Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
“When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment; when the customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.” Paul Black
The assessment of teaching and learning can be viewed as two complementary and overlapping activities that aim to benefit both the quality of student learning and the professional development of the instructor. Assessing learning alone is not sufficient because the ultimate success of students is also dependent upon their motivation and commitment to learning. Similarly, assessing only teaching behaviors and course activities is not sufficient because qualities of the instructor may be appreciated by students but not optimally helpful to their learning and growth. Done in tandem, assessing teaching and learning can help instructors improve and refine their teaching practices and help improve students’ learning and performance.
The research indicates that improving learning through assessment depends on five, deceptively simple, key factors:
- the provision of effective feedback to pupils;
- the active involvement of pupils in their own learning;
- adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment;
- a recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation and self- esteem of pupils, both of which are crucial influences on learning;
- the need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve.
Classroom assessment is a complex undertaking that means something different to different audiences and in different situations. And so it should. Assessment has many purposes that sometimes support one another and sometimes compete or conflict with one another. As Wilson (1996) noted, teachers engage in a broad range of assessment roles, and keeping them straight is a challenging task .
The process of gathering information to monitor progress and make educational decisions i. As noted in definition of test, an assessment may include a test, but also includes methods such as observations, interviews, behavior monitoring, etc.
Assessment is the process by which data is collected and used to evaluate an individual. Infect it is a fact finding activity describing present conditions. In education, assessment is concerned with the desirability of a process/program /performance and it provide a base for recommendations for actions. It focuses on a numerous factors like interpretation of performance, present situation, developmental history, extra personal factors.
Definitions and explanations of assessment in Education.
The term assess is derived from a Latin word “asoidere” meaning “to sit by” in judgment
The International Dictionary of Education defines Assessment as “In education, the process by which one attempts to measure the quality and quantity of learning and teaching using various assessment techniques, assignments, project continuous assessment, objective type tests.”
According Rowntree (1977): Assessment in education can be thought of as occurring whenever one person, in some kind of interaction, direct or indirect, with another, is conscious of obtaining and interpreting information about the knowledge and understanding,of abilities and attitudes of that other person. To some extent or other, it is an attempt to know the person.
iii.According to Erwin, in Brown and Knight, (1994). Assessment is a systematic basis for making inference about the learning and development of students… the process of defining, selecting, designing, collecting, analyzing, interpreting and using information to increase students’ learning and development.
Characteristics of Assessment
Any of a variety of procedures used to obtain information about student performance includes traditional paper and pencil tests as well as extended responses (e.g. essays) and performances of authentic tasks (e.g. laboratory experiments). Assessment answers the question, “How well does the individual perform?”
Thus Assessment is-
• Assessment is a human activity.
• Assessment involves interaction, which aims at seeking to understand what the learners have achieved.
• Assessment can be formal or informal.
• Assessment may be descriptive rather than judgment in nature.
• Its role is to increase students’ learning and development
• It helps learners to diagnose their problems and to improve the quality of their subsequent learning.
Functions of assessment
Assessment serves many functions .the major functions of assessment are:
v Decision making,
v Screening students for various activities,
v Prognosis.
v Diagnostic,
v Programme teaching –learning process, programme evaluation,
v Identification of talents and abilities of students.
Clearly, these roles overlap, and watching teachers try to manage the assessment activities and juggle them to satisfy the various goals shows how complex the process of classroom assessment really is. Also, tensions are embedded in these various roles and goals that cause concern for teachers. These tensions become more visible and understandable after describing three different approaches to classroom assessment that have guided the role of classroom assessment in my preferred future.
The two approaches are:
Assessment of Learning,
Assessment for Learning
It is important to understand them all, recognize the inevitable contradictions among them, know which one we are using and why, and use them all wisely and well.
Assessment Roles and Goals
Role Goal
Teacher as mentor- Provide feedback and support to each student.
Teacher as guide -Gather diagnostic information to lead the group through the work at hand.
Teacher the accountant- Maintain records of students’ progress and achievement.
Teacher as reporter- Report to parents, students, and the school administration about student progress and achievement.
Teacher as program director- Make adjustments and revisions to instructional practices.
Assessment OF learning and Assessment FOR learning
Assessment OF learning is about proving that you have learned something that can be measured. Assessment FOR learning is about using information produced by rich forms of assessment to enhance instruction and improve learning.
