Exploring formative assessment as a tool for learning: students’ experiences of different methods of formative assessment

This study aims to provide a greater insight into how formative assessments are experienced and understood by students. Two different formative assessment methods, an individual, written assessment and an oral group assessment, were components of a pathology course within a medical curriculum. In a cohort of 70 students, written accounts were collected from 17 students and group interviews were carried out to explore the students’ experiences of these two forms of assessment. All students were engaged in both assessment methods, which were conducted a few weeks apart, and data were collected soon after each assessment. Our findings suggest that formative assessments motivate students to study, make them aware of what they have learned and where they need to study more. Thus, formative assessment can act as a tool for learning, contributing to the process and outcomes of learning. A closer look at students’ experiences of each form of assessment reveals interesting differences.     

Becoming a guidance counsellor in Ontario: formative influences from counsellors’ perspective

Contrary to guidance counsellors elsewhere in North America who hold a master’s degree, career and guidance counselling services in secondary schools in Ontario are delivered by teachers who have completed additional undergraduate studies. Guidance counsellors are pivotal components of the school as they complete tasks that promote students’ overall development. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore how teachers perceive and describe the process of becoming guidance counsellors in Ontario. The thematic analysis revealed four major themes that articulated the process of becoming a guidance counsellor in Ontario: peer guidance, contextual factors, professional experience, and theoretical knowledge.     

Biology students’ utilization of tutors’ formative feedback: a qualitative interview study

Ramaprasad (1983 Ramaprasad, A. (1983). On the definition of feedback. Behavioural Sciences, 28: 4–13. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) defined feedback as information about the gap between actual performance level and the reference level, which is subsequently used to alter that gap. Feedback, therefore, needs to be meaningful, understood and correctly acted upon. Tutors not only have to give feedback; they should really evaluate how effective their feedback has been. This study reports the findings of semi‐structured interviews with third year biology students on their utilization of tutor feedback. We show that students use feedback in six ways. Four specific uses were (a) to enhance motivation; (b) to enhance learning; (c) to encourage reflection; and (d) to clarify understanding. Two further forms of usage were, firstly, to enrich their learning environment and, secondly, to engage in mechanistic enquiries into their study. The findings are discussed in the context of current literature and specific recommendations are given as to how the impact of tutors’ feedback could be enhanced.     

A formative evaluation of WIKI’s as a learning tool in a face to face juvenile justice course

Current literature indicates an increased pedagogical value of technology integration in university coursework. One form of technology that encourages collaborative, online teaching and learning is a wiki, an online application that allows participants to partner and direct a website. This article describes the design and formative evaluation of a semester-long wiki project that was conducted during three face-to-face juvenile justice courses. Upon completion, 61 students completed written, open-ended evaluations of the project with a focus on (a) the strengths of the project, (b) knowledge of the juvenile justice system gained through the project, and (c) suggestions to improve the overall effectiveness. NVIVO8 was used to code and analyze the results of their responses. Results indicate that the Juvenile Justice Wiki Project demonstrated a real-life (online) understanding of the juvenile justice system in a face-to-face meeting, a more comprehensive examination of the juvenile justice system compared to a more traditional book and lecture pedagogy, and a perceived value in the collaborative, constructivist approach. A formative evaluation indicates future structural and pedagogical project modifications according to student evaluations and perceptions.     

Building a game-enhanced formative assessment to gather evidence about middle school students’ argumentation skills

Educational technology research and development - In this paper, we describe an effort to develop and evaluate an innovative formative assessment to gather evidence about middle school...     

The impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis

Peer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’ writing performance. The current study conveyed two types of observations. First, regarding the impact of peer feedback on writing performance, this study synthesized the results of 24 quantitative studies reporting on higher education students’ academic writing performance after peer feedback. Engagement in peer feedback resulted in larger writing improvements compared to (no-feedback) controls (g?=?0.91 [0.41, 1.42]) and compared to self-assessment (g?=?0.33 [0.01, 0.64]). Peer feedback and teacher feedback resulted in similar writing improvements (g?=?0.46 [-0.44, 1.36]). The nature of the peer feedback significantly moderated the impact that peer feedback had on students’ writing improvement, whereas only a theoretically plausible, though non-significant moderating pattern was found for the number of peers that students engaged with. Second, this study shows that the number of well-controlled studies into the effects of peer feedback on writing is still low, indicating the need for more quantitative, methodologically sound research in this field. Findings and implications are discussed both for higher education teaching practice and future research approaches and directions.     

Reciprocal peer coaching and its use as a formative assessment strategy for first‐year students

Co‐operative learning is underused as a teaching and learning strategy in higher education and yet is ideal for courses that require students to learn skills that require manual dexterity, knowledge and clinical reasoning – key elements of professional and clinical competence. Reciprocal peer coaching (RPC) is a form of co‐operative or peer‐assisted learning that encourages individual students in small groups to coach each other in turn so that the outcome of the process is a more rounded understanding and a more skilful execution of the task in hand than if the student was learning in isolation. Used as a formative assessment strategy, RPC has the capacity to increase motivation in students due to the nature of the shared interdependent goal, and to provide immediate feedback to students on completion of the assessment. The purpose of this research was to interview a group of first‐year students to elicit their perceptions of the RPC process. The data were analysed from a phenomenological perspective and revealed three themes: motivating learning, learning in groups and the context of learning. The findings were subsequently explored in relation to the concept of self‐regulation of learning and the benefits which RPC as a formative assessment strategy has in promoting students’ self‐regulation.     

Museum without walls： Imagining new formative spaces

The ＂Museum of Childhood＂ is a project connected to the Post-Graduate Program in Education at Unesc （Brazil） and since 2005 has been developing interfaces with research, teaching and extension. In this paper, the authors would like to show how the museological conception of the Museum of Childhood makes imagination from one of the central axis of its formative relation with the public. Such conception breaks with the traditional view of museums as buildings where old things are collected and preserved. In fact, the Museum of Childhood, in the light of its objective conditions, wants to be a museum without walls, a museum that, using the device of spatial demarcation, spreads itself in the university campus and other public places, with the objective of communicating with the people. This conception comes closer to the transgressive nature of modem arts, which desacralizes the work of art as masterpiece and proposed, for example, the fugacity of installations and aesthetic interventions. This conception takes the Benjaminian notion of the past as the dimension where other futures remain latent, that is, the museum is seen not as a guardian of the past, but as an establishment that wants to use its collections to communicate with the public. The overrunning of the static physical space, for example, forces the public to recreate its horizon of expectations concerning what a museum show be. In order to accomplish its original objectives, the Museum of Childhood works intensively on the formation of the public by proposing monitored visits in which creative activities are developed and by improving its homepage.     

Global learning partnerships in the Café: peer feedback as a formative assessment tool for animation students

This paper reports on a global learning partnership using the Café: the collaborative application for education as an e-learning environment within the Facebook framework, for first-year animation students at the University of South Australia (USA) in Australia and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “The Café” has been designed based on five principles of user interface design – visibility, usability, relevance, accessibility, and interactivity – and aims to provide institutions with an established, structured, and dedicated e-learning environment that meets the needs of modern-day tertiary students and teaching staff. From July to November in 2013, 71 students participated within the e-learning environment. Students submitted work-in-progress imagery related to major assignments, and provided feedback and critiques to their local and global peers. A post-semester survey provided students with the opportunity to critically reflect on the learning experience. The results are discussed in light of the use of peer feedback as a formative assessment tool.     

