Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative Assessments: Formative assessments (interactive classroom discussions, self-assessments, warm-up quizzes, mid-semester evaluations, exit quizzes, etc.) monitor student learning.

These are short term, as they are most applicable when students are in the process of making sense of new content and applying it to what they already know.
The most striking feature of these types of assessments is the immediate feedback, which helps students make changes to their understanding of the material and allows the teacher to gauge student understanding and adapt to the needs of the students.
These types of assessments often do not carry any credit associated with the student grade.

Interim Assessments: Interim assessments (concept tests, quizzes, written essays, etc.) may be more formal and can occur throughout the semester.

Typically, students are given the opportunity to revisit and perhaps revise these assessments after they have received feedback.

This type of assessment can be particularly useful in addressing the knowledge gaps in student understanding and can help you formulate better lesson plans during the course.
The feedback to students is quick but not necessarily immediate.
These types of assessment may count toward a small percentage of the student grade.

Summative Assessments: Summative assessments (typically midterm or final exams) evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

These assessments are formal and have a direct impact on student grades.

The feedback to the student may be extremely limited.
Generally students do not have the opportunity to re-take the assessment.
The results of these assessments can help students understand where they stand in the class by comparing grades and, if applicable, by looking at the descriptive statistics such as average, median and standard deviation.

For an explanation of specific techniques you can use for formative and interim assessment, please see [Hyperlink to PDF of Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo and Cross) .pdf]

Summary of Indirect Assessment Techniques

(Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education by Allen 2004)

Technique	Potential Strength	Potential Limitations
Surveys	Are flexible in format and can include questions about many issues Can be administered to large groups of respondents Can easily assess the views of various stakeholders Usually have face validity – the questions generally have a clear relationship to the objectives being assessed Tend to be inexpensive to administer Can be conducted relatively quickly Responses to closed-ended questions are easy to tabulate and to report in tables or graphs Open-ended questions allow faculty to uncover unanticipated results Can be used to track opinions across time to explore trends Are amenable to different formats, such as paper-and-pencil or online formats Can be used to collect opinions from respondents at distant sites	Provide indirect evidence about student learning Their validity depends on the quality of the questions and response options Conclusions can be inaccurate if biased samples are obtained Results might not include the full array of opinions if the sample is small What people say they do or know may be inconsistent with what they actually do or know Open-ended responses can be difficult and time-consuming to analyze
Interviews	Are flexible in format and can include questions about many issues Can assess the views of various stakeholders Usually have face validity – the questions generally have a clear relationship to the objectives being assessed Can provide insights into the reasons for the participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences Interviewers can prompt respondents to provide more detailed responses Interviewers can respond to questions and clarify misunderstandings Telephone interviews can be used to reach distant respondents Can provide a sense of immediacy and personal attention for respondents Open-ended questions allow faculty to uncover unanticipated results	Generally provide indirect evidence about student learning Their validity depends on the quality of the questions Poor interviewer skills can generate limited or useless information Can be difficult to obtain a representative sample of respondents What people say they do or know may be inconsistent with what they actually do or know Can be relatively time-consuming and expensive to conduct, especially if interviewers and interviewees are paid or if the no-show rate for scheduled interviews is high The process can intimidate some respondents, especially if asked about sensitive information and their identity is known to the interviewer Results can be difficult and time-consuming to analyze Transcriptions of interviews can be time-consuming and costly
Focus Groups	Are flexible in format and can include questions about many issues Can provide in-depth exploration of issues Usually have face validity – the questions generally have a clear relationship to the objectives being assessed Can be combined with other techniques, such as surveys The process allows faculty to uncover unanticipated results Can provide insights into the reasons for the participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences Can be conducted within courses Participants have the opportunity to react to each other’s ideas, providing an opportunity to uncover the degree of consensus on ideas that emerge during the discussion	Generally provide indirect evidence about student learning Require a skilled, unbiased facilitator Their validity depends on the quality of the questions Results might not include the full array of opinions if only one focus group is conducted What people say they do or know may be inconsistent with what they actually do or know Recruiting and scheduling the groups can be difficult Time-consuming to collect and analyze data
Reflective Essays	Are flexible in format and can include questions about many issues Can be administered to large groups of respondents Usually have face validity – the writing assignment generally has a clear relationship to the objectives being assessed Can be conducted relatively quickly Allow faculty to uncover unanticipated results Can provide insights into the reasons for the participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences Can provide direct assessment of some learning objectives	Generally provide indirect evidence about student learning Their validity depends on the quality of the questions Conclusions can be inaccurate if biased samples are obtained Results might not include the full array of opinions if the sample is small What people say they do or know may be inconsistent with what they actually do or know Responses can be difficult and time-consuming to analyze