“When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment; when the customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.” Paul Black
Assessment of Learning or Summative Assessment
Summative Assessment or Assessment of Learning is the commonly known type of evaluation. The predominant kind of assessment in schools is Assessment of Learning. Its purpose is summative, intended to certify learning and report to parents and students about students’ progress in school, usually by signalling students’ relative position compared to other students. Assessment of Learning in classrooms is typically done at the end of something and takes the form of tests or exams that include questions drawn from the material studied during that time.
The Assessment is carried out at the end of a course or programme for grading, certification and placement. This is the type of Assessment carried out at the end of the course of instruction to determine the extent to which the objectives have been achieved. It is called a summarizing Assessment because it looks at the entire course of instruction or programme and can pass judgment on both the teacher and students, the curriculum and the entire system. Assessment OF learning involves looking at assessment information at the end of the teaching and learning process to rank students’ achievement levels against a standard. It is summative in nature and typically involves standardized tests. Assessment OF learning scores are often used to rate teachers’ or schools’ ability to move student achievement based on the results of single, point-in-time tests.
Assessment of Learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of assessment of learning be credible and defensible.
It involves a formal testing of learner’s achievement. Annual examinations and half yearly examinations in schools, public examinations are the example of such evaluation.
Purpose of Summative Assessment
The purpose of this kind of assessment is usually SUMMATIVE and is mostly done at the end of a task, unit of work etc.
“It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves and sometimes to outside groups (e.g., employers, other educational institutions).”
A- To grade, rank, classify, compare and promote the pupils.
B- It is also used for the purpose of certification
C- For selecting students for scholarships or for admission to particular courses
D- Prediction regarding the success of students in their future endeavours can also be made on its basis.
E- It is used in making decisions regarding the future of the students teaming or the programme being developed; whether it should be continued or terminated, replicated or disseminated.
F- The goal of summative assessment is to measure the level of success or proficiency that has been obtained at the end of an instructional unit, by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
G- Involves judging pupils’ performance against national standards (level descriptions).
H- Test results also describe pupils performance in terms of levels. Carried out for the purposes of grading and reporting.
I- Allocation to a level or standard or allocation of a letter or numerical grade, which might later appear in a report.
J- A rationale for undertaking a particular assessment of learning at a particular point in time
K- Clear descriptions of the intended learning
L- Processes that make it possible for students to demonstrate their competence and skill
Teachers’ Roles in Assessment of Learning
This is the kind of assessment that still dominates most classroom assessment activities, especially in secondary schools, with teachers firmly in charge of both creating and marking the test. Teachers use the tests to assess the quantity and accuracy of student work, and the bulk of teacher effort in assessment is taken up in marking and grading. A strong emphasis is placed on comparing students, and feedback to students comes in the form of marks or grades with little direction or advice for improvement. Teachers maintain voluminous records of student achievement that are used only for justifying the grades that are assigned.
Teachers have the responsibility of reporting student learning accurately and fairly, based on evidence obtained from a variety of contexts and applications. Effective assessment of learning requires that teachers provide. Teachers often make these judgments at the end of a unit of work, year or key stage.
The outcome of a summative assessment can be used formatively, however, when students or faculty take the results and use them to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses. Teachers’ Roles in Assessment of Learning:
1-a rationale for undertaking a particular assessment of learning at a particular point in time
2-clear descriptions of the intended learning
3-processes that make it possible for students to demonstrate their competence and skill
4-a range of alternative mechanisms for assessing the same outcomes
5-public and defensible reference points for making judgements
6-transparent approaches to interpretation
7-descriptions of the assessment process
8-strategies for recourse in the event of disagreement about the decisions.”
9- maintain voluminous records of student achievement that are used only for justifying the grades that are assigned.
10-a rationale for undertaking a particular assessment of learning at a particular point in time
11-clear descriptions of the intended learning
12-processes that make it possible for students to demonstrate their competence and skill
13-Teachers often make these judgments at the end of a unit of work, year or key stage.
In Assessment of Learning, the results are expressed symbolically, generally as marks across several content areas to report to parents.These kinds of testing events indicate which students are doing well and which ones are doing poorly. Typically, they don’t give much indication of mastery of particular ideas or concepts because the test content is generally too limited and the scoring is too simplistic to represent the broad range of skills and knowledge that has been covered. But this lack of specificity hasn’t presented a problem because the teachers’ perceived purpose of the assessment is to produce a rank order of the students and assign a symbol to designate the students’ position within the group, whatever group it might be.