Collaborative action research as a tool for generating formative feedback on teachers’ classroom assessment practice: the KREST project

This paper sets out to explore science teachers’ classroom assessment practices and outlines some of the tensions and synergies in changing assessment practices. It describes episodes from a collaborative action research project with science teachers designed to support the strengthening of classroom assessment practices – the King’s Researching Expertise in Science Teaching project. This paper focuses on how the collaborative action research project functioned as a tool for generating formative feedback for the teachers and how this feedback supported the teachers in making sense of and further developing their classroom assessment practices.     

Is peer review an appropriate form of assessment in a MOOC? Student participation and performance in formative peer review

Many aspects of higher education must be reconceptualised for massive open online courses (MOOCs). Formative and summative assessment of qualitative work in particular requires novel approaches to cope with the numbers involved. Peer review has been proposed as one solution, and has been widely adopted by major MOOC providers, but there is currently little evidence about whether it is appropriate or under what conditions. Here, we examine student participation, performance and opinions of a peer review task in a biomedical science MOOC. We evaluate data from approximately 200 student topic summaries and 300 qualitative peer reviews of those summaries, and compare these to student demographic data (gender, age, employment status, education, national language) and to performance in multiple choice tests. We show that higher performance in the written topic summary correlated with both higher participation in the peer review task and with writing higher quality peer reviews. Qualitative analysis of student comments revealed that student opinion on the usefulness of the peer review task was mixed: some strongly believed it benefitted their learning, while others did not find it useful or did not participate. We suggest instructional design strategies to improve student participation and increase learning gain from peer review in the MOOC context.     

Can Turnitin be used to provide instant formative feedback?

New students face the challenge of making a smooth transition between school and university, and with regards to academic practice, there are often gaps between student expectations and university requirements. This study supports the use of the plagiarism detection service Turnitin to give students instant feedback on essays to help improve academic literacy. A student cohort (n = 76) submitted draft essays to Turnitin and received instruction on how to interpret the ‘originality report’ themselves for feedback. The impact of this self‐service approach was analysed by comparing the writing quality and incidence of plagiarism in draft and final essays, and comparing the results to a previous cohort (n = 80) who had not used Turnitin formatively. Student and staff perceptions were explored by interview and questionnaire. Using Turnitin formatively was viewed positively by staff and students, and although the incidence of plagiarism did not reduce because of a worsening of referencing and citation skills, the approach encouraged students to develop their writing. To conclude, students were positive of their experience of using Turnitin. Further work is required to understand how to use the self‐service approach more effectively to improve referencing and citation, and narrow the gap between student expectations and university standards.     

The development and implementation of a web-based formative peer assessment system for enhancing students’ metacognitive awareness and performance in ill-structured tasks

An assessment was conducted of a web-based formative peer assessment system (WFPAS) emphasizing learners’ metacognitive awareness for their performance in ill-structured tasks. Results indicate that the WFPAS group achieved significantly higher scores for metacognitive awareness and performance in ill-structured tasks than the traditional peer assessment group and that a traditional peer assessment group achieved higher scores for metacognitive awareness than a self-assessment group. In addition, the WFPAS group showed significantly higher scores in motivation than the traditional peer assessment group. Results are explained from the perspective of peer interaction and scaffolding. The potential challenges and implications of the WFPAS are discussed.     

Using summative and formative assessments to evaluate EFL teachers’ teaching performance

Using classroom observations (formative) and student course experience survey results (summative) to evaluate English lecturers’ teaching performances is not new in practice, but surprisingly only a few studies have investigated this issue in a higher education context. This study was conducted in an English department of a large university in Vietnam. The data include: (1) semi-structured interviews with all the full-time lecturers, (2) two department heads and (3) course experience surveys from English as a foreign language (EFL) students (N?=?2886). Three lessons can be learned: (1) formative assessments do not seem to have an effect on promoting better teaching practices when their feedback is not helpful in improving high-stakes summative assessment results, (2) without sharing a common definition of good teaching practices among assessors, summative assessments appear to make the feedback from formative assessments less meaningful and applicable, and (3) as a result, the combination of formative and summative assessments tends to make EFL lecturers’ self-assessment practices less effective.     

