formative and summative assessment presentation

Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, what is the difference between formative and summative assessment, formative assessment.

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes , which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes , which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

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Formative and summative assessments.

Assessment allows both instructor and student to monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives, and can be approached in a variety of ways. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). It can include students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more. In short, formative assessment occurs throughout a class or course, and seeks to improve student achievement of learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs (Theal and Franklin, 2010, p. 151). 

In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches. 

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013): 

• Informal / formal
• Immediate / delayed feedback
• Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone
• Spontaneous / planned
• Individual / group
• Verbal / nonverbal
• Oral / written
• Graded / ungraded
• Open-ended response / closed/constrained response
• Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled
• Teacher and student(s) / peers
• Process-oriented / product-oriented
• Brief / extended
• Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed 

Recommendations

Formative Assessment   Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

• Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers ). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.
• Encourage students’ self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer’s work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.
• Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.
• Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions , where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.
• Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.
• Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.  
• Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition , as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles. 

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here ).

Summative Assessment   Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.  

• Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and “summarize” expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion. 
• Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions .
• Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course’s content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course’s ideas and content. 
• Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.
• Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student’s term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques .

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these  recommendations .

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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An introduction to formative and summative assessment

Many people assume that ‘assessment’ means taking a test, but assessment is broader than that. There are two main types of assessment: summative assessment and formative assessment. These are sometimes referred to as assessment of learning and assessment for learning, respectively. At some level, both happen in almost all classrooms. The key to good assessment practice is to understand what each type contributes and to build your practice to maximise the effectiveness of each.

Summative assessment

Summative assessment sums up what a pupil has achieved at the end of a period of time, relative to the learning aims and the relevant national standards. The period of time may vary, depending on what the teacher wants to find out. There may be an assessment at the end of a topic, at the end of a term or half-term, at the end of a year or, as in the case of the national curriculum tests, at the end of a key stage.

A summative assessment may be a written test, an observation, a conversation or a task. It may be recorded through writing, through photographs or other visual media, or through an audio recording. Whichever medium is used, the assessment will show what has been achieved. It will summarise attainment at a particular point in time and may provide individual and cohort data that will be useful for tracking progress and for informing stakeholders (e.g. parents, governors, etc.).

Formative assessment

Formative assessment takes place on a day-to-day basis during teaching and learning, allowing teachers and pupils to assess attainment and progress more frequently. It begins with diagnostic assessment, indicating what is already known and what gaps may exist in skills or knowledge. If a teacher and pupil understand what has been achieved to date, it is easier to plan the next steps. As the learning continues, further formative assessments indicate whether teaching plans need to be amended to reinforce or extend learning.

Formative assessments may be questions, tasks, quizzes or more formal assessments. Often formative assessments may not be recorded at all, except perhaps in the lesson plans drawn up to address the next steps indicated.

It is possible for a summative assessment to be complemented with materials that help teachers to analyse the results to inform teaching and learning (therefore also having formative benefits). For example, the NFER spring teacher guides include ‘diagnostic guidance’ with analysis of common errors and teaching points.

For more on the effective use of assessment, head over to the NFER Assessment Hub where you'll find a host of free guidance and resources. You can also sign up to our monthly  assessment newsletter for exclusive assessment-related content delivered direct to your inbox.

For more information on NFER’s popular range of termly standardised assessments for key stage 1 and 2, visit www.nfer.ac.uk/tests.

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Formative Vs Summative Assessment: The Differences Explained

Tim Handley

The assessment landscape in schools is often confusing and ever-changing. With the debate between the merits of formative vs summative assessments raging on, it can be difficult to know when to use either of these assessment types in your classroom. That’s why, in this article, we will discuss when you should use either type of assessment and explain why.

Formative vs summative assessments – what is the difference?

When teachers discuss assessment, they often refer to two types – ‘formative’ and ‘summative’. However, the distinctions and lines between the two types of assessment are often blurred and misunderstood.

This article compares and contrasts formative and summative assessments to give you a true view of the difference between both types.

