What is Formative Assessment?
“An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information to be used as feedback by teachers, and by their pupils in assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt teaching work to meet learning needs” (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2003:2).
“The process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning” (Bell & Cowie, 2000: 536).
“ Formative assessment is defined as assessment carried out during the instructional process for the purpose of improving teaching or learning” (Shepard, Hammerness, Darling-Hammond & Rust, 2005:275).
“Formative assessment is concerned with how judgments about the quality of student responses (performances, pieces, or works) can be used to shape and improve the student’s competence by short-circuiting the randomness and inefficiency of trial and error learning” (Sadler, 1989:120).
“Formative assessment refers to frequent, interactive assessments of student progress and understanding to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately” (OECD, 2005: 21).
Formative assessment “takes place day by day and allows the teacher and the student to adapt their respective actions to the teaching/learning situation in question” (Audibert, 1980:62,translated by Allal & Lopez, 2005:244).
“Assessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (Assessment Reform Group, 2002:1-2).
“Formative assessment is all about decision-making. Those decisions made by teachers and students, invariably revolve around a two part question: Is an adjustment needed, and, if so, what should that adjustment be?” (Popham, 2008:23).
ReferencesAllal, L., & Lopez, L. M. (2005). Formative assessment of learning: A review of publications in French. In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Ed.), Formative assessment: Improving learning in secondary classrooms. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation.
Assessment Reform Group (2002). Testing, motivation, and learning. University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. Cambridge, UK.
Bell, B., & Cowie, B. (2000). The characteristics of formative assessment in science education. New York, NY: John Wiley.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marhsla, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Working inside the black box: assessment for learning in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(1), 9-21.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2005). Formative assessment: Improving student learning in secondary classrooms. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation.
Popham, W.J., (2008). Transformative assessment. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Sadler, D.R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18 (2), 119-144.
Shepard, L., Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., & Rust, F. (2005). Assessment. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 275-326). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
