Formative and Summative Assessment
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment is a tool used by the teacher to continue! monitor student progress in a non-threatening, supportive environment, involves regular descriptive feedback, a chance for the student to reflect on the performance, take advice and improve upon it.
It involves students, from designing criteria to assessing self or peers, as an essential part of assessment. If used effectively, it can improve students' performance tremendously while raising the self-esteem of the child and reducing the workload of the teacher.
Formative assessment is carried out during a course, of instruction to provide continuous feedback to both teachers and learners, It is al carried out for making decisions regarding appropriate modifications in the transactional procedures and learning activities.
Features of Formative Assessment
- It is diagnostic and remedial.
- It makes provision for effective feedback.
- It provides a platform for the active involvement of students in their own learning.
- It enables teachers to adjust teaching to take account of the results of assessment. Hossein
- It recognises the profound influence assessment has on the motivation and self-esteem of students, both of which are crucial influences on learning.
- It recognises the need for students to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve. It builds on students' prior knowledge and experience in designing what is taught. bm It incorporates varied learning styles to decide how and what to teach.
- It encourages students to understand the criteria that will be used to judge their work.
- It offers an opportunity for students to improve their work after they get the feedback.
- It helps students to support their peer group and vice-versa.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is carried out at the end of a course of learning. It measures or sums up how much a student has learned from the course. It is usually a graded test, i.e., it is marked according to a scale or set of grades.
Assessment that is predominantly of a summative nature will not by itself be able to yield a valid measure of the growth and development of the student. It, at best, certifies the level of achievement only at a given point in time. The paper-pencil tests are basically a one-time mode of assessment and to exclusively rely on it to decide about the development of a student is not only unfair but also unscientific.
Overemphasis on examination marks that focus on only scholastic aspects in turn makes students assume that assessment is different from learning, resulting in the 'learn and forget syndrome. Besides encouraging unhealthy competition, the overemphasis on the summative assessment system also produces enormous stress or anxiety among the learners.
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