Common Core Practice Tests Grades 3 to 8

Prepare for your state math test with these Grades 3 to 8 practice assessments for Common Core.

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is the use of day-to-day assessments to gauge and explore students’ understanding of a topic.

Think of it as an assessment for learning. 

Formative assessments help inform the learning ‘in the moment’. Formative assessment is a continuous and informal classroom assessment. It should have a central and pivotal role in every math classroom.

If used correctly, it will highly impact current learning and help guide your instruction and teaching through ongoing feedback on learners’ progress.

Low-stakes assessments like formative assessments allow students to develop their skills, confidence and experience before attempting high-stakes summative assessments. It also makes room for self-assessment.

What is summative assessment?

Summative assessments are final exams after students complete a block of work, whether that is at the end of a unit or the end of a quarter. 

They are a more formal way to sum up student progress and offer a final grade. Often, they are compared against a standard benchmark.

Think of summative assessments as assessments of learning.

There are different types of summative evaluations that we carry out ‘after the event’, often periodic (rather than continuous), measured against a set standard.

Summative assessment helps to validate and ‘check’ formative assessment – it is a periodic measure of overall student achievement in mathematics.

If formative assessment i s continually carried out, then the results of summative assessment shouldn’t yield any surprises.

Some common examples of summative assessment include:

• Final projects

Formative and summative assessments should be adaptable

Importantly, it is not the ‘form’ of assessment that determines whether it is formative or summative, but how it is used.

For example, ‘test style questions’ are a type of formative assessment. For example, exit tickets (questions given to students at the end of the lesson to check student understanding). Or summative, for example, an end of an instructional unit test or check.

It is important that in all subjects, but especially in math, we use a combination of both assessment strategies. However, due to its constant nature, formative assessment should make up the bulk of assessment activities.

Formative vs summative assessment comparison chart

This Venn diagram shows the differences and similarities between the two assessment types very clearly.

Formative assessment – Constantly assessing ‘in the moment’.

Formative assessment is an intrinsic part of both teaching and student progression. This form of assessment does not rely upon tests and results, but rather the ability to adapt to classroom blockers as they arise. 

It should indicate what a good piece of work is and why this is the case, but it also gives you as a teacher a chance to see when things are not going so well and act upon it and see improvements. 

Good formative feedback enables the teacher and student to plan the next stage of their progression and future learning goals together. 

How to bring formative assessments into your classroom

During a lesson, all classroom staff adults should be on a ‘constant assessment mission’ through interactions with students. 

Teachers should move around the room and interact with each child assessing their progress towards the learning objective in real-time.

In the moment, assessment can take many forms:

• Use questions from your shared learning to assess where you need to give independent work, or which students need further support

• Ask key questions to students during their independent work 

• You could use ‘exit tickets’ to assess children’s understanding at the end of a lesson

However, this ‘in the moment’ assessment must have a purpose, and use the information to adapt the learning experiences and opportunities provided to each child.

Information obtained from formative assessments can help you understand the student’s learning processes and adapt this in future lesson plans.

If your assessment shows that students are secure, then how are you going to deepen their learning?

If your assessment shows that students have some misconceptions, how will you support these?

These are just two of the questions to ask yourself throughout a formative assessment.

If you are looking to bring formative assessments into your classroom, look at our blog containing your Math Intervention Must-Have: Formative Diagnostic Assessment Tests.

Formative assessment ideas for your class

To keep up with the progression of your math class, there are several assessment routines you can use.

Common types of formative assessment include:

• Group activities
• Class projects
• Presentations

Ensure each formative assessment routine has a purpose

Make sure that your assessment ‘routines’ have purpose and use. 

For example, if you are going to do the ‘math lesson classic’ and ask children to show you an answer on a mini-whiteboard, ensure you look at every student’s answers.

Use these to inform the next step in your lesson and the learning for each student.

I have observed many lessons where teachers have carried out the mini-whiteboard ‘routine’, not looking at the responses given, and carried on with what they had planned regardless. 

