The Political Dilemmas of Formative Assessment

Abstract

The literature base on using formative assessment for instructional and intervention decisions is formidable, but the history of the practice of formative assessment is spotty. Even with the pressures of high-stakes accountability, its definition is fuzzy, its adoption is inconsistent, and the prognosis for future use is questionable. A historical and organizational perspective explores plausible explanations for that inconsistency. These possible explanations include the standard literature in the research-to-practice gap and must also include the current policy environment surrounding educational accountability. A number of organizational and historical/cultural hypotheses suggest potential limits of structured formative assessment. From several perspectives, the practical question that may shape the future of special education is the identity of individuals at the school level who are responsible for coordinating the collection of formative-assessment data, for analysis, and for responses to the data.

Formative Assessment: A Meta-Analysis and a Call for Research

“….). (Dorn, 2010) While Black and Wiliam's (1998a) synthesis provided the field with a detailed and comprehensive review of the formative assessment and related literature, their claim with respect to the size of effects that formative assessment can produce may be unfounded. Researchers have since pointed out that there are methodological issues and concerns with the eight research articles, Black and Wiliam (1998a) actually presented to support their conclusions regarding the efficacy of formative assessment (Bell, Steinberg, Wiliam, and Wylie, 2008;Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009).…”

Formative Assessment: Assessment Is for Self-regulated Learning

“…(p. 3) For Dunn and Mulvenon therefore, one must place quotation marks around 'formative assessment' until it has been assigned a definitive label which expresses its intended purpose with rigid precision. Such perspectives are understandable in political climates of scientific rationalism, where certain sections of the research community may quite correctly regard formative assessment as "ethereal" (Dunn and Mulvenon 2009) and "fuzzy" (Dorn 2010). A good example is provided by the research taking place at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the US, where some project scientists would like to reduce formative assessment to a single agreed upon definition which explains how it designs order into the parts of the 'instructional system' (Bennett 2011).…”

“…Before discussing the relational dynamic between the goals of formative assessment and the acquisition of SRL strategies; that is, how formative assessment encapsulates and 'drives' SRL and how SRL environments are inherently formative, it is necessary to bring focus to what some studies (e.g., Dunn and Mulvenon 2009;Dorn 2010;Young and Kim 2010;Bennett 2011) have criticized as a shapeless theoretical gestalt. In their seminal work, Black and Wiliam (1998b) provide an explanation of formative assessment as "all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged" (p. 2).…”

Accountability, performance management and inspection: how to enable positive responses to diversity?

“…These purposes of accountability can be in tension. Most obviously, the emphasis on holding actors responsible, and the associated threat of sanctions, may encourage a culture of compliance and a reluctance to admit failures, both of which mitigate against service improvement; to achieve constructive commitment to improvement it may be necessary to detach formative accountability from accountability associated with external sanctions (see Dorn, ). Top‐down control and signalling is in principle at odds with stakeholder empowerment and dialogue.…”