Placement Assessment
Somewhat similar to Summative Assessment this is a type of Assessment carried out in order to fix the students in the appropriate group or class. As in some schools for instance, students are assigned to classes according to their subject science, arts, Commerce etc. before this is done a test is carried out. This is in form of pre-test or aptitude test. It can also be a type of Assessment made by the teacher to find out the entering behaviour of his students before he starts teaching. This may help the teacher to adjust his lesson plan. Tests like readiness tests, ability tests, aptitude tests and achievement tests can be used.
Assessment for Learning OR Formative Assessment
This is a type of designed Assessment to help both the student and teacher to pinpoint areas where the student has failed to learn so that this failure may be rectified. It provides a feedback to the teacher and the student and thus estimating teaching success through weekly tests, terminal examinations etc. Evaluation within or during the development of a course or programme. It is used in improving the performance of both the teacher, the student and curriculum developer.
Formative Assessment , on the other hand, is inbuilt with the process of teaching and learning. It is done during the course of instruction with a view to improving students’ learning. It is a quality control . Assessment for Learning happens during the learning, often more than once, rather than at the end.
Formative Assessment is done continuously throughout the course period. It can be done by means of unit tests which can be given after teaching each unit, informal class tests, assignments and other class room activities, Unlike summative which is Assessment formal in nature, formative Assessment is informal and can be undertaken by using numerous techniques like observation, oral tests, written tests, etc.
Purpose of formative Assessment
Activities associated with formative assessment (Assessment for Learning) do not result in an assessment . Information about what a student knows, understands and is able to do is used by both the teacher and the learner to determine where learners are in their learning and how to achieve learning goals.
The Assessment is done during the formulation of instructional objectives. It is used to decide the entering behaviours of the learner in a particular course or programme. It takes place before the commencement of the programme.
The goal of formative assessment is to gather feedback that can be used by the instructor and the students to guide improvements in the ongoing teaching and learning context. These are low stakes assessments for students and instructors.
A-Formative Assessment provides the teacher feedback regarding the efficiency of the teaching methods, so that the teaching can be improved.
B- To provide clues to the effectiveness of the course content and teaching materials.
C- It is used in determining the mastery level of the learner and the remedy to make.
D-. To provide feedback regarding the students’ progress, by finding out the learning gaps and the weak points.
Assessment FOR learning embeds assessment processes throughout the teaching and learning process to constantly adjust instructional strategy. While it can include test data, it also addresses other quantitative and even qualitative data, and even encompasses a great deal of anecdotal and descriptive data.
Teachers’ Roles in Assessment for Learning:
In Assessment for Learning, teachers use assessment as an investigable tool to find out as much as they can about what their students know and can do, and what confusions, preconceptions, or gaps they might have.
The wide variety of information that teachers collect about students’ learning processes provides the basis for determining what they need to do next to move student learning forward. It provides the basis for providing descriptive feedback for students and deciding on groupings, instructional strategies, and resources.”
Teachers also use assessment for learning to enhance students’ motivation and commitment to learning. When teachers commit to learning as the focus of assessment, they change the classroom culture to one of student success.
Assessment for Learning offers an alternative perspective to traditional assessment in schools. Simply put, Assessment for Learning shifts the emphasis from summative to formative assessment, from making judgments to creating descriptions that can be used in the service of the next stage of learning.
When they are doing Assessment for Learning, teachers collect a wide range of data so that they can modify the learning work for their students. They craft assessment tasks that open a window on what students know and can do already and use the insights that come from the process to design the next steps in observation, worksheets, questioning in class, student-teacher conferences or whatever mechanism is likely to give them information that will be useful for their planning and teaching.
Marking is not designed to make comparative judgments among the students but to highlight each students’ strengths and weaknesses and provide them with feedback that will further their learning. Clearly, teachers are the central characters in Assessment for Learning as well, but their role is quite different from that in the prior approach. In Assessment for Learning, they use their personal knowledge of the students and their understanding of the context of the assessment and the curriculum targets to identify particular learning needs.
Assessment for learning happens in the middle of learning, often more than once, rather that at the end. It is interactive, with teachers providing assistance as part of the assessment. It helps teachers provide the feedback to scaffold next steps. And it depends on teachers’ diagnostic skills to make it work.
