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Steps For Summative Assessment

1) Summative assessment involves formal testing to produce grades, while formative assessment emphasizes ongoing assessments to help students learn. 2) Summative assessment can negatively impact student motivation, especially for low-achieving students, but schools can work to change the culture of assessment. 3) When preparing students for summative assessments, teachers should focus on intrinsic motivation and learning goals rather than just test performance.

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161 views6 pages

Steps For Summative Assessment

1) Summative assessment involves formal testing to produce grades, while formative assessment emphasizes ongoing assessments to help students learn. 2) Summative assessment can negatively impact student motivation, especially for low-achieving students, but schools can work to change the culture of assessment. 3) When preparing students for summative assessments, teachers should focus on intrinsic motivation and learning goals rather than just test performance.

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Enikő Keresztes
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Learning and Teaching should meet the needs of the Whole Learner:

Summative Assessment
 
Summative  Assessment is the formal testing of what has been
  learned in order to produce marks or grades which may be used
for reports of various types.   This is different from Formative
  Assessment, in which the emphasis is on on-going assessments of
different types used to judge how best to help pupils learn
further.   

Points arising from Research

In formative assessment the emphasis is more on helping pupils

learn.  (See section on Formative Assessment

Summative assessment can have a negative impact on pupils’

motivation

Schools can work to change the culture of assessment to make

more effective use of summative assessment

Key Elements of Summative Assessment

Effects on motivation
(Motivation is seen as a compound of many factors)

After summative assessment, low-achieving pupils had lower

self-esteem than higher-achievers, whereas there had been no

correlation between self-esteem and achievement before

Repeated practice tests reinforce low self-esteem of low


achievers

“Big bang” tests cause anxiety in pupils, especially girls

Tests do motivate some pupils.

They also widen the gap between high- and low-achievers’

motivation

Summative assessment promotes “extrinsic” motivation, in

which pupils respond to the promise of some kind of reward

rather than “intrinsic” motivation in which they perform

because they are interested and want to do the work.

When results of summative assessment are presented as

primarily relating to individual pupils the negative effect on

low-achievers is more pronounced than when the results are for

evaluation of school or authority standards.

Secondary age low-achievers may deliberately underperform in

summative assessments because they are failing anyway

Summative assessments can be limiting for the most able

Curriculum and teaching

The curriculum can be narrowed by “teaching to the test”. 

This can even mean that time is taken away from curriculum

content.

It can also produce distortion in terms of teaching techniques

Summative test questions may not be framed in the same way


as those preferred for formative assessment.

Teachers can spend a lot of time on summative assessment

which does not directly improve pupils’ learning.

Teachers sometimes adopt a more didactic “transmission” style

of teaching which disadvantages those who don’t respond well

to it.

Validity and reliability

Validity must be assured in terms of the following:

The content of the assessment

The way in which the assessment is constructed

A test’s linkage with the way the items have been taught

Reliability must be assured in terms of the following:

Consistency across tasks

Consistency in scoring/grading

Positive potential

Schools have little direct control over the nature of external


summative assessments and must be careful to prepare pupils
effectively for these.  However, certain principles can inform the
effective use of summative assessment of coursework.  These
principles are seen as ways of encouraging skills and attitudes for
lifelong learning.

“Intrinsic” interest in tasks can be encouraged (see above)


Pupil awareness of learning goals rather than test performance

goals can be developed

A wide range of types of understanding can be included in

summative assessment

Some formative assessment evidence may be included in

summative reports

Peer- and self-assessment could be included in summative

records

Tests don’t need to be formal written assessments

The comparison of individual pupils on the basis of scores can

be avoided

Summative tests can be placed before the end of a teaching

block so that there is some opportunity for follow-up based on

the results, and even reassessment

Summative judgements can be made on the basis of a variety of

tests (varied both in form and content)

Pupils could carry forward lessons from assessments even into

the next school session (eg in the form of a copy of their

school report)

Feedback can be given to pupils in terms of the learning goals

rather than just a test mark

Tests might be devised to assess separate elements of the

course separately
In practising for summative assessment, pupils can make up and

answer their own questions.  (Research has shown this to be an

effective strategy)

Tests can be timed according to pupil readiness rather than

leaving them to the end of the block of work

Summative assessment can be presented to pupils realistically,

as being limited

Tests can provide evidence for evaluating courses and teaching

approaches

Whole-school discussion of such assessment principles can be

helpful

 Reflection and Discussion

Do you feel that time spent of summative assessment tasks is as


profitable as it might be?

Can summative assessment be exploited for formative purposes?

Some Activities Relating To the Issue Summative


Assessment
Key Objective Action
element
  Some examples and suggestions
Summative tests can be
presented as merely the
culmination of the
formative process. The aim
“Big bang” tests
would be a culture in which
Effects on cause anxiety in
the pupil attempts to do
Motivation pupils, especially
well in all types of
girls.
assessment, so that there
is no need to give special
prominence to final
assessments.
Take stock of your approach
to preparing pupils for tests. 
Do you still adopt the same
range of teaching
It can also approaches?  Is there a
Curriculum produce tendency for pupils and
and distortion in teachers to become anxious
terms of teaching and revert to less “involving”
Teaching strategies.  A pupil
techniques.
questionnaire can be used to
sample pupil opinion after the
assessment has been
completed.   
Tests are sometimes made
up by people who have
taught the course in a
different way or not taught
A test’s linkage
it at all. Are your summative
Validity and with the way the
test items related to your
Reliability items have been
own approach? Check, for
taught
example, that pupils
understand all the language
in the assessment. This is
frequently not the case.
A wide range of
Do you or can you build in
types of
items testing ability to
Positive understanding can
solve new problems, think
Potential be included in
critically, make informed
summative
decisions?
assessment.
 

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