Formative & Summative Assessments are crucial in providing ongoing feedback for learners and instructors during a a learning session and to evaluate learners learning at the end of instructional unit often by comparing the learners learning with some kind of a benchmark.
As a primary school student, I never used to like assessments. We used to have midterm exams and final exams. Even though I was more than the average student, my mum (sorry mum!) would not accept a grade lower than 80%. I constantly felt that I was under a lot of pressure and most of the times never understood what teachers and my mum were trying to achieve. I enjoyed going to school and felt extremely nervous during exams.
I am probably among so many other learners who at some point in their lives were subjected to such pressure. Would I have felt different if I was engaged in the assessment? As a young learner with no understanding of the assessment process, would that made sense? Would traditional assessment methods and teachers allow that in the first place? As an adult, I am looking at assessments in a different way; as the most important thing to help me learn. May be that has to do with the characteristics of adult learners that, we are internally motivated as opposed to children (externally motivated).
Dr Ciara O’Farrell (Enhancing Student Learning through Assessment, A Toolkit Approach) shared reasons as to why we need to do assessments. Some of the reasons include the need to determine that the intended learning outcomes of the course are being achieved, to provide feedback to learners on their learning, to support and guide learning and to motivate students (or as it was in my case, to demotivate, if not structured/managed properly)
Assessment as a crucial part of the learning process must focus on the learner, what is intended to be learned and learner’s achievement in learning. Having learners choose assessments is a good thing. As mentioned, students are often more engaged when they are given some choice in their learning process; however that depends on a situation.
Appropriate situation
When the assessment is formative
Formative assessment is the most powerful type of assessment for improving student understanding and performance and is used during instruction to provide feedback to learners. Formative assessment can be formal or informal and thus provides more room for use different types of assessment methods. While researching I came across the example below, I thought it represents a very good scenario that shows nice to share the example (retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may07/vol64/num08/Assessment-Through-the-Student’s-Eyes.aspx ):- ‘’A high school English teacher assigns students to read three novels by the same author and develop a thesis statement about a common theme, consistent character development, or social commentary in the novels. They must then defend that thesis in a term paper with references. To set students up for success, the teacher begins by providing them with a sample of an outstanding paper to read and analyze. The next day, the class discusses what made the sample outstanding.
As their next assignment, the teacher gives students a sample paper of poor quality. Again, they analyze and evaluate its features in some detail. Comparing the two papers, students list essential differences. The class then uses this analysis to collaboratively decide on the keys to a high-quality paper. After identifying and defining those keys, the students share in the process of transforming them into a rubric—a set of rating scales depicting a continuum of quality for each key.
The teacher provides examples of student work to illustrate each level on the quality continuum. Only after these specific understandings are in place do students draft their papers. Then they exchange drafts, analyzing and evaluating one another’s work and providing descriptive feedback on how to improve it, always using the language of the rubric. If students want descriptive feedback from their teacher on any particular dimension of quality, they can request and will receive it. The paper is finished when the student says it is finished. In the end, not every paper is outstanding, but most are of high quality, and each student is confident of that fact before submitting his or her work for final evaluation and grading (Stiggins, in press; Scenario 1 adapted by permission)’’
Inappropriate situation
When the assessment is summative
- 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. Examples of summative assessments include midterm exams, final project and a paper. I feel that for summative assessments, allowing students to have a choice would not add a lot of value instead having Instructors with a solid background in testing reliability and validity would add value.
- Another inappropriate situation could be to engage learners that are too young (e.g. children) to understand the process or purpose of assessment.
- Another inappropriate situation could be engaging learners in their assessments in creative subjects such as music and art. Sally Brown an Independent Higher Education Consultant; Visiting Professor at the Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen) and at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK mentioned that for creative subjects, involving learners in assessments should be managed carefully, she added that:- ‘’ It may be helpful to involve students in establishing or negotiating the criteria for assessment, so that they fully understand what is expected of them. The degree of subjectivity involved in evaluating artifacts and productions needs to be recognized and articulated, so that everyone concerned understands the rules of the game’’
Sources
- BROWN, S. & KNIGHT, P. (1994) Assessing Learners in Higher Education, London: Kogan Page.
- Assessment for learning http://www2.glos.ac.uk/offload/tli/lets/lathe/issue1/articles/brown.pdf
- Enhancing Student Learning through Assessment, A Toolkit Approach Dr. Ciara O’Farrell retrived from http://learningandteaching.dit.ie/documents/assessment_toolkit_v41f.pdf
- Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective instruction (7th Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Stiggins, R. J., Arter, J. A., Chappuis, J., & Chappuis, S. (2004). Classroom assessment FOR student learning: Doing it right—using it well. Portland, OR: ETS Assessment Training Institute.
- Enhancing Student Learning through Assessment, A Toolkit Approach Dr. Ciara O’Farrell retrieved from http://learningandteaching.dit.ie/documents/assessment_toolkit_v41f.pdf
- Assessment Through the Student’s Eyes, Educational Leadership http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may07/vol64/num08/Assessment-Through-the-Student’s-Eyes.aspx