Remember, it’s not the activity or ‘thing’ you do that represents effective assessment, but what you do with the information you gather.

Through effective in-lesson assessment, you can ensure that each student receives support and challenge and that every student is learning rather than constantly rehearsing what they already know.

Don’t leave any potholes – why formative assessment is important

I often use a ‘pothole’ analogy with the schools I work with. Imagine a local district was filling in potholes but their road maintenance vehicles were creating new holes in the road.

They wouldn’t be improving the overall road surface quality, would they?

Yet, schools often inadvertently do the same with math. Often, they are very good at carrying out a plethora of intervention activities to fill gaps (or potholes) that have been ‘left’ from previous years. Yet, simultaneously create new gaps (or potholes).

It is therefore important that we use our constant, ‘in the moment’ assessment to help ensure that no new gaps are being allowed to form in a student’s mathematical understanding and learning.

Make sure to use your ‘in the moment’ and ‘end of lesson’ assessments to help fill any new emerging gaps.

At the end of the math lesson, formatively check that all students are secure with the objective for that lesson and if not, carry out some form of intervention to help address these gaps.

If you do not address the gaps now, then who is? And when?

4 things you must remember regarding summative assessment

Summative assessment helps to demonstrate the extent of students’ success in meeting specific goals. It is a method that can be used to quantify achievement, and due to its data-driven nature, it is a great way to provide a numerical basis for a student’s next step.

However, while the principles of summative assessment are simple, there are 4 key points you need to consider before implementing it in your classroom.

1. Assessment systems vs framework – What are you assessing against?

Despite the power of ‘in the moment’ formative assessment, schools need a way to track the attainment and progress of students throughout the school. 

This need means schools should also consider the assessment framework they are using- i.e. what they are assessing against. Often, this is a district level decision.

However, you must be clear about the difference between your assessment system and the framework you are using. Often, working in schools, they tell me that they use ‘student asset’, ‘classroom monitor’, ‘target tracker’ (and many others) as their assessment. These are all assessment systems – software that allows you to record and track student’s progress against the school’s chosen framework.

They are not what you are using to ‘assess’- merely what you are using to record your assessment.   

These assessment systems all allow you to select (and often create your own) framework upon which to assess your students. These frameworks are vitally important.

2. Balancing the frameworks is crucial

When choosing, or creating, the assessment framework you are using, it’s important to consider the balance of objectives and target areas of mathematics within the framework.

Some end-of-grade tests may give a higher weight towards number-based objectives, with number, calculations and proportionality making up between 75-85% of a child’s final result. 

Yet, most grades have an even split between all standard domains.

This essentially means that a child could be legitimately marked as ‘secure’ or ‘working at aged-related expectations’ against the whole curriculum, based on their strength in geometry, even though they wouldn’t be classed as ‘secure’ or ‘working at aged-related expectations’ in a standardized test .

Ensure your framework is balanced, and includes an equal weighting of standards-based questions.

There are many ways in which you can do this, including: 

 Use built-in ‘weighting’ functions of some assessment systems that allow you to weight each objective. 

• Assess against key objectives only, which balance number vs non-number objectives.

• Group objectives together, creating the overall numbers vs non-number balance. 

• Use a commercially available assessment framework which does the weighting work for you.

3. Teacher assessment plays a huge role in summative assessment

Once your school decides on a framework for assessment, the next question is how to use it.

These frameworks can be used both in a purely summative or formative way, leading to an accurate summative assessment. 

The traditional use of these frameworks is for schools to ask each child to be assessed against the framework at set points, for example, midway through the school year or end-of-grade tests. 

This often leads to ‘assessment panic’ and teachers feel overwhelmed having to create the assessment against many objectives for all students in their task in a short period.

If this is the only way these frameworks are used, then these are purely summative – it is the teacher’s judgment at the end of a quarter/year.

Due to the stress of meeting a deadline and making a judgment against each objective for all students in your class, often these summative-only teacher assessments aren’t as accurate as many would like.

