Aug 19, 2021, Dinolab News

Assessment or evaluation, in the field of education, refers to examining and determining the process of students’ learning. It involves applying empirical knowledge to systematically document and monitor the progress of students towards the achievement of set learning objectives. Assessment can be carried out by directly monitoring the students or by examining a specific set of data and drawing conclusions from it.

Assessment, in education, has been broadly categorised into formative and summative assessments.
However, before moving on to formative and summative assessments, a pre-learning assessment is carried out in several cases to gauge the level of knowledge students have with respect to a specific topic or concept. This type of assessment is referred to as diagnostic assessment.

Some examples of diagnostic assessment tools are listed below:

• Brief and private interviews of students
• Pre-tests on specific contents to determine the ability of students
• Discussions on specific topics and prompting students to answer questions put on the class board
• Self-assessment tests that help students to identify their skills

A diagnostic assessment or test is designed to identify specific learning deficiencies of students so that specific measures can be taken to bridge such learning gaps before students proceed any further. This prevents intensive wastage of time and resources and saves misconceptions or misunderstandings.

Hence, the purpose of diagnostic assessments would be

• the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of students and
• determining the learning that has to be conducted to overcome said weaknesses.

The four primary functions of diagnostic assessments are as follows:

• Emphasizing and directing learning curriculum
• Guiding students in their education
• Encouraging students to participate in various learning activities
• Providing a sense of direction and motivating teachers

Various tests and quizzes assess the manner in which students are learning the material of coursework. Formative assessment comprises methods and tools that teachers use to judge students’ academic progress, their comprehensive abilities and learning needs during an ongoing lesson, unit or course.

The characteristics of formative assessment are given below:

• Formative assessment is collaborative in nature. This is because the learning progress of a student and the effectiveness of the teaching methods of teachers can be evaluated at the same time.
• Formative assessments are carried out during an ongoing course.
• The learning progress of students is not evaluated against any standardized set of data. Thus, formative assessment is a ‘fluid’ mode of assessment.
• This mode of assessment, eventually, compels both teachers and students to become wilful learners.

Formative assessment includes tests and quizzes that allow improvements in both the teacher’s instructions and the student’s learning during a course or a lesson. An assessment tool becomes ‘formative’ when it is used in an informative manner to deduce the necessary modifications required in the process of teaching and allow students to easily procure knowledge and skills. The following are some examples of formative assessment:

• Quizzes
• Classwork and homework
• Demonstration of understanding of a topic through a concept map
• Outlining the main idea of a unit or lesson through thought exchange
• Group works
• Surveys
• Peer reviews
• Class discussions
• Clicker questions
• Submitting work before the due date to get proper feedback from teachers

Maximum efficiency of formative assessments can be drawn by conducting these assessments regularly, either on the basis of a calendar (any day every week) or according to the lesson plans created by a teacher. Formative assessment allows more flexibility to the teachers as it does not include only tests. It also comprises hands-on activities, class games, group discussions, or presentations. An instructor is flexible to mix up activities and ask students to participate in such events to gauge their knowledge or skills.

During the implementation of formative assessment tools, teachers are instructed to

• foster discussions on the feedback obtained through a formative assessment tool and encourage students to confront their success and failures.
• ensure providing clear and concise feedback through one-on-one discussions or conferences to encourage the students to improve their weak areas.
• provide actionable steps to students to create multiple opportunities for them to meet the criteria for achieving success in a course or unit.
• establish relationships with students to boost their confidence and self-esteem and motivate them to improve their learning since cordial relations between teachers and students allow the closure of learning gaps and help students to meet their set learning objective.

