Putting Testing in Perspective: It's for Learning

Ever since Scriven (1967) and Bloom, Hastings, and Madaus (1971) articulated the distinction between summative and formative evaluation, "summative assessment" has referred to tests administered after learning is supposed to have occurred to determine whether it did. "Formative assessment", on the other hand, has been used to describe assessments conducted during learning--those that inform teachers' instructional decisions along the way to student success. Interest and investment in summative assessment has far outstripped formative assessment as layer upon layer of these tests have been used for classroom grading as well as local, state, national, and international testing for public accountability. Within the last few years, however, formative assessment has emerged as an increasingly prominent school improvement strategy. One reason for its increased use has been educators' realization that once-a-year standardized summative tests are not likely to affect specific day-to-day, week-to-week, or even month-to-month instructional decisions. Summative tests typically fail to provide a picture of student learning with sufficient detail to tell teachers how to help individual students. Formative assessment informs instructional decision making by providing information about how and what students are learning. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning by engaging in self-assessment, reflection, goal setting, and monitoring and communicating their own progress. To use formative assessment effectively, teachers must take part in a cyclical process that includes assessment, diagnosis, feedback, goal setting, and instruction, and that involves students every step of the way.