Meta‐Analytic Methodology and Inferences About the Efficacy of Formative Assessment

Derek C. Briggs · Maria Araceli Ruiz‐Primo · Erin Marie Furtak · Lorrie A. Shepard · Yue Melody Yin

73 citations0/0 files storedEducational Measurement Issues and Practice

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Student Assessment and Feedback Meta-analysis and systematic reviews Educational Research and Methods

Abstract

In a recent article published in EM:IP, Kingston and Nash report on the results of a meta‐analysis on the efficacy of formative assessment. They conclude that the average effect of formative assessment on student achievement is about .20 SD units. This would seem to dispel the myth that effects between .40 and .70 can be attributed to formative assessment. They also find that there is considerable variability in effect sizes across studies, and that only the content area in which the treatment is situated explains a significant proportion of study variability. However, there are issues in the meta‐analytic methodology employed by the authors that make their findings somewhat equivocal. This commentary focuses on four methodological concerns about the Kingston and Nash meta‐analysis: (1) the approach taken to select studies for inclusion, (2) the application of study inclusion criteria, (3) the extent to which the effect sizes being combined are biased, and (4) the relationship between effect size magnitude and characteristics of outcome measures. After examining these issues in the context of the Kingston and Nash review, it appears that considerable uncertainty remains about the effect that formative assessment practices have on student achievement .

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 73 citations exist upstream.

References

1998Assessment and Classroom Learning 2010Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment 2007Estimating Effect Sizes From Pretest-Posttest-Control Group Designs 2011Formative assessment: a critical review 1996Teaching Students to Generate Questions: A Review of the Intervention Studies 1988Synthesizing standardized mean‐change measures 1928Interpretation of Educational Measurements 2002Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment for Learning

Cited by

2019A framework for classroom assessment, learning, and self-regulation 2021Formative assessment, growth mindset, and achievement: examining their relations in the East and the West 2018Reaping the benefits of assessment for learning: achievement, identity, and equity 2022The effectiveness of formative assessment for enhancing reading achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.