Classroom Based Assessment, Formative Assessment, Summative Assessment

Singapore has earned accolades as one of the leading education systems in the world, based on its record in international assessments, including TIMSS and PISA. This has contributed to the entrenchment of ‘assessment’ becoming an institutional authority of standards, teaching (performativity) and classroom learning. It is against, and amidst such contexts, that this article traces how the notion and discourse of formative assessment and Assessment for Learning (AfL) are widely introduced and used formally across all Singaporean schools, particularly after a recent introduction of new ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ policies. We argue that the very institutional authority of successful high-stake examination results, which served as critical standards of performativity of teaching and learning in the classroom, is being challenged. The changing assessment context of Singaporean schools, therefore serves as an interesting case study site for studying how formative assessment and AfL can be adapted and understood when ‘learning’ is already seen to be successful.

Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585176.2014.970207#.VKdU6rkcRjo

Two approaches to self-assessment are optimal, because they include the assessment criteria: rubrics and scripts. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of rubrics and scripts on self-regulation, performance and self-efficacy. A total of 69 pre-service teachers participated in the study. During a semester the participants were trained to design multimedia material in three experimental conditions (rubrics, scripts and control). Results showed that students using the scripts had higher levels of learning self-regulation after the intervention, whereas rubrics decreased performance/avoidance self-regulation (negative self-regulatory actions detrimental to learning). No significant effects were found for students’ performance or self-efficacy. Students preferred the use of rubrics to the use of scripts.

A particular framework of teachers’ conceptions about assessment in school is presented. Fifty teachers of primary and secondary school were interviewed. Results of a qualitative analysis allowed building a model of conceptions of assessment. This model comprises four dimensions about the effects of assessment on: teaching, learning, accountability of teachers and schools to different audiences and stakeholders, and the certification of achievement. These conceptions, unequally distributed, show some tendencies that might be linked to the intrinsic tension between the by-default co-occurrence of both pedagogic and societal functions of assessment in school, and to difficulties of implementing assessment for learning practices.► The functions of assessment in school (improving educational processes and accountability of teachers’ and learners’) are in a constant, inherent and inevitable tension. ► Teachers’ conceptions about assessment must be a point of departure for any proposal of teacher education for assessment. ► Teachers’ conceptions about assessment of assessment consider assessment effects on teaching as something separated from assessment effects on learning. ► Teachers’ conceptions about assessment differ with regard to the external evaluation established in the educational system.

Students learning outcomes are bound to improve if the practice of formative assessment
is seen as a vital component of the School Based Assessment in the classroom. In the
classroom, formative assessment plays a critical role as it provides information to be used
as feedback to adjust the teaching and learning activities in which students and teachers are
engaged. The study investigated public basic schoolteachers’ perceptions and formative
assessment practices in the Cape Coast Metropolis of Ghana. The study employed the
descriptive survey as well as the multistage sampling procedure to select 300 teachers from
the six (6) circuits in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Data were analyzed using frequencies,
percentages, means, standard deviations, and Pearson product-moment correlation
coefficient. The results showed that basic schoolteachers have positive perceptions of the
usefulness of formative assessment in the classroom. It was also revealed that dominant
practices that basic school teachers usually engaged in included ensuring effective class
participation, discussing feedback with students, use of question and answer during
instruction, making formative use of summative assessments, giving students home
assignments, and engaging students in activities like role play. Results further indicated a
statistically significant positive relationship between basic teachers’ perceptions and their
formative assessment practices. It is recommended that, short-term courses, workshops,
seminars and, other necessary in-service training activities should be organized by the
Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Cape Coast Metropolitan Directorate of Education
for basic schoolteachers. In these courses, teachers could be exposed to other formative
assessment curriculum and application practices, which they can then adopt to enhance
students learning with exit/admit slips, four corners, individual whiteboards and kinesthetic
assessments.

Course description
This is a foundation course on language testing for Indian ESL teachers who have to engage with tests and assessments as part of their teaching schedule. The course aims to introduce pre and in-service teachers with the key terms in tests and assessments, give a historical overview of development of English language tests and the critical issues involved in designing tests and evaluating learners in a valid and ethical manner. The course is also aimed at giving practical steps and techniques to design tests by fulfilling the five principles of assessment and train teachers to systematically evaluate and provide meaningful feedback to ESL learners. The course concludes with a discussion on the alternative ways of assessing to help teachers get a comprehensive view of ESL learners’ language capacities as closely related to their real life use of the second language.
Course objectives
• Introduce key terms of tests and assessment
• Present the history of language tests as they developed in line with the
  major language teaching methods and approaches
• Critically engage teachers to design valid and ethical tests
• Prepare teachers to design and assess ESL learners in class
• Introduce alternative methods of assessment for classroom purposes

