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Current conceptions of assessment describe interactive, reciprocal processes of co-regulation of learning from multiple sources, including students, their teachers and peers, and technological tools. In this systematic review, we examine the research literature for support for the view of classroom assessment as a mechanism of the co-regulation of learning and motivation. Using an expanded framework of self-regulated learning to categorize 94 studies, we observe that there is support for most but not all elements of the framework but little research that represents the reciprocal nature of co-regulation. We highlight studies that enable students and teachers to use assessment to scaffold co-regulation. Concluding that the contemporary perspective on assessment as the co-regulation of learning is a useful development, we consider future directions for research that can address the limitations of the collection reviewed.

Until recently, the classroom assessment literature has emphasized the role of teachers and tests, for example investigating teachers’ assessment practices or the quality of classroom tests and oth...

We have known for a long time that a relationship exists between how learning is assessed and the learning processes and strategies students employ when engaged in those assessments. Black and Wiliam pointed out in 1998 that self-regulated learning should be a primary goal of formative assessment (FA). Since then, a growing body of research on this relationship has been produced. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss keystone publications that inform our current understandings of the relationship between FA and self-regulated learning. The result is a roadmap of the development of the field and directions for future research.

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], & National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 2014) were written primarily for psychometricians who work on large-scale educational assessments, licensure and certification tests, and workplace assessments. Some psychometricians suggest that the Standards could be useful to guide classroom assessment. We test that claim by selecting 12 psychometric standards that are likely to be relevant to classroom assessment and translating them into formulations that might make sense to teachers, for use with four types of classroom assessments. We conclude that it is possible to make translations that are reasonably relevant to classroom assessment practices, that translation of the psychometric standards should be combined with the Classroom Assessment Standards (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 2015) to ensure full coverage of all considerations in classroom assessment, and that any translation of psychometric standards for classroom assessment must be formulated into language and concepts that are relevant to and informed by teachers.

Twenty-eight studies of grades, over a century, were reviewed using the argument-based approach to validity suggested by Kane as a theoretical framework. The review draws conclusions about the meaning of graded achievement, its relation to tested achievement, and changes in the construct of graded achievement over time. Graded achievement reflects students' broad accomplishment of classroom and school learning goals, including goals about how to learn. Both high school and elementary grades contain information about school achievement that includes being socialized into the way learning happens in classrooms. Graded achievement reflects specific course learning goals and therefore varies according to subject; academic course grades align more closely with tested achievement than noncore course grades. Graded achievement also reflects individual teachers' grading practices and emphases about what is important to learn. Report card grades can be reliable and valid measures of graded achievement, but may not...

This review synthesizes the findings of studies of the use of rubrics in education settings published from 2005 to 2013. The review included studies only if the rubrics involved met the definition of having coherent sets of criteria and performance level descriptions for those criteria. Compared to the results of a previous review by Jonsson and Svingby (Educational Research Review 2(2): 130–144, 2007), the frequency, scope, and rigor of studies of rubrics have increased in recent years. Rubrics yield information of sufficient quality if certain conditions are met, most notably having clear and focused criteria. Evidence regarding the effects of rubrics on performance is positive overall. Evidence of the effects of rubrics on self-regulation of learning is mixed, though positive associations between rubric use and motivation to learn were identified in some studies.

Research on formative classroom assessment practices and professional development is richer at the classroom/teacher level than at the building/administrator level. Yet administrator leadership is known to be critical for school reforms, including a change to more formative, learning-oriented assessment practices. The researchers conducted an exploratory study using two years of data from a large, rural school district to describe administrators' learning as they participated in a professional development project designed to increase their knowledge and leadership of formative assessment. Teachers skilled at formative assessment, in the view of their administrators, shared learning targets with students in multiple ways and before, during, and after the lesson. The leadership of administrators was critical to the implementation of formative classroom assessment in their buildings. Administrators who became the leading learner focused their observations in classrooms more intently than before on what the s...

When principals immerse themselves in learning about formative assessments and how students learn, they become better instructional leaders for teachers.

The United States education system depends on legislation and funding at the federal, state and local levels. Public understanding of assessment therefore is important to educational reform in the USA. Educational reformers often invoke assessment information as a reason for reform, typically by citing unacceptable achievement on some measure or indicator. Recent educational reforms in the US also rely on assessment information as evidence of the effectiveness of the reform, designing some sort of accountability system into the reform. Public opinion about testing in three recent waves of US educational reform (the minimum competency movement in the 1970s, the standards-based reform movement in the 1980s and 1990s, and the No Child Left Behind era beginning in 2002) shows two themes. One is public belief in the objectivity of testing. The other is public belief in using tests data comparatively and competitively.

Self-regulation of learning occurs when learners set goals and then systematically carry out cognitive, affective, and behavioral practices and procedures that move them closer to those goals. Self-regulated learning (SRL) depends, in part, on information gleaned from classroom assessments about student learning and achievement. In this chapter we will discuss how classroom assessment is or could be used to support SRL. We will draw on the literatures on classroom assessment and SRL in order to demonstrate how assessment contributes to each phase of self-regulation, defined here as: (1) goal setting, (2) progress monitoring, and (3) revision and adjustment. For example, the goal-setting phase is influenced by the learning goals and success criteria shared by a teacher. The progress-monitoring phase is affected by feedback provided via formative and summative assessments. The revision-and-adjustment phase is affected by opportunities teachers give students to use feedback and decisions students make based on that feedback. This chapter demonstrates the close relationship between classroom assessment and SRL by reviewing research evidence for each phase, and makes the case that assessment can support the self-regulation of learning in classroom settings. The chapter also addresses challenges of implementing classroom assessment practices that support SRL.

Studies of the use of teacher judgement for summative assessment in the USA are considered in two general categories. (1) Studies of teacher classroom summative assessment, that is, teacher grading...

Six remedial reading teachers in a large, rural school district participated in a form of professional development called Teaching as Intentional Learning, based on an inquiry process. Their topic of inquiry was formative assessment. Professional development comprised both direct instruction and inquiry learning in teachers’ own classrooms. This study describes the strategies they experimented with, their professional growth in formative assessment, and effects on students. All six teachers showed important professional growth, as indicated by their own reflections and also by their supervisor’s observations. In First Grade, at‐risk students assigned to these project teachers had increased reading readiness scores on one measure (DIBELS PSF) compared with at‐risk students assigned to non‐project teachers.

Motivation and effort patterns associated with achievement on classroom assessments in middle-school science and social studies were studied with a sample of 223 8th graders in different classroom assessment environments. Classroom assessment environments were characterized by student perceptions of the importance and value of assessment tasks, perceived self-efficacy, and mastery goal orientations. It was expected that both classroom assessment environment and the particular assessment would be related to differences in motivation, effort, and their effects on achievement, even after controlling for prior achievement. The classroom assessment environment did make a difference in classroom achievement, with an effect size comparable to the effect for prior achievement. Motivational variables added to the prediction of classroom achievement after controlling for prior achievement and for classroom environment; perceived self-efficacy was the strongest motivational predictor. After controlling for backgroun...

In many fields of inquiry, the need for new theoretical developments is often best seen in areas of strain, and strain is apparent in several areas in which the conventions of measurement theory do not quite “fit” classroom assessment. Three areas of strain are analyzed in order to suggest how theoretical development might focus directly on information quality in the classroom assessment context. This article describes the context dependence of classroom assessment, its inextricable relationship with instruction, and its simultaneous formative and summative functions. Thus a case is made for new theoretical developments in the area of measurement in the classroom.