Implementing Authentic Formative Assessment to Improve Student Learning (original) (raw)
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The Role of Leadership and Culture in Creating Meaningful Assessment: A Mixed Methods Case Study
Innovative Higher Education, 2015
With increased demands for institutional accountability and improved student learning, involvement in assessment has become a fundamental role of higher education faculty (Rhodes, 2010). However, faculty members and administrators often question whether assessment efforts do indeed improve student learning . This mixed methods case study of a faculty inquiry project explored how factors linked to organizational context (Kezar, 2013) are related to commitment to assessment and to use of assessment data by faculty members. Results indicated key best practices, such as developing faculty leaders and communities of practice to exchange ideas. The study provides insights for institutional administrators and faculty members seeking to develop a culture of assessment.
Purpose -The focus of this research is to understand the role of the district superintendent, the building principal, and the school leadership team of classroom teachers as catalysts for innovation in instruction and classroom assessment. School characteristics and structures designed to specifically support professional learning communities are to be analyzed, and the responsibility teachers take for student learning using formative assessment is evaluated. Design/methodology/approach -The setting for the study is a small, Midwestern high school in the USA. The high school has a staff of 38 teachers, 15 of whom are on the Formative Assessment Building Leadership Team. The high school principal and district superintendent also participated in the study. The study took the form of a qualitative case study. The data sources were transcripts and artifacts from eight months of interviews, and building-wide teacher meetings. Professional development inservices were also analyzed. Findings -The principal served as a catalyst for building teacher knowledge and implementation of formative assessment practices. The success of the change initiative hinged on relationships between teachers and school leaders. Teachers used assessment in the service of student learning. Research limitations/implications -Because this is a case study, the findings themselves are not designed to be generalizable to other contexts. Practical implications -Understanding the role school leadership will play in the implementation of a new State-wide policy initiative for curriculum improvement is critical to uncovering the capacity required for formative assessment to be successfully implemented on a large scale. Social implications -There has been research in the field of educational measurement in the past few years on the use of formative assessments to raise standards of achievement and to lead to higher quality learning. This is an analysis of the complex dynamic between school leaders and teachers in the service of implementing assessment for learning. Originality/value -The implementation of formative assessment on a large scale is a concern not only in the State in this research study, but in schools around the country. An exploration of the leadership capacity needed to originate and sustain this school improvement initiative is novel to the field. This case study explores how a Midwestern US high school implemented a comprehensive formative assessment program by creating time in the schedule and space in the building for professional conversations about student achievement, which includes teaching, learning, and assessment. The focus of this research is to understand the evolving roles of the individuals on the school leadership team as a catalyst for innovation in instruction and classroom assessment. Without question, the implementation of a new formative assessment system in this school has required the The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
Cultural challenges to implementation of formative assessment in Saudi Arabia: An exploratory study
Medical Teacher, 2015
Background/Purpose: This study investigates challenges that students and faculty face to implement assessment for learning; and the activities, capabilities, enablers, and indicators which could impact performance. Method: The study is a mixed methods research, cross-sectional, exploratory study. The study was organized through two phases of data collection and analysis (QUAL ! quan). Based on qualitative focus group discussions (FGD), we first gathered data through field notes. Later, we engaged in analysis using techniques drawn from qualitative data including categorization, theme identification, and connection to existing literature. Based on this analysis, we developed a questionnaire that could provide quantitative measures based on the qualitative FGD. We then administered the questionnaire, and the quantitative data were analyzed to quantitatively test the qualitative findings. Twenty-four faculty and 142 students from the 4th and 5th clinical years participated voluntarily. Their perception of FA and the cultural challenges that hinder its adoption were evaluated through a FGD and a questionnaire.
Changing teaching through formative assessment: A Review
Bangladesh Medical Journal, 2016
The existence of a plethora of empirical evidence documenting the improvement of educational outcomes through the use of formative assessment is conventional wisdom within education. In reality, a limited body of scientifically based empirical evidence exists to support that formative assessment directly contributes to positive educational outcomes. The use of formative assessments, or other diagnostic efforts within classrooms, provides information that should help facilitate improved pedagogical practices and instructional outcomes. However, a review of the formative assessment literature revealed that there is no agreed upon lexicon with regard to formative assessment and suspect methodological approaches in the efforts to demonstrate positive effects that could be attributed to formative assessments. Thus, the purpose of this article was two-fold. First, the authors set out to clarify the terminology related to formative assessment and its usage. Finally, the article provides a ...