This paper reviews current known issues in student self-assessment (SSA) and identifies five topics that need further research: (1) SSA typologies, (2) accuracy, (3) role of expertise, (4) SSA and teacher/curricular expectations, and (5) effects of SSA for different students. Five SSA typologies were identified showing that there are different conceptions on the SSA components but the field still uses SSA quite uniformly. A significant amount of research has been devoted to SSA accuracy, and there is a great deal we know about it. Factors that influence accuracy and implications for teaching are examined, with consideration that students’ expertise on the task at hand might be an important prerequisite for accurate self-assessment. Additionally, the idea that SSA should also consider the students’ expectations about their learning is reflected upon. Finally, we explored how SSA works for different types of students and the challenges of helping lower performers. This paper sheds light on SSA research needs to address the known unknowns in this field.

This paper explores the current assessment method used in a Photography BTEC course. It reveals the role of formative and summative assessment methods in Photography. It identifies the differences between the use of sketchbooks, PowerPoint and blogs to track learner progress and for receiving feedback. The research takes into account the views of the learners and their tutors and offers an insight into teaching and learning styles. The aim of the paper is to discover which assessment method best suits Photography and can possibly raise the standards of teaching and learning in the UK.

Assessment has always been a crucial part of education. This study explored teachers' general perceptions of classroom-based assessment (CBA) through focus group interviews conducted at the English Department of a public university in Vietnam. The results showed that the participants had a relatively clear idea of the basic principles of CBA and recognized its usefulness, especially the benefits of involving their students in the assessment process. It also shed light to some hidden corners of teachers' perceptions and some obstacles hindering their CBA practices. The study then called for due attention from both educational administrators and teachers to be paid to improve the perceptions of CBA in current context.

In this paper, we introduce the Steps to English Proficiency (STEP) language assessment framework, discuss key issues related to the development of English proficiency descriptor scales for school-aged English Language Learners, and reflect on challenges to validating the scales. In particular, we address how the implementation of a language assessment framework for use in educational contexts requires attention to not only the content of performance descriptors, but also to the practices and processes of language assessment in schools, and the challenges of aligning language proficiency performance scales with curriculum and instruction in schooling.

With the articulation of new ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ initiatives in Singaporean schools, a new standard of conceptualising and enacting classroom assessment is expected of Singaporean teachers. This paper draws on findings from a larger study of ‘high-achieving’ Singaporean teachers’ deliberations and transactions of assessment activities. The use of case studies as a central methodology to investigate a contemporary phenomenon of education assessment extends the studies of conceptions and implementation of new classroom assessment practices in Anglophone and Western European countries. The findings from one of the ‘high-achieving’ case-study Singaporean teachers reveal that any quality assurance framework or guideline for evaluating teachers’ assessment practices needs to be sensitive to their intentions, meaning and context of teaching.

Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191491X13000758

Over the last few years, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has been advocating the development of gurobaru-jinzai, or ‘global human resources’. This is a band of intellectually savvy and internationally minded young men and women who are able to communicate across cultural divides and promote Japanese interests on the world stage. The success or failure of this policy will in no small part be determined by how well the various components of the educational system are aligned towards that goal. In particular, the ways in which assessment is conceptualized and practiced is vitally important. A testing and examination system that consistently rewards memorization and repetition of learned facts will stifle the independence, creativity, and collaboration skills that MEXT hopes to develop. Rather, the development of these skills is best facilitated through formative assessment processes, which have until now been lacking within secondary and higher education in Japan. Instead there has been an inordinate focus on summative assessment and high stakes testing within the education system. This paper will argue for the importance of formative assessment in shaping learners into the top global performers desired by MEXT, and suggest some steps to be taken towards a contextually-based formative assessment practice.

Drawing on the PISA 2009 US dataset, this study examines the relationship between formative assessment and students’ reading achievement using a structural equation modeling approach. We find that formative assessment is positively related to students’ reading achievement directly and indirectly (through teacher–student relationship and attitude toward reading) for all students. The direct relationship between formative assessment and reading achievement is significantly stronger for Black students than for White students, whether or not student SES, gender, and school mean SES are controlled for. The total relationship (the direct plus the indirect relationship) between formative assessment and reading achievement also appears to be stronger for Black students than for White students; however, the difference is not statistically significant whether or not we control for covariates. No significant difference is found between White and Hispanic students in terms of the direct and the total relationship between formative assessment and reading achievement. Using a nationally representative dataset, this study provides empirical evidence that formative assessment is positively related to students’ reading achievement in general. In addition, this study provides preliminary evidence to show the potential of formative assessment to help reduce achievement gaps between Black and White students. The implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.