The impact of criteria-referenced formative assessment on fifth-grade students’ theater arts achievement

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of criteria-referenced formative assessment (CRFA) on students’ achievement in theater arts. The role of type of task in differentiating the treatment-achievement relationship was explored. The analytical sample included 520 fifth-grade students from 13 schools in New York City. Schools were randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. Selection bias in treatment assignment at student level was adjusted with propensity score analysis. CRFA had a positive effect on students’ achievement on performance tasks (d = 0.25), but no significant effect on students’ performance on the analytical constructed response tasks or the theater vocabulary multiple-choice items.     

Student perspectives on formative peer assessment: an attempt to deepen learning?

Peer assessment is a common form of shared learning in which students provide feedback on each others work. Peer assessment takes many forms; and involves students and tutors taking various roles at different stages of the process. This study explores the views and opinions of undergraduate students in relation to their perceptions and experiences of formative peer assessment introduced as a learning development opportunity for the first time. The study found that on the whole formative peer assessment was a positive experience in enhancing students learning and development. However, consideration needs to be taken to address individual learning styles, as a limited number of students found the process to be less useful. Consequently, when tutors are constructing peer assessment strategies they should be cognisant at the planning stage of the variety of learning styles that are evident in order to maximise the development opportunities this can bring to students.     

Teachers and testing: an investigation into teachers’ perceptions of formative assessment

Research conducted within the past decade contributes much to an understanding of the role and potential value of formative assessment in learning. As an Advisory Teacher within a local authority, the researcher was interested to find out how teachers actually perceive formative assessment. This study therefore set out to investigate the range and nature of such perceptions and whether any relationships exist between them and independent variables such as school phase and length of teacher experience. The sample was drawn from teachers working in 24 lower and middle schools within one local authority and the research was conducted in two phases. This paper will focus on Phase 1, during which data was drawn from a questionnaire survey which elicited both quantitative and qualitative responses from 67 teachers. Analysis of this data revealed a range of perceptions about formative assessment among teachers. In particular, they acknowledged the value of formative assessment in promoting learning. However, these findings suggest that perhaps teachers were less confident than they claimed to be in putting actual strategies in place, supporting the findings of Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, and Wiliam (2002 Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and Wiliam, D. 2002. Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom, London: Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College.  [Google Scholar]). Statistical analysis revealed some significant relationships between some of these perceptions and both school phase and length of teacher experience. Both theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations made for future policy and practice.     

Teachers’ use of learning progression-based formative assessment to inform teachers’ instructional adjustment: a case study of two physics teachers’ instruction

ABSTRACT

To explore the affordances of learning progressions (LP) in support of teachers’ formal and informal formative assessment (FFA and IFA) practices, we conducted a case study with a fine-grain-sized energy LP. The study first theorises an LP-based formative assessment model, which proposes the use of LPs in clarifying learning objectives, eliciting and interpreting students’ understanding, and acting in instruction. Then, we examine multiple iterations of two high-school teachers’ lesson plans and their enactment of the lessons to identify the instructional adjustments teachers made as part of the LP-based FFA and IFA after professional training. We found that both teachers refined the learning objectives and activities and most of their adjustments promoted students’ learning progression; their adjustments have an interdependency between objectives and activities. Both made more adjustments in the IFA than in the FFA, but the alignment with the LP was higher in FFA than in IFA. Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, both teachers perceived the LP as a content structure. However, in practice, both employed it as a reference to interpret students’ responses by comparing these responses against their own expectations. The teachers also reported collecting assessment information during teacher-student interactive activities and using this material to infer the level of students’ understanding in order to decide on the next instructional activities. Both teachers reported that the process of directly engaging with the LP formatively resulted in their having a much more nuanced sense of students’ understanding when they revisited and altered the sequence of the learning activities.