Assessment and Learning: differences and relationships between formative and summative assessment

Abstract

The central argument of this paper is that the formative and summative purposes of assessment have become confused in practice and that as a consequence assessment fails to have a truly formative role in learning. The importance of this role is argued particularly in relation to learning with understanding (deep learning). It is pointed out that the requirements of assessment for formative and summative purposes differ in several dimensions, including reliability, the reference base of judgements and the focus of the information used. This challenges the assumption that summative judgements can be formed by simple summation of formative ones. An alternative procedure for linking formative and summative assessment is proposed such that their separate functions are preserved.

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