SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Summative Assessment

Summative Assessment

Assignment 1

Summative assessment technique used at my institution is feedback. Feedback is a key factor in formative assessment, for only by indicating to the students what is needed for their next steps in learning can the teacher bring about the intended engagement in learning. He or she cannot do the learning for their students. However, the teacher makes use of feedback to adjust teaching, making materials and opportunities for the learning available and, most importantly, making clear the purposes and goals of the work.

Some examples of using assessment in this way are provided by Maxwell (2004) and Black et al (2003). Maxwell describes the approach to assessment used in the Senior Certificate in Queensland, in which evidence is collected over time in a student portfolio, as 'progressive assessment'.

The identification of goals and assessment criteria in terms of a 'common dimension of learning' is, as Maxwell states, central to this approach. Further, descriptions of these dimensions of learning need to be detailed to be capable of giving guidance, yet not so prescriptive as so infringe teachers' ownership of the curriculum. As the research shows (ASF, 2004), the dependability of assessment is enhanced when teachers have a thorough understanding of the goals and of the nature of progression towards them. In Queensland, this is facilitated on the one hand by schools being able to make decisions about their own work plan and, on the other hand, by teachers' regular participation in the process of moderation. Time and respect for the professionalism of teachers (Cumming and Maxwell, 2004) are also important. These are clearly essential factors when teachers' assessment has outcomes with high stakes for individual students. However, a significant feature of the Queensland system is that the assessment of students in the Senior Certificate is detached from school and teacher accountability procedures.

There is the potential for such change in the use of computers for assessment, which provide the opportunity for assessment to serve both formative and summative purposes. In the majority of studies of the use of ICT for assessment of creative and critical thinking, reviewed by Harlen and Deakin Crick (2003), the assessment was intended to help development of understanding and skills as well as to assess the attainment in understanding and skills. The effectiveness of computer programs for both these purposes was demonstrated by those studies where computer-based assessment was compared with assessment by paper and pencil (Kumar et al, 1993; Jackson, 1989). The mechanism for the formative impact was the feedback that students received from the program. In some cases this was no more than reflecting back to the students the moves or links they made between concepts or variables as they attempted to solve a problem. In others (eg Osmundson et al, 1999) the feedback was in providing a 'score' for a concept map that they created on the screen by dragging concepts and links. The score compared the students' maps with an 'expert map' and required a much greater degree of analysis than could ...