The assessment reform in Algeria is still in its embryonic stage despite the wide use of self-assessment in EFL classrooms. Little empirical research is done on how to integrate formative assessment in Higher Education. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the development of students' self-assessment by addressing the gap found in teachers' current assessment practices. Specifically, this paper explores teachers' classroom assessment practices in the English department of Bejaia University, Algeria and their attitudes and beliefs about students' self-assessment in academic writing. The study involved fourteen Algerian teachers of EFL writing who developed writing logs in which issues related to their attitudes and experiences about assessment in general and self-assessment in particular were addressed. Results permitted to frame self-assessment from teachers' perspective and identify a range of factors responsible for the development of this process in EFL classrooms. In an attempt to facilitate the integration of self-assessment into EFL writing instruction and reinforce the assessment reform, we suggested a number of implications.

Abstract
Internal assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning in Social Studies in the Colleges of Education in
Ghana and is beneficial to both students and tutors if use formatively. It is therefore important for teachers to be
abreast with formative assessment techniques and how to use them in their classroom activities in order to win back
public confidence. This could be achieved if, tutors try to follow the laid down procedures in administering formative
assessment in their colleges. There is therefore the need to conduct a study into formative assessment techniques
tutors use to assess teacher-trainees learning in Social Studies.Case study research design was used. The study was
carried out in three Colleges of Education in Central Region of Ghana. The data were used together to form one case.
Both the tutors and the colleges were purposively and conveniently selected for the study. Interview guide and
classroom observation checklists were administered to nine (9) Social Studies tutors of Colleges of Education.The
research found out that due to hasty nature in formulating formative assessment and scoring, tutors laid emphasis on
cognitive domain to the neglect of affective and psychomotor domains which are also of paramount importance.
Formative assessment should cover the three learning domains but in setting and scoring questions importance is
attach to cognitive domain to the neglect of the affective and psychomotor domains. This make students pass through
the academic system without acquiring needed skills, values and attitudes that will enable them to right the wrong in
society using appropriate tools.

Recognition of the high prevalence nationwide of psychological trauma in children and adolescents, combined with increasing awareness of the far-reaching adverse consequences of childhood trauma, have led to calls to develop a trauma-informed mental health workforce. We describe the initial pilot test of the Core Concepts portion of the Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma, as conducted in a large graduate school of social work. The Core Curriculum uses detailed case vignettes of trauma-exposed youth and families, combined with problem-based learning methods, to promote two primary learning aims: (1) to enhance the development of foundational trauma-related conceptual knowledge, and (2) to accelerate the acquisition of trauma-informed clinical reasoning and clinical judgment. Vignettes are presented in segments to simulate gathering, organizing, drawing meaning from, and making decisions based on information in professional practice. After each segment, the facilitator helps learners to summarize relevant facts, develop hunches and hypotheses, identify learning issues, and plan next steps. The Curriculum was very favorably received by students and was associated with marked increases in self-efficacy in applying the Core Concepts to work with trauma-exposed youth and families. We discuss ways in which the Curriculum can be used, especially as a foundation for training in specific evidence-based treatment protocols, to help prepare a national mental health workforce capable of implementing trauma-informed evidence-based practice.

Full citation: Layne, C.M., Ghosh Ippen, C., Strand, V., Stuber, M., Abramovitz, R., Reyes, G., Amaya-Jackson, L., Ross, L., Curtis, A., Lipscomb, A., & Pynoos, R.S. (2011). The Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma: A tool for training a trauma-informed workforce. Psychological trauma: Theory, research, practice, and policy, 3, 243-252. Doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025039

The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of rubrics and self-assessment scripts on self-regulation, performance, self-efficacy, tool perceived help and goal activation. A total of 85 university students enrolled in a psychology course -Motivation and Emotion- participated. During a semester, they summarized texts and designed conceptual maps of each topic unit with the help of either rubrics or scripts. Self-regulation, self-efficacy, tool perceived help and goal activation were measured through questionnaires. Performance was measured through the evaluation of the conceptual maps and summaries. Results showed that the use of rubrics increased performance, decreased the performance/avoidance self-regulation, were better liked by the students and activated learning goals. No significant differences were found for self-efficacy. Results are mostly in line with previous research being the theoretical and educational implications discussed in the article.