Luckily, you can adapt these assessments very easily

However, these frameworks can also be formative. Teachers are encouraged to record the learning progress towards objectives on the framework or rubric as they are taught .

An example of this is recording and amending judgements each week resulting the ‘ongoing’ assessment. This leads to an ever-changing snapshot of each child’s performance, which can be powerful.

This can inform interventions and subsequent teaching and help to identify common misconceptions, giving the assessment framework used by your school both a summative and formative use. 

These assessments can then be finalized in time for whatever deadline ‘snapshot’ date your school set.

It is fantastic that many schools and districts favor teacher assessment to provide this ‘data.’ 

Teacher assessment is incredibly powerful and gives teachers the professional autonomy they deserve.

4. Testing can’t be forgotten about either

Many schools also use some form of testing alongside their assessment frameworks.

This helps validate teacher assessment judgments, and can also help to ensure there are no ‘nasty’ surprises when it comes to state standardized tests.

However, testing is only as good as the test quality used. The tests your schools reliy on must have the same degree of ‘standardization’.

They should be standardized so you know how children across the country perform based on a clear test development framework, and have been trialed and refined in schools. 

Some popular tests developed in this way include STAR Math and Terra Nova.

Regardless of the tests used, schools and teachers must understand that they provide a snapshot of the performance on test day.

Children, like adults, all have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days, and these tests must be seen as a supplement to good quality teacher assessment, not a replacement for it.

Formative vs summative assessments – the pros and cons

Both formative and summative assessments have an important role in the classroom and schools. However, you must ensure the right balance between the two approaches for your own class’s learning needs.

Constant formative assessment can prove difficult if not implemented properly. But, consistent assessment of students’ strengths and weaknesses can prove invaluable in helping them to progress.

Summative assessment often doesn’t show the whole picture of a student’s progression, but it is a fantastic way of getting a data-driven overview of how a student has progressed and grown over a period.  

The goal of this blog was to summarize the difference between formative and summative assessment, and the conclusion is that both approaches have flaws. 

They can both also provide valuable insight into how a class progresses throughout the school year.

Remember to use assessments of both kinds to inform your teaching!

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The content in this article was originally written by math consultant and author Tim Handley and has since been revised and adapted for US schools by elementary math teacher Katie Keeton.

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3rd to 8th Grade Math Test [FREE]

Always searching for high quality, pedagogically sound, off-the-shelf questions you can trust? Help students prepare for your state’s math tests with these practice assessments carefully created by our math experts to save you time.

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Explainer: what’s the difference between formative and summative assessment in schools?

Senior Lecturer in Educational Assessment, Macquarie University

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The recent Gonski report argues Australia needs assessment and reporting models that capture both achievement progress and long-term learning progress. This, according to the review panel, involves low-stakes, low-key, and regular formative assessments to support learning progressions. The report used international evidence on individualised teaching to demonstrate ongoing formative assessment and feedback is fundamental to supporting students to do better in school.

The NSW Education Minister, Rob Stokes, has called for NAPLAN to be replaced in “haste” with less high stakes tests. Mark Scott, the secretary of the NSW Department of Education, echoed Stokes’ remarks. He stated :

I think [NAPLAN] will become obsolete because the kinds of information that the new assessment schemes will give us will be richer and deeper and more meaningful for teachers, for parents and for education systems.

So, what’s the difference between formative and summative assessment? And when should each be used? Formative and summative assessment have different purposes and both have an important role to play in a balanced assessment program.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment includes a range of strategies such as classroom discussions and quizzes designed to generate feedback on student performance. This is done so teachers can make changes in teaching and learning based on what students need.

It involves finding out what students know and do not know, and continually monitoring student progress during learning. Both teachers and students are involved in decisions about the next steps in learning.

Read more: Marking answers with a tick or cross won't enhance learning

Teachers use the feedback from formative tasks to identify what students are struggling with and adjust instruction appropriately. This could involve re-teaching key concepts, changing how they teach or modifying teaching resources to provide students with additional support. Students also use feedback from formative tasks to reflect on and improve their own work.