Record keeping in this approach
Students and teachers decide (often together) about the important evidence of learning and how it should be organized and kept. Students routinely reflect on their work and make judgments about how they can capitalise on what they have done already. Comparison with others is almost irrelevant. Instead, the critical reference points are the student’s own prior work and the aspirations and targets for continued learning.
Record keeping in this approach may include a grade book, but the records on which teachers rely are things like checklists of student’s progress against expectations, artefacts, portfolios of students work over time, and worksheets to trace the progression of students along the learning continuum.
Teachers also use assessment for learning to enhance students’ motivation and commitment to learning. When teachers commit to learning as the focus of assessment, they change the classroom culture to one of student success.
Class room activities for promoting Assessment for learning
There are a number of classroom strategies that are particularly effective in promoting formative assessment . Assessment for Learning activities are:
- Effective questioning
Questioning is used not only as a pedagogical tool but also as a deliberate way for the teacher to find out what students know, understand and are able to do. - Providing effective teacher feedback
Effective teacher feedback focuses on established success criteria and tells the students what they have achieved and where they need to improve. Importantly, the feedback provides specific suggestions about how that improvement might be achieved. - Establishing peer feedback
Peer feedback occurs when a student uses established success criteria to tell another student what they have achieved and where improvement is necessary. Again, the feedback provides specific suggestions to help achieve improvement. - Encouraging self-assessment
Student self-assessment encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning. It incorporates self-monitoring, self-assessment and self-evaluation.
Assessment for Learning and student
Through this process students are able to learn about themselves as learners and become aware of how they learn – become mega cognitive (knowledge of one’s own thought processes.
Students reflect on their work on a regular basis, usually through self and peer assessment and decide (often with the help of the teacher, particularly in the early stages) what their next learning will be.
Students understand exactly what they are to learn, what is expected of them and are given feedback and advice on how to improve their work. Through this process students are able to learn about themselves as learners and become aware of how they learn – become megacognitive (knowledge of one’s own thought processes).
Students reflect on their work on a regular basis, usually through self and peer assessment and decide (often with the help of the teacher, particularly in the early stages) what their next learning will be.
Diagnostic Assessment
Diagnostic Assessment is another kind of evaluation which is more closely related to formative than the summative Assessment . In fact it is to be carried out along with formative evaluation in the class.
This type of assessment is carried out most of the time as a follow up Assessment to formative Assessment . As a teacher, you have used formative Assessment to identify some weaknesses in your students. You have also applied some corrective measures which have not showed success. These diagnostic tests can be in the form of achievement tests, performance test, self rating, interviews observations, etc.
The purpose of diagnostic Assessment
A- find out the underlying cause of weaknesses in a student’s learning, prior to instruction in order to prepare the student properly for higher level of achievement.
B-It is relevant to know the entering behaviour of the students i.e, to know the readiness to learning
C- To know about the basic skills and information required for continuing the new learning. Secondly, which will help in knowing the level to which the students already have learnt a particular unit.
D- Helping the teacher to decide whether the instruction she is going to impart will turn out to be mere repetition, or will be an advance in knowledge.
E- To know that advanced learning prove to be interesting for the students whereas repetition may distract them, causing indiscipline in class.
E- Helps the teacher to classify students according to their level of mastery , which help him/her to work out a remedial programme for the low achievers and slow learners.
F- To pinpoint the symptoms of the learning disorders in physical, emotional or social areas
Difference between Formative and Summative assessment
Formative is essential assessment for taking a decision in the pre-active phase, while summative assessment is conducted at the end of the educational programme it is retro-active in nature and provides a basis of accountability.
With reference to educational achievement, the difference between formative and summative assessment is very clear. In formative assessment the evaluation of achievement of a student is done regularly ,and it provide feedback to both student and teacher .On the contrary, in summative assessment a teacher conducts the evaluation through six monthly or annual examination for the entire achievement .
Formative assessment is helpful in taking short-term decisions, while summative assessment is helpful in taking long term decisions.
Under formative assessment a teacher plays an active role in every aspect of educational programme in terms of construction of test etc, while in summative assessment teacher does not involve himself in any sort of construction of test programme
Formative assessment is used to locate different merits and limitations of different areas of educational programme. By summative assessment , students are discriminated on the basis of their achievement results and their relative position is determined on the basis of their ability and quality.
