Teachers' summative practices and assessment for learning – tensions and synergies

Abstract

This article concerns the use of assessment for learning (formative assessment) and assessment of learning (summative assessment), and how one can affect the other in either positive or negative ways. It makes a case for greater use of teachers' judgements in summative assessment, the reasons for this being found in the research that is reviewed in the first sections of the article. This research, concerning the impact of summative assessment, particularly high-stakes testing and examinations, on students' motivation for learning and on teachers and the curriculum, reveals some seriously detrimental effects. Suggestions for changes that would reduce the negative effects include making greater use of teachers' summative assessment. However, this raises other issues, about the reliability and validity of teachers' assessment. Research on ways of improving the dependability of teachers' summative assessment suggests actions that would equally support more effective use of assessment to help learning. The later sections of the article address the issues and opportunities relating to the possibility of assessment that serves both formative and summative purposes, with examples of what this means in practice, leading to the conclusion that the distinction between formative and summative purposes of assessment should be maintained, while assessment systems should be planned and implemented to enable evidence of students' ongoing learning to be used for both purposes.

Les politiques d’évaluation en éducation. Et après?

“…Plusieurs auteurs (De Ketele, 2006;Harlen, 2005;Looney, 2011;Taras, 2005) sont d'avis que le formatif et le sommatif ne doivent pas être utilisés en vases clos, l'un informant l'autre. De plus, les deux sont complémen-taires : le sommatif porte principalement sur des informations à « gros grains », soit des apprentissages globaux se produisant sur des cycles de longue durée, alors que le formatif porte sur des apprentissages à « grains fins » dont les cycles sont de courte durée, jusqu'à l'interaction maître-élève.…”

L’évaluation en classe

“…cette opposition confond les finalités de l'évaluation avec la démarche employée (de Ketele, 2006 ;Figari, 2006 ;harlen, 2005). l'évaluation formative décrit une finalité (supporter l'apprentissage), alors que l'évaluation sommative décrit une démarche (comment établir un bilan).…”

Designing and Evaluating the Use of Smartphones to Facilitate Online Testing in Second-Language Teacher Education (SLTE): An Auto-Ethnographic Study

“…In addition to the formative tests, online summative tests were developed to measure students' learning progress at particular points in time [19,20]. These were distributed twice to the students, during the middle of their course (mid-term test) and at the end of term (final term test).…”