Regular classroom tasks, whether formal (for example, traditional pen and paper tests) or informal (such as classroom discussions), can be adapted into effective formative tasks by:

making students aware of the learning goals/success criteria using rubrics and carefully tracking student progress against them

including clear instructions to guide students through a series of activities to demonstrate the success criteria. A teacher might, for example, design a series of activities to guide students through an inquiry or research process in science

providing regular opportunities for feedback from the teacher, other students or parents (this feedback may be face-to face, written, or online)

making sure students have opportunities to reflect on and make use of feedback to improve their work. This may involve asking students to write a short reflection about the feedback on their draft essay and using this to improve their final version.

There are many advantages of formative assessment:

feedback from formative assessment helps students become aware of any gaps between their goal and their current knowledge, understanding, or skill

tasks guide students through the actions necessary to hit learning goals

tasks encourage students to focus their attention on the task (such as undertaking an inquiry or research process) rather than on simply getting the right answer

students and teachers receive ongoing feedback about student progress towards learning goals, which enables teachers to adjust their instructional approach in response to what students need

students build their self-regulation skills by setting learning goals and monitoring their progress towards them

results of formative assessments can also be used for grading and reporting.

Summative assessment

This includes end of unit examinations and the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) examination.

Summative assessment provides students, teachers and parents with an understanding of the pupil’s overall learning. Most commonly thought of as formal, time-specific exams, these assessments may include major essays, projects, presentations, art works, creative portfolios, reports or research experiments. These assessments are designed to measure the student’s achievement relative to the subject’s overall learning goals as set out in the relevant curriculum standards.

The design and goals of summative assessments are generally standardised so they can be applied to large numbers of students, multiple cohorts and time periods. Data collected on individual student, cohort, school or system performance provides schools and principals with a tool to evaluate student knowledge relative to the learning objectives. They can also compare them with previous cohorts and other schools.

Read more: Evidence-based education needs standardised assessment

The measurement and evaluation of student achievement this way gives us necessary information about how we can continuously improve learning and teaching.

There are a number of limitations of summative assessment. While formative assessments usually provide feedback for the student to review and develop their learning, summative assessments are rarely returned to students. When assessments provide only a numerical grade and little or no feedback, as the NSW HSC does, it’s hard for students and teachers to pinpoint learning needs and determine the way forward.

Additionally, being a form of “high stakes” assessment, results may be perceived as a way of ranking students. For high achieving students there is recognition and reward, while for the lower performing students there is potential embarrassment and shame. Neither of these things should be associated with an equal opportunity education system.

The author would like to acknowledge the work of David McDonald, a PhD student at Macquarie University in assessment, in writing this article.

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Formative and Summative Assessment

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Formative vs. Summative Assessment: What’s the Difference? [+ Comparison Chart]

In education, assessments are the roadmap guiding teachers and students to successful outcomes — from navigating subject matter to reaching academic milestones. But not all means of measuring success are the same. In this blog post we’ll explore two of these methods: formative vs. summative assessment.

To maximize teaching effectiveness, it’s important to understand the differences between each assessment type. Keep reading to learn the benefits of tailoring instruction to meet the diverse needs of every learner, plus tips on implementing both techniques.

What Is Formative Assessment?

Formative assessment is not actually a singular method, but instead, a variety of ways for teachers to evaluate student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress in real-time throughout a lesson, unit, or course. 

These assessments aid in identifying areas where students are struggling, skills they find challenging, or learning standards they have not yet achieved. This information enables teachers to make necessary adjustments to lessons and instructional techniques to better meet the needs of their students. 

Its primary goal is to measure a student’s understanding during instruction; for example, with quizzes, tests, or exams.

As learning and formative assessment expert Paul Black puts it, “when the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When a customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.”

What Is Summative Assessment?