The benefits or advantages of well-implemented formative assessment tools include the following:

• Regular monitoring of students allows the set learning objectives to be kept at the forefront. This facilitates the students to have clarified goals to achieve and also allows teachers to clear misconceptions or misunderstandings and close learning gaps before students move ahead in a course.
• Formative assessment tools help teachers to identify the needs and requirements of every student. This allows teachers to create a learning plan that would challenge and motivate students to improve themselves.
• Formative assessments provide feedback to both students and teachers on a regular basis. This allows students to identify their weaknesses and strengths to bridge the gap between their current status and their learning objectives.
• Formative assessments include application-based activities. These enable students to connect what they learn in classrooms to real-world problems.
• Feedback obtained through formative assessment help to promote personalised learning experiences. The analysis of this data highlights the modifications required in the teaching processes so as to benefit every student in coursework.
• Through formative assessment, students acquire skills to monitor and evaluate their own works. They take responsibility for their own works, meet their goals and review as well as rectify the mistakes on their own. This makes students independent and allows them to think autonomously.

There are disadvantages associated with formative assessment, which include the following:

• Conducting formative assessment on a daily, weekly or monthly basis is time- and resource-intensive. This is because gathering, analysing and reporting data and implementing new modifications and judging their efficiency is extremely time-consuming and require sufficient resources.
• Being time intensive, the process also becomes extremely tiresome.
• Carrying out and ending formative assessment successfully always requires well-trained professionals, who are not easy to find.
• Formative assessments have low-point values due to which students may not take it seriously and teachers misread the feedbacks obtained through such tests or quizzes.

In simpler words, the aim of formative assessment tools is to monitor the learning of students and provide feedback so that

• teachers can identify the learning gaps in their course work, identify the sections in which students are struggling to attain the learning objectives and address such problems by modifying their teaching methods or processes.

Thus, the steps taken by teachers would include clarify, elicit, interpret, and act.

1. ‘Clarify’ involves determining what students would learn during coursework and how can the students perceive what they have learned.
2. ‘Elicit’ refers to producing proof that shows what students have learned.
3. ‘Interpret’ involves evaluating the evidence or proofs generated to determine how students have progressed towards achieving learning the objectives of coursework.
4. In ‘act’, instructors take necessary instructional steps to fill any learning gaps and bring the students up to the mark where they should be at a point during a course.

• students can themselves identify their weak and strong areas so that they can work to improve themselves and gain confidence in their learning. Formative assessments motivate students to improve.

Summative assessment comprises methods designed to evaluate students. In simpler words, summative assessment determines the level of the knowledge of students at the end of a course or instructional unit by comparing it against standard data or guidelines.
Summative tests or quizzes focus on and emphasizes the outcome of a learning programme. These tools determine the efficacy of educational interventions and test students’ knowledge and skills, and their acquisition, imaginative, and creative power at the end of a specified course period.

The following are some examples of summative assessment:

• A final thesis or paper
• A final test, essay, or project
• A final recital or presentation
• College entrance examinations such as SATs, IGCSEs, NEET, JEE exams, etc.
• A research project
• Midterm or end-term exams

Summative assessment tests or quizzes are cumulative in nature and judge the long-term retention ability of students. These force the students to critically think and reflect on the information they picked up during an entire course. This determines how a student is prepared to enter the succeeding academic levels or employment world.

• Summative quizzing or tests are terminal in nature. These are conducted after the completion of an educational course or programme.
• These tests are also judgemental in nature as they evaluate the learning ability of students.
• The primary role of summative assessment is to determine the level of knowledge attainment of students. Hence, it considers evaluation as an end-product.
• These tests fail to point out the learning gaps of students and may or may not motivate students.

The weightage of summative assessments in terms of the total grade for an academic period is higher.
Thus, instructors should adopt the following recommendations for summative assessments:

• Constructing a table or using rubrics to establish expected performance criteria for an assignment or a test and detail out the outcomes of preceding expectations, meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations. This would guide students to complete their work and, later, evaluate it according to the set guidelines.
• Preparing questions for summative assessment that allow students to freely express their knowledge and creativity to demonstrate their understanding of the main concepts of their course.
• Creating summative assessment tools to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the broad coursework, establish connections between different skills they have acquired throughout the course, generate information according to the knowledge and skills they acquired, and expand the main idea of the course.
• Designing summative assessments in such a way that they involve blind grading to ensure that instructors focus on the quality of the solutions, assess students at the same level, and provide unbiased markings.