The present paper illustrates experience of administering peer assessment, self assessment and quiz as classroom assessment strategies in an integrated way. These strategies can embed with learning activities in a learning environment which offers collaboration and cooperation. Peer assessment and self assessment are two effective strategies for encouraging students to involve in the learning process for improving their performance. Through the critical review of the work done by themselves, the students will be able to recognise the strong as well as weak areas of their learning during the activity. Here they are assessing critically both what and how they are learning. Even though most quiz programmes are summative in nature, one can innovate it by changing the procedure as an effective formative assessment strategy. This is also known as formative use of summative assessment. Here quiz has been used in the form of a group game to assess student’s performance. It will help the teacher to assess the ability of each student to frame questions, derive the answers in group setting, ability to ask and respond to the questions. The whole process will help the teacher to get a clear idea about the level of performance of individual students in a particular topic. The procedure followed by the teacher and the feedback received from the students about these different strategies are elaborated in this article.

This paper presents some of the results of a broader research project on how formative assessment affects the development of specific and generic competences in teacher training subjects at higher education level. The paper describes and discusses the impact of participatory and non-participatory assessment techniques on the attainment of learning outcomes in four different subjects. The sample was comprised of students (n=118) on teacher training bachelor's degrees at the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia. Data were gathered on the lecturers' activities in each subject and on the students' final grades. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to assess the effect of formative assessment on students' final grades for a subject. Statistical analysis shows that students who took subjects that were assessed by participatory techniques had a significantly (p<0.001) higher average final grade than those who had not been assessed in this way. The discussion of this paper is based on other researches which argue that the improvement of students' learning outcomes can arise from an improved learning process.

Teachers and teacher educators globally engage with assessment activities for a third of their time in their teaching career (White 2012). Yet they are not given training in assessment practices so as to develop their knowldge and skill of language assessment literacy (Davies 2008). This introductory presentation on assessment literacy using the five principles of assessment (Brown and Abeywickrama 2011) and Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwol, 2002) is to raise Indian teachers' awareness on usefulness and necessity of gaining knowledge and expertise in language assessment literacy for both content and proficiency assessment. It also addresses how to consciously move away from discrete point memory based testing to performance based assessment in order to counter the challenges of Covid pandemic that has currently engulfed us worldwide and left the teaching community with new challenges to instruct and track learning by keeping the students motivated beyond the physical realms of the comfort of the physical space of the classroom, the hiterto primary site of learning.

Despite their richness, student portfolios and other assessment records see little use beyond the individual teacher. The current system also limits use of teacher-gathered assessments by other interested parties. For school-related decisions, standardized test scores should be considered in conjunction with teachers' assessments. (MLH)

Recently, calls for alternative assessments have come from both evaluation and curriculum specialists (Shepard. 1988; Valencia, McGinley, & Pearson, 1990).  To date, however, articles that encourage teachers to collect information far outnumber descriptions of teachers’ abilities to integrate alternative assessments into an already full agenda. The first purpose of this project was to describe the use of alternative assessments by teachers in contexts where such are encouraged but not mandated.
The second purpose was to consider parents’ views of standardized and alternative assessments. The voices of parents are typically heard after school practices change, not as part of the change. Alternative assessments represent a drastic change in the information the public has received over the last several decades about school out comes. The study employed a qualitative methodology, with case studies of two class rooms conducted.

Quality communication between faculty and students in higher education is critical and considerably influences students' intellectual growth, but it is not easy to achieve, particularly when faculty teach large lecture courses.

A feedback tool that provides substantive message templates for instructors, PassNote also includes links to specific resources that might help students with various tasks.

PassNote's development focused on ease of use, openness (no login), and the ability to track usage to inform both tool improvement and future functionality.

In this chapter we argue for a stronger role for teacher-based assessment of student performance in reading and writing, and explore concepts and research relevant to that theme. We first review the distinctions between external and internal assessment and the tensions that these conflicting forces create for teachers. Next, we present models of literacy curriculum and of classroom assessment that undergird our analysis, focusing specifically on reading and writing in the elementary grades.  In the following two sections we examine the nature and outcomes of external and internal assessment and conclude with thoughts about future directions for literacy assessment in research, practice, professional development, and policy.

In evaluating teachers’ instructional decisions during instruction, it is clear that the nature of their elicitation is crucial for student learning. When instructional decisions are informed by information about students’ conceptual understanding, significant learning is possible. This article examined the elicitation practices of two high school science teachers who indicated that they made instructional decisions based on the elicited evidence of students’ knowledge but whose elicitation practices were characteristic of low-level elicitation. The teachers focused on students’ responses that used canonical terms and expressed acceptable knowledge. The teachers demonstrated low-level
responsiveness because they did not have full access to students’ knowledge. The elicited evidence of students’ knowledge that was used in making instructional decisions was not representative of students’ conceptual understanding. There was, thus, a mismatch between the teachers’ perspectives about their formative assessment practice and what is considered effective formative assessment.