International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 2022
A good assessment system is one of the preconditions for quality education. Formative assessment is comparatively an emerging idea to assess the students throughout the academic year with the intention to identify and overcome the weaknesses of the students and enhance their learning outcome. Taking these into account, this study attempted to explore the teachers' perceptions of the use of formative assessment in enhancing teaching and learning in Bangladesh higher education. A mixed-method study was employed with survey and semi-structured interview as the data collection methods. 100 participants were randomly (simple random) selected for the survey, and 6 participants were purposively selected for the interviews. For analysing the data, descriptive analysis and content analysis were used. The findings of the study revealed majority of the participants agreed that formative assessment is crucial to enhance teaching and learning in Bangladeshi colleges. Nonetheless, there are some challenges like-teachers' biasness, shortage of teachers, large class, poor infrastructure, insufficient power supply, and heavy workload of the teachers. As a whole, this study will provide a fundamental ground for future research in formative assessment in Bangladeshi colleges specifically and for comparative study with other higher education institutions globally.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT HAS TO BE MADE FORMATIVE: IT DOES NOT WORK ITSELF
In principle, summative assessment (SA) and formative assessment FA are employed in educational settings for distinctly different purposes. The former is used mainly for administrative purposes and the latter for promoting students' academic competence and developing their self-learning skills. Strong evidence, however, could be traced in empirical research available suggesting that in some settings the difference between the two is virtually unobtrusive. This paper will highlight formative assessment processes in a Saudi public university. Besides, it will investigate the extent to which formative assessment proved formative in raising the standard of students' learning, and how it was dealt with differently from its summative counterpart. The findings of this study are based on a mixed method enquiry. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from English-major students of the university. A survey was distributed among 600 students; of whom 465 returned their responses. The numerical data were analysed using SPSS software for mean and standard deviation. In addition, eight individual and four focus-group interviews were conducted. For further triangulation of the data, eighteen lessons of five different teachers were observed. The qualitative data were analysed employing a qualitative data analysis (QDA). The results indicated that, practically, there was no observable difference between how the students studied for the two kinds of assessment and how these different modes of assessment impacted on their learning. In addition, the two types of assessment were found to be dealt with in a highly similar fashion. Students did not receive adequate feedback. Therefore, the study has clear implications for the institutional approach toward formative assessment. Likewise, this critical state of affairs necessitates a complete overhaul in teachers and students' beliefs concerning formative assessment.
Standardized tests have been found in various settings strongly influencing students' learning processes as well as outcomes, but such tests have been reported being unhelpful in improving student learning. In contrast, formative assessment (FA) is employed to help students know the level of their learning during a course and allow them to increase the standard of their learning, through knowing their learning weaknesses, receiving informative feedback from their teachers and applying adequate learning strategies, in order to achieve the formulated goals of the course. A thorough examination of empirical published research in the field revealed that insightful studies in Saudi academic context are still awaited. Therefore, this exploratory study was an attempt to investigate consequential validity of formative assessment at a Saudi university. To examine the nature of the consequential validity, data were collected from 960 English-major students via a survey (of whom 465 responded), 18 classroom observations and 4 focus-group interviews. The data underwent both statistical and content analysis. The results showed that FA, in the context of this study, seriously lacks intended consequential validity—positive impact on students' learning. Besides, the data indicated a strong unintended consequential validity i.e., negative bearing of FA on what the students learnt, how they learnt it and the depth of their learning. Therefore, it is recommended that FA practices should be urgently revisited with expert understanding for the
Pakistan Journal of Applied Social Sciences
This article is drawn from PhD dissertation and the prime purpose of this research is to study the perspective of female university teachers regarding impact of formative assessment on learning at university level in Karachi (Pakistan) and to suggest the appropriate practices of formative assessment to enhance the learning. The scope of the study is limited to female faculty members of education in the universities in Karachi. The survey design, research strategy, was adopted for the study. The target population, for the study, was 136 female faculty members of education in the universities (public and private) in Karachi (Pakistan). Simple Random Sampling (SRS) design was adopted to select the universities as a unit of sampling and female faculty members of the same universities were the sample size. In this process 66 Female faculty members were selected as sample size from different eight (8) universities. The questionnaire was adopted as research instrument. Data was analyzed an...