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Lane, R, Parrila, R, Bower, M, Bull, R, Cavanagh, M, Forbes, A, Jones, T, Leaper, D, Khosronejad, M, Pellicano, L, Powell, S, Ryan, M, and Skrebneva, I (2019) Formative Assessment Evidence and Practice Literature Review. AITSL: Melbourne
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Formative assessment has been defined as any interaction that generates data on student learning and is used by teachers and students to inform teaching and learning, to address specific student learning difficulties and support learning growth over time.
A wide variety of assessment strategies, tools and resources currently exist to support and improve teachers’ capacities to collect and analyse reliable data on student achievement and to adjust their teaching to meet each student’s needs for enhanced learning outcomes. There is a widespread assumption in the academic literature that formative assessment leads to better learning outcomes for students.
Presently, we know little about the most effective ways of implementing formative assessment, including optimal school and educational system structures and supports. Systematic review of evidence is made more difficult by a lack of clarity and consensus regarding the nature and definition of formative assessment.
This review, commissioned by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), synthesises national and international research on the effective formative assessment practices of teachers and school leaders, including their current capacities, challenges and needs. It presents the findings of a review of peer-reviewed studies meeting robust experimental design criteria that examine formative assessment practices in Australian and international K-12 contexts. It further delivers an analysis and critical review of research relevant to formative assessment practices, including (but not limited to) the use of online assessment tools.
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Although formative assessment is regarded as a promising way to improve teaching and learning, there is considerable need for research on precisely how it influences student learning. In this study we developed and implemented a formative assessment intervention for mathematics instruction and investigated whether it had effects on students' interest and achievement directly and via students' perception of the usefulness of the feedback and their self-efficacy. We conducted a cluster randomized field trial with pretest and posttest. The 26 participating classes were randomly assigned to a control group or the intervention group. Results of path analyses indicate that feedback was perceived as more useful in the formative assessment condition, self-efficacy was greater, and interest tended to increase; learning progress did not differ between the groups. The assumed indirect effects were partly confirmed: formative assessment showed an indirect effect on interest via its perceived usefulness.
The aim of this study is to illuminate and discuss assessment within dance education in Swedish upper secondary schools through teachers’ reflections. The study investigates how teachers reflect upon the range of possibilities explored and difficulties encountered in their assessment practice. In order to be able to comprehend the phenomenon of teachers’ reflections regarding their assessment practice, both written and verbal teacher reflections were gathered by means of seven interviews with four teachers, and one trilateral talk. Four teachers participated in the study. In the analytical process, the phenomenon was seen, broadened, varied, and then condensed into two themes: Conditions for assessment for learning and Making space for assessment. Both themes have aspects, which are intertwined: both include conditions for assessment as seen through various modalities, methods and tools.
The purpose of this study is to show the differences in problem-solving ability between first-year University students who received culture-based contextual learning and conventional learning. This research is a quantitative research using quasi-experimental research design. Samples were the First-year students of mathematics education department; Nusa Cendana University consists of 58 students who were divided into two groups each of 29 students. The results showed there are differences in the n-gain average of problem-solving ability significantly between students who receive culture-based contextual learning and conventional learning. The n-gain average of experiment group is 0.51 or medium category while the average n-gain of the control group is 0.29 or low category. Student categories of SNMPTN and Mandiri are significantly different whereas students’ category of SBMPTN between the two groups does not differ significantly.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22342/jme.9.1.4125.81-94
The number of English language learners (ELLs) mainstreamed into regular classrooms continues to increase. Curricular writing standards required by the Common Core State Standards require students to write essays analytically in response to text(s). Many English Language Arts (ELA) teachers may worry about effectively delivering essay writing instruction to their ELL students while still meeting the needs of their proficient English-speaking students. This action research study is a direct response to the concern of two middle level teachers about the writing performance of students in their linguistically diverse classrooms on their state’s writing assessment. The study examined the effects of strategy-focused writing instruction on the argumentative essay-writing skills of 47 linguistically diverse seventh-grade students. The students received the strategy-focused writing instruction five days per week for 40 minutes over a 16-week period. Analyses of the data revealed that students’ overall writing performance increased significantly from pretest to posttest. Students also made significant gains across the pre- and posttest period in the following two domains: (1) Evidence and Elaboration and (2) Conventions of Standard English, but not on the Purpose, Focus, and Organization domain.