There are several advantages of summative assessment, some of which are summarized below:

• In summative assessment, students are evaluated through certain strategies, such as assignments, projects, or tests, at the end of a curriculum to aid teachers in understanding how students have grasped the basic concepts of a subject.
• Summative assessments help not only to determine the students’ learning growth and their attainment of the objectives but also to determine the effectiveness of educational programmes.
• The results of summative assessments of students are documented as academic records that serve as a major feature of the grading system and aid students in getting admission to colleges and universities.
• The positive results of summative assessments motivate students and boost their self-confidence, which is then reflected in their behavior in their future workplaces or other institutions.

There are also various disadvantages associated with summative assessment, some of which are listed below:

• The primary disadvantage is late rectification. Summative evaluation takes place at the end of a specific course, which does not allow students to deal with any misconceptions or pay attention to learning gaps in time.
• Negative results of summative assessment demotivate students, who then do not put effort to improve their knowledge and skills or work for their future academic progress.
• Summative assessment generates fear, anxiety, and nervousness among many participants since this is a year- or course-end evaluation.
• In most cases, summative assessment diverts students from improving their knowledge base to focussing more on scoring marks and improving their grades. This may or may not prove to be beneficial to their future endeavors.
• Conducting summative assessment may divert the teachers’ attention from developing or improving course content or curriculum and teaching practices to dedicating more time to evaluation.

The four primary functions of summative evaluation are crediting, certifying, promoting, and selecting.

• Crediting

Summative assessment tests or quizzes aid in gathering evidence to show that students have achieved the set learning objectives or goals at the end of a specific course or curriculum.

• Certifying

Certifying establishes that students are capable of performing a specific task or job successfully according to previously set instructions, rules, or standards.

• Promoting

Summative assessment tests and quizzes evaluate students and deem them suitable for elevation to the next higher academic level.

• Selecting

Finally, summative assessment aids in picking out students who are ready for further advancements in their academics. These students are suitable for other various courses after completing a specific course.

Assessment allows students as well as teachers to monitor the progress of the students towards achieving set learning objectives. However, the importance of the implementation of formative assessment include the following:

• It identifies misconceptions and learning gaps and figures out ways to fill the gaps.
• It identifies the area of struggles of individual students so as to enable them to achieve their learning objectives successfully.
• It helps in the implementation of specific tools to shape students’ learning.
• It improves the self-esteem of students so that they can apply their knowledge and improve their skills.

The importance of summative assessments can be summarized as follows:

• Summative assessments grade or evaluate the comprehensive knowledge students have gained at the end of a course period.
• They predict the productive potentiality of students or their future.
• They determine the suitability of students for employment.

The table below identifies the primary differences between formative and summative assessments.

Education or training cannot be completed without determining whether students have acquired skills and knowledge and have achieved the set learning objectives. It is also important to establish that students are confident and motivated enough to apply the set of learned skills and knowledge to progress further in the future. These are established by formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments help to ensure the closing of all learning gaps while summative assessments provide students the evidence of their accomplishments and prepare them for employment prospects.

All registered teachers on DinoLab have the ability to test their students with a built-in Summative Assessment feature. Both as a way to refresh the knowledge and to check for the learning gaps from the previous year, it can become a helpful tool in the arsenal of any educator. To give the teachers all the possible information on their students and to make the job easier, every passed test is checked automatically by the platform with every result analyzed by the system and put into a comprehensive teacher's report. That gives the educator the opportunity to not only see all the gaps in students' knowledge but also a way to quickly remediate that with no extra time spent on the teacher's side.