Formative Assessment

Formative Assessment in Education

Both researchers and educators have placed a high emphasis on the utility of formative assessment; however, disagreements have emerged about what qualifies as formative assessment. In brief, there are at least two types of formative assessment, which are instruments and processes. Formative assessment as an instrument refers to established and common tools for data collection. Teachers and test publishers widely accepted this view of formative assessment. They typically refer to psychometric instruments with documented reliability and validity evidence to support their use to screen, diagnose, develop instructional plans, or monitor performance. The performance domains span academic achievement, student engagement, and social–emotional–behavioral development. Unlike summative assessments, formative assessments are often designed to guide short-term instructional decisions. The tests are often administered at multiple times a year to index and monitor instructional needs and instructional effects. Examples of standardized formative assessment include curriculum-based measurement, curriculum-based assessment, and informal reading inventories.

Teachers also widely accepted formative assessment as a process. It is not an assessment instrument but rather is an advanced instructional technique that incorporates a process of assessment to allow teachers to understand and evaluate student strengths and needs. Active observation, inquiry, and feedback by the teacher are considered formative assessment and instruction. Teachers act to collect data and provide input during and between instructional occasions. The data and feedback are often more qualitative in form and are used actively to guide instructional decisions to improve student learning. To the extreme of this perspective, formative assessment should not be associated with any sort of score and should instead be used to provide feedback to students, which is often provided informally.

Some take the stance that both of these definitions are key components of formative assessment. This stance would suggest that formative assessment is not solely a test instrument nor a process, but rather it is the combination of the two. With the use of high-quality [Page 693]formative assessments, educators can engage in the process of providing feedback and linking learning to explicit performance standards. Formative assessment is likely to be most effective when it encapsulates a combination of both the test instrument and the process of using data to guide instructional decisions.

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