Student academic self-assessment engages the students in deliberate reflection about what they are learning and how they are learning it. This intervention study investigated the effects of self-assessment training on students’ perceptions towards self-assessment in two Singaporean primary schools. The study, which used a pretest–posttest design, involved 146 Primary 4 (aged 10) students with 75 students being taught the use of self-assessment (intervention group) and 71 students who did not receive any training (comparison group). Data was collected using a Self-Assessment Questionnaire, wherein the students reported on the domains of knowledge application, independent learning, communication and motivation. The results revealed an improvement in the intervention students’ perceptions towards self-assessment after the use of self-assessment and there were differences between the intervention students and the comparison students. The findings and the implications for students will be discussed in the article.
Much of the focus on learning technologies has been on structuring innovative learning experiences and on managing distance and hybrid learning environments. This article focuses on the use of technology as an important formative assessment and feedback tool. The rationale for this focus is based on prior research findings that suggest that timely and informative feedback promotes learning. The general purpose of this article is to promote a focus on formative assessment, especially with challenging problems so as to help develop critical thinking skills. This is not a meta-analysis although we encourage such studies so as to emphasis the role that formative assessment plays in supporting learning. Much of the prior research on formative assessment has not involved advanced digital technologies and very little of that research has focused on complex and challenging problem-solving tasks. We review prior work on the use of problem conceptualizations elicited during problem solving activities and on stealth assessments of learner choices and decisions in online activities. We present a conceptual framework based on prior research and theory for conducting formative assessments in real-time with regard to complex problem-solving tasks. We then present an elaboration of how formative assessment can be used to support learning a common intellectual skill involving a discrimination task and to develop an appropriate cognitive strategy for that kind of problem. We conclude with recommendations for further research on the use of technology in support of formative assessment.
An important, but as yet unresolved pedagogical question is whether discovery-oriented or direct instruction methods lead to greater learning and transfer. We address this issue in a study with 101 fourth and fifth grade students that contrasts two distinct instructional methods. One is a blend of discovery and direct instruction called Invent-then-Tell (IT), and the other is a version of direct instruction called Tell-then-Practice (TP). The relative effectiveness of these methods is compared in the context of learning a critical inquiry skill—the control-of-variables strategy. Previous research has demonstrated the success of IT over TP for teaching deep domain structures, while other research has demonstrated the superiority of direct instruction for teaching simple experimental design, a domain-general inquiry skill. In the present study, students in both conditions made equally large gains on an immediate assessment of their application and conceptual understanding of experimental design, and they also performed similarly on a test of far transfer. These results were fairly consistent across school populations with various levels of prior achievement and socioeconomic status. Findings suggest that broad claims about the relative effectiveness of these two distinct methods should be conditionalized by particular instructional contexts, such as the type of knowledge being taught.
Rubrics are assessment tools that help students gain complex competencies. Our
quasi-experimental study aimed to evaluate whether rubrics help teachers teach and assess
mathematical reasoning in primary school and whether such an instrument might support
student learning. In two Swiss cantons, 762 students in 44 5th- and 6th-grade primary
classes worked on their reasoning competencies, and half of them additionally employed
our standards-based rubric. All of the teachers received a 1-day training and participated in
the final project evaluation. To standardise and support the teachers during the implementation
phase, they received a detailed curriculum. An achievement test and questionnaires
for students and teachers were administered before and at the end of the
intervention. The results of our quantitative longitudinal analyses indicate that the rubric
fosters the teachers’ perceived diagnostic skills but only indirectly impacts their use of
formative feedback. Based on the students’ perceptions, however, we observed a direct
effect of the rubric on formative feedback and student self-assessment. Effects on students’
outcomes could not be observed, but there are indications of effects mediated by selfregulation
and self-efficacy.
By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the broader problem of improving teaching and learning requires continued efforts to understand how to support teachers in making substantial changes in instruction. This paper reports on a district-randomized controlled trial of the National Writing Project's College-Ready Writers Program (CRWP), implemented in high-need rural districts in 10 states, testing one instance of professional development paired with supporting curricular resources and a formative assessment tool designed to shift instruction to align with the new college- and career-ready standards in English language arts classes in grades 7–10. Researchers randomly assigned 44 rural districts either to receive 2 years of CRWP or to be in a business-as-usual control group and found positive impacts on teacher practice and student source-based argument writing.