In recent years, the topic of formative assessment strategies, practices and approaches has gained increasing popularity in the domains of the general public, education research, public policy and K-12 school teachers. Below is an annotated version of the assessment as learning video (AppalachiaRCC, 2016) from the previous chapter. Watch it to test your understanding of assessment as learning and formative assessments:

Within the aforementioned domains are key challenges that K-12 teachers continue to face: Lack of incentives, negative perceptions, lack of professional development opportunities and inaccessibility.

Lack of incentive

K-12 teachers may lack the incentive to use or continue using formative assessments because those assessments are considered low stakes and come with less accountability (Izci, 2016) compared to summative assessments. Formative assessments do not produce the same tangible indicators of achievement that summative assessments do. Yet, they require numerous resources, such as materials, funding and time (Izci, 2016). As well, they are internal, meaning that the results from them do not necessarily reach beyond the teachers and students in the classroom. Summative assessments, on the other hand, produce public grades and marks that often reflect the school’s student achievement success and can earn schools particular rankings in newspapers (Volante & Jaafar, 2008). Since teachers are usually aware of such consequences and a lack of resources, there is incentive choose to overemphasize summative assessments over more formative ones (Volante, 2009). However, this choice comes with a high level of pressure.

Schools that produce acceptable results have more pressure to maintain or reach such high stakes standards (Tóth & Csapó, 2022), especially if those standards could result in positive consequences, such as better school and student outcomes or negative consequences, such as poor student performance (Volante &  Jaafar, 2008). Furthermore, parents’ views on formative assessments, which can be negative (Izci, 2016) add even more pressure to produce public marks, especially if those views originate from their own learning experiences that included more exposure to summative assessments compared to formative ones. It follows that this pressure is more apparent with the former compared to the latter.

However, while this pressure impacts teachers directly, the ineffectual use of formative assessments impacts students primarily and directly. For instance, students can become frustrated with their learning experiences with formative assessments if teachers do not inform students of what they need to learn and model how they’re supposed to get there (Yildirim & Bilican Demir, 2022) and clarify their expectations. Students can disengage as a result. Yet, this disengagement does not always halt teachers from ineffectively using formative assessments, especially if there is a lack of assessment literacy. For instance, teachers may believe they are adjusting to their student needs by using formative assessments without its core elements (Yildirim & Bilican Demir, 2022) such as modeling (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013) and feedback (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010). This misapplication can lead to invalid and unfair assessments that inaccurately interpret student learning (Lin & Lin, 2015) or student learning needs, which could increase negative attitudes about assessment.

Teacher attitudes and perceptions

Teacher perceptions of teaching and learning may influence their teaching practices (Izci, 2016) and how they conduct student assessments (Volante, 2012). For successful formative assessments in K-12 classrooms, teachers need to plan and observe students in the classroom, gather that information and analyze it, according to student learning progress and curriculum goals and standards, and use that information to inform their next steps (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010; 2013). In this respect, teachers would benefit from taking on a facilitator role (Izci, 2016) to accomplish that, which requires a change in perception. However, if that change doesn’t happen, they may default to the instructor/lecturer role (Volante, 2009; Yildirim & Bilican Demir, 2022) while using formative assessments, which creates contradictions that reduce opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in various ways. For instance, some teachers may believe in student-centred learning yet choose not to use peer and self assessments because they do not believe that their students could evaluate their own learning (Yildirim & Bilican Demir, 2022). Overall, the ineffective use of formative assessments could contribute to a lack of trust between students and teachers.

Professional development

Teachers are being called upon to develop assessment literacy, which refers to having  a high level of knowledge and skill about assessment practices, theories and philosophies in order to understand assessment purpose and functions, communicate assessment results and use those results to act accordingly (Stiggins, 2000 as cited in Ellis & Bond, 2016; DeLuca & Klinger, 2010). Some studies have suggested that when teachers have targeted professional development opportunities about assessment, they are more likely to implement a variety of approaches beyond assessment of learning (Volante, 2009; Izci, 2016; DeLuca & Klinger, 2010). However, many teachers – pre-service, in-service and experienced – are not receiving adequate training, leadership and opportunities to develop their assessment literacy (Volante, 2009).

