Clay Observation Survey – Reading (Prep-2),
Record of Oral Language – Receptive Language (Prep-2),
AlphaAssess or PM Benchmark Reading Running Records (Prep-2),
English Online Interview – Literacy (Prep-2 – Gov. schools only);
Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System – Literacy (Prep-8),
Cars & Stars – Reading (Prep-8),
Probe 2 – Reading (Yr3-10),
Maths Online Interview (MOI)/ Maths Assessment Interview (MAI) – Numeracy (Prep-4),
SINE – Numeracy (Prep-8 – CEO schools only),
On-Demand Linear Tests – Reading and Number (Yr3-8),
• Type of questions included:
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A sampling of material ranging from those topics that students should already
have mastered, through the current curriculum being taught, onto topics the
student may not yet have been exposed to formally in the classroom.
• Desired outcome:
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No good or bad score. Results are used to inform teaching.
Formative Feedback
• Main Purpose (main question answered):
– To Determine whether or not students are developing appropriate skills and
understanding key concepts.
• Assessment tools such as:
– Classroom observations,
– Quick quiz,
– Class questions, etc.
• Type of Questions included:
– A sampling of the knowledge and skills cover in the current curriculum being
taught.
• Desired outcome:
– No good or bad score. Results are used to inform teaching
Diagnostic Testing & Feedback
• Hattie (2003)† shows that our most effective
teachers (in terms of improving the learning
outcomes of students) constantly use Feedback
(including diagnostic assessment) to inform their
teaching.
• Hattie (2009)* shows that using feedback has one of
the biggest impacts on improving student learning
outcomes. (Effect size =0.73)
2003: http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/RC2003_Hattie_TeachersMakeADifference.pdf
† 2009: Hattie, John. (2009). Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating
* to achievement. NY: Routledge.
Summative Mastery Assessment
• Main Purpose (main question answered):
– To test whether or not a student has mastered the skills as set out in the
current curriculum being taught.
• Assessment tools such as:
– Classroom-based topic tests
(e.g. Yr4 Maths test on area & volume, Yr7 Science test on Cells, etc.)
– VCE exams,
– AMEB Music Exams.
• Type of Questions included:
– A sampling of the knowledge and skills cover in the current curriculum being
taught.
• Desired outcome:
– If students have learnt well they should get a 100% mark on the test
Summative (Mastery) Testing
• Mastery tests have at least two major uses, namely:
• they provide immediate feedback to teachers on how well
students have mastered the knowledge and skills of the work
currently being taught – information that can be used to provide
individual remediation if needed before proceeding to the next
topic, and
• they provide feedback to parents about the progress of their
children against the taught curriculum.
Summative Standardised Assessment
• Main Purpose (main question answered):
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To determine where a student falls along a continuum of development.
• Assessment tools such as:
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NAPLAN,
On-Demand Adaptive Tests,
PAT-R or TORCH (Reading),
PAT-Math and I Can Do Maths (Maths),
South Australian Spelling or Single Word Spelling Test (SWST) (Spelling),
PAT-Written Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (PAT-SPG) (Spelling & Grammar)
• Type of Questions included:
–
A sampling of material ranging from those topics that students should already
have mastered, through the current curriculum being taught, onto topics the
student may not yet have been exposed to formally in the classroom.
• Desired outcome:
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If the test difficulty has been chosen correctly for a student the student should
get about 50% of the questions correct.
Summative Standardised Assessment
• Summative testing is essential to :
• monitor the effectiveness of your teaching, and
• monitor the progress of students along a developmental
continuum.
• But, research shows that summative tests do not
lead to improved learning outcomes. As the saying
goes:
“You don’t fatten a pig by weighing it”
(i.e. we don’t improve learning merely
by doing more summative testing)
• So, although it is essential, keep summative
assessment to a minimum.
Summary
• Use Diagnostic testing to determine what students
already know and what they don’t know which should
then be used to inform your teaching.
• Seek Feedback regularly during teaching and learning
to determine whether or not students are developing
appropriate skills and understanding key concepts.
• Use Mastery testing to monitor whether students have
mastered the learning covered in the curriculum you
have offered.
• Use Summative testing to:
• monitor the effectiveness of your teaching, and
• place students at some point along the curriculum
continuum.
Reflection
• Reflect on one or more of these questions:
• What was the most important point in this section?
• What was the most surprising idea or concept?
• What questions remain unanswered in your mind?
• What was the ‘muddiest’ point in this section?
(What didn’t you understand?)
• How will you use this information to improve teaching?
• What information will you share with colleagues back at
school?