Essay On Formative And Summative Assessment

According to Moss (2012, p. 235), “assessment is a process of collecting and interpreting evidence of student progress to inform reasoned judgments about what a student or group of students knows relative to the identified learning goals” and the process by which the assessment is carried out solely depends on the purpose of the assessment. In order to carry out a quality assessment, Clarke (2014) states that five key points must be considered when constructing an assessment and include clear purpose, clear targets, sound design, effective communication and students involvement. When planning an assessment the first key point, clear purpose, is of significant importance as understanding the types of assessment processes and the results they will obtain will lead to generating an appropriate purpose for the assessment. Formative and summative assessment, also known as assessment for learning and assessment of learning are the two main methods of

(2010) states that while there are some positive attributes to standardised testing such as improving test scores, encouraging higher-level thinking and providing feedback to students, there are also a number of negative effects. These negative effects involve narrowing of the curriculum so that the focus is mainly on test content causing teachers assessments to become more summative rather than formative, incresed stress and anxiety on students and incresed dropout rates amoung lower achieving students.

While this form of ‘achievement’ test can have very negative effects on students in lower secondary education, Moss (2012) suggests that older students in secondary education respond positively to summative assessments as they are able to learn during the assessment process and they also find the work motivating. It appears that the main issue with standarised testing lies within lower secondary education and the impact it has on students not just within the classroom and nationally but also