Teachers also lack the time to conduct further educational research about formative assessments in particular. While further research would increase their knowledge, it may also keep their teaching practices the same (Izci, 2016) without any guidance or practice opportunities. This circumstance makes the ineffective use of formative assessments possible because it exacerbates the disconnect between pedagogy and practice. Since all teachers have different experiences with assessments, knowledge, teaching experience and learning needs (Unal & Unal, 2019), this disconnect indicates that teachers themselves require various scaffolded professional learning opportunities. Without it, teachers risk negatively impacting students’ learning progress, metacognitive skills and self-regulation skills (CAST, 2010), all of which could contribute to an inaccessible learning environment.

Below is an in-depth discussion between US-based teachers, school administrators, principals and other education professionals discussing the challenges, concerns and questions regarding summative and formative assessments. Follow along and critically reflect on personal and professional experiences with assessments:

Result: Non-inclusive learning environments

Lack of incentive, professional development opportunities and negative perceptions can lead to non-inclusive learning environments where students’ diverse learning needs are not met.  These environments can look like teachers using assessment as or for learning approaches without appropriate feedback mechanisms, encouraging better performance as opposed to mastery over the self- regulation skills and learning strategies (Yildirim & Bilican Demir, 2022) and a lack of scaffolding or explanations of tasks. These situations can produce student disengagement, especially if they are followed by teachers increasing student exposure to summative assessments (DeLuca and Klinger, 2010) compared to formative assessments. Not only would this situation diversify the learning needs of students in one classroom, it would also complicate the teachers’ choices to address them. K-12 teachers may use more personalized teaching strategies such as differentiated instruction^[1] (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013), in order to adapt course material to individual learning needs. While teachers may find success in this approach, it would still take ample resources, time and professional development (Izci, 2016), all of which K-12 teachers are already lacking opportunities for.

References

AppalachiaRCC. (2016, October 16). Self-assessment using traffic signals. [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOli2UboqMo&ab_channel=AppalachiaRCC

DeLuca, C., & Klinger, D. A. (2010). Assessment literacy development: Identifying gaps in teacher candidates’ learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 17(4), 419–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2010.516643

Ellis, A. K., & Bond, J. B. (2016). Assessment. In Research on educational innovations (5th ed.). (pp. 66-78). 77Routledge.

Izci, K. (2016). Internal and external factors affecting teachers’ adoption of formative assessment to support learning. International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, 10(8), 2541-2548. http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/scholarly-journals/internal-external-factors-affecting-teachers/docview/1871571123/se-2

Lin, P., & Lin, Y. (2015). Identifying Canadian teacher candidates’ needs for training in the use of inclusive classroom assessment. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(8), 771-786. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2014.970669

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2010). Growing success: Assessment, evaluation and reporting in Ontario schools. (1st edition). http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growSuccess.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education (2013). Learning for all: A guide to effective assessment and instruction for all students, kindergarten to grade 12. https://files.ontario.ca/edu-learning-for-all-2013-en-2022-01-28.pdf

Tóth, E., & Csapó, B. (2022). Teachers’ beliefs about assessment and accountability. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 34(4), 459-481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-022-09396-w

Unal, A., & Unal, Z. (2019). An examination of k-12 teachers’ assessment beliefs and practices in relation to years of teaching experience. Georgia Educational Researcher, 16(1), 4-21. http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/scholarly-journals/examination-k-12-teachers-assessment-beliefs/docview/2228678755/se-2

Volante, L. (2009). Assessment of, for, and as learning within schools: Implications for transforming classroom practice. Action in Teacher Education, 31(4), 66-75. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/scholarly-journals/assessment-as-learning-within-schools/docview/860370339/se-2

Volante, L., & Jaafar, S. B. (2008). Educational assessment in Canada. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 15(2), 201–210. https://doi-org.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/10.1080/09695940802164226

Yildirim, O., & Bilican Demir, S. (2022). Inside the black box: Do teachers practice assessment as learning? International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 9, 46-71. http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/scholarly-journals/inside-black-box-do-teachers-practice-assessment/docview/2861323110/se-2