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Summative Vs Formative Assessment: All You Need To know

Formative Vs. Summative Assessment

Assessment includes everything from nationwide accountability tests to local learners’ evaluations to everyday classroom quizzes.

Generally speaking, the assessment may be formative or summative.

Table of Contents

Summative assessment

Summative assessment is used to assess student learning at the end of a unit of instruction by comparing it to a standard or benchmark.

assessment

This type of assessment is also known as the assessment of learning. Learners may be assessed probably at the end of a semester or academic year or even at the end of a chapter or a unit. In summative assessment, students are expected to reproduce discrete language items from memory. 

Summative assessment is a formal type of testing the results of which are used to yield a school report and to determine what students know and do not know.

Common features of summative assessment

Common features of summative assessment are the following.

  • A summative assessment is given periodically.
  • It is a means to gauge, at a particular point in time, students’ learning relative to content standards.
  • Because it is spread out and occurs after instruction, every few weeks, months, or once a year, summative assessments are tools to help evaluate the effectiveness of programs, school improvement goals, alignment of curriculum, or student placement in specific programs.

Examples of summative assessment

Examples of summative assessment include:

  • Nationwide assessments
  • District  assessments
  • End-of-unit or chapter tests
  • End-of-term or semester exams

Summative assessments occur a long way after learning and teaching. It does not provide information at the classroom level to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process. Hence the need for a different kind of assessment, namely formative assessment.

Advantages and disadvantages of summative assessment

Pros

  • Summative assessment may provide straightforward and invaluable results for teachers to analyze.
  • It provides information on teaching and learning and whether the course teaches what it is supposed to teach. In other words, this type of evaluation measures the effectiveness of educational programs.
  • Grades or reports can be used in the college admission process. 
  • This assessment satisfies the needs of the students who like to see evidence of their achievement.

Cons

  • This type of assessment does not necessarily provide a clear picture of an individual’s overall progress or even their full potential.
  • Students may be hindered by the fear and stress of physically sitting for a test.
  • Some students get demotivated when they fail to achieve the desired results This leads to low self-esteem.
  • Since the summative assessment is sometimes scheduled at the end of a course, there is no way to recover because the results are irreversible. 

Formative assessment

The purpose of formative assessment is to track student progress and provide ongoing feedback that teachers and students can use to improve their teaching and learning.

This assessment is also referred to as assessment for learning or ongoing assessment. It is part of the instructional process.

We can think of formative assessment as “practice.” We do not hold students accountable in school reports for skills and concepts they have just been introduced to or are learning.

It provides a more positive experience for learners and can also be invaluable for us as teachers, to see if our lesson objectives have been attained and our overall goals have been achieved.

It can also help us to assess student strengths and weaknesses and give us a strong indication as to which type of activities students like and dislike.

testing, assessment, and evaluation
testing, assessment, and evaluation

Common features of formative assessment

Formative assessment is also called educative assessment, ongoing, or classroom assessment. Here are the main features of formative assessment.

  • It is an assessment for learning rather than an assessment of learning.
  • We do not hold children accountable for abilities and concepts that they have just been introduced to or are acquiring.
  • Formative assessment is more valuable for day-to-day teaching when it is used to adapt the teaching to meet students’ needs.
  • It helps teachers to monitor their students’ progress and to modify the instruction accordingly.
  • It also helps students to monitor their progress as they get feedback from their peers and the teacher.
  • Students also find the opportunity to revise and refine their thinking by means of formative assessment.

Examples of formative assessment

Here are some examples of formative assessment:

  • Pre-class review
    Questions and answers to review the previous lesson. Asking learners to recall what they learned the previous week or even the day before might provide information about their progress.
  • Summary
    Asking students to summarize the lesson may both boost learning and inform the teacher of what has been retained.
  • Survey
    Completing a short survey and to-the-point survey to highlight what has been learned and what has been overlooked.
  • Bullet lists
    Inviting students to list the five main points they learned from the lesson may give valuable information that learning has taken place.
  • Quizzes
    A quiz may involve students showing evidence that they have learned the main point of the lesson. Quizzes don’t have to take too much time. They may include multiple-choice questions, gap-filling exercises, matching tasks, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages of formative assessment

Pros

  • Formative assessments give teachers immediate feedback. This allows them to see to what extent learners have understood the topic and adapt their teaching approaches and curriculum accordingly.
  • Formative assessments can also motivate students to participate and improve student cooperation.
  • Unlike summative tests, this sort of evaluation gives teachers a more realistic picture of what kids are learning, not simply what they can recall in a test, even students who “test poorly.”
  • Most importantly, formative evaluations are powerful tools for personalizing learning as we have reliable information about each learner.

Cons

  • Formative assessments have the disadvantage of being time-consuming. It takes too much time to assess students’ understanding multiple times than it does to provide a single test at the end of a lesson or unit.
  • Formative assessment is energy-consuming. Teachers have to make a lot of effort preparing, designing, and correcting formative tests and quizzes.
  • The more time spent on formative evaluations, the less time is available for instruction.
  • Some students expect to get grades and are not interested in assessments that do not reward them with earning more points. This may demotivate them.

The importance of formative and summative assessments

Some teachers contend that overuse of any kind of testing may hinder the very process of learning, claiming that we shouldn’t teach to the test but rather teach to the standards. While this is true, we can not deny the importance of assessment in collecting information about learners.

The more information we have about students, the clearer the picture we have of their achievements and the problems they may have. Hence the utility of summative and formative assessment.

Both formative and summative evaluations are equally of paramount importance and are an integral part of information gathering in any balanced assessment system. Teachers should not depend too much on one or the other. Otherwise, the reality of student achievement in your classroom becomes blurry.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, information gathering about students includes different kinds of evaluation. Summative assessment is an overall evaluation carried out at the end of a term, chapter, or unit. By contrast, formative assessment is an ongoing evaluation. While the summative assessment is viewed as an assessment of learning, formative assessment can be seen as an assessment for learning.  Both forms of evaluation are important in teaching adjustments, determining priorities, and putting learners’ needs and interests first.

See also a glossary of assessment terminology


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