Summative assessment, on the other hand, is any type of evaluation that measures a student’s overall comprehension and achievement at the end of a unit, course, or academic period. It typically takes the form of final exams or projects, and aims to gauge what students have learned. Unlike formative assessment, which provides ongoing feedback, summative assessment focuses on determining the extent to which students have mastered the content overall.

This culmination of the learning process helps teachers determine proficiency levels against predefined standards or benchmarks. These assessments — which often carry higher stakes — are used for accountability, such as grading, ranking, and reporting student achievement to parents and school administrators.

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3 Examples of Formative Assessment

For a clearer idea of formative assessment , explore these three examples:

• Exit tickets are brief assessments given to students at the end of a lesson or class period featuring questions that relate to that day’s work. Teachers use exit tickets to gauge student understanding before they leave the class, allowing them to adjust future instruction based on the feedback received. 
• Think-Pair-Share involves three stages: First, prompting students to independently think about a question related to a lesson, then having them pair up with a classmate to discuss their thoughts, before finally asking them to share their discussion with the class. The process encourages active engagement, collaboration, and comprehension.
• One-minute paper is aptly named, allowing students 60 seconds at the end of a lesson or class period to write down the most important concepts from the presented material. Teachers can review these papers to assess how well students understand the material at hand and address any misconceptions.

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3 Examples of Summative Assessment

Likewise, here a few examples of summative assessments:

• Final exams are comprehensive assessments that are typically given at the end of a course or academic year and cover a broad range of topics that were covered over a longer period of time. 
• Standardized tests , such as the SAT and ACT, are administered and scored consistently across a large number of students for comparison purposes. They are also useful for identifying areas for improvement in educational systems and making decisions about student placement or advancement, such as admission into higher education institutions.  
• End-of-unit projects are typically more extensive than regular class assignments and require students to demonstrate their understanding of multiple concepts or skills covered in the unit. Research, originality, collaboration, and presentation are often involved.

How to Grade Formative Assessments

Because of the unique nature of each type of student evaluation, there is also variety in grading summative vs. formative assessments. The following are considerations when grading formative assessments:

• Focus on feedback by prioritizing constructive notes that guide students’ learning and improvement.
• Use rubrics to establish clear criteria for assessment and ensure consistency in grading. 
• Provide descriptive feedback that highlights strengths and areas for improvement.
• Encourage self assessment to promote accountability and reflection as students examine their own work.
• Focus on growth and development over time instead of final outcomes and grades exclusively.
• Track progress to call out student achievement trends over time.
• Use peer assessment to cultivate collaboration and diverse perspectives in evaluation.
• Consider participation and effort in addition to academic achievement in order to take a big-picture look at education and achievement.
• Communicate clearly to facilitate understanding and successful outcomes.

How to Grade Summative Assessments

Consider these methods as you grade summative assessments, keeping in mind a fair and accurate representation of students’ learning outcomes and progress.

• Establish clear criteria to guide students on what is expected and to ensure transparency in assessment standards.
• Use rubrics to keep evaluation criteria structured and promote consistency.
• Assign numerical or letter grades to quantify performance and clearly articulate overall performance.
• Consider weighting grades to reflect the relative importance of different aspects of student performance.
• Provide feedback that is specific and actionable. 
• Ensure fairness and consistency to uphold equitable grading for all students.
• Communicate results clearly so that parents, students, and administrators understand learning outcomes.
• Offer opportunities for review and reflection to encourage students to engage with their assessment and improve moving forward.
• Use assessment data for instructional planning to tailor teaching strategies to student needs.
• Adhere to school or district policies to maintain compliance and consistency.

Formative vs. Summative Assessment Comparison Chart

Understanding these differences is crucial for educators to help students succeed in meaningful and effective ways. When teachers try out different assessment methods and grading styles, they get a better handle on student needs and can create an environment for widespread growth and improvement. 

The best way for teachers to advance their knowledge and understanding of the latest assessment methods is to keep up with professional development opportunities, such as with the University of San Diego’s Professional and Continuing Education (PCE) certificate program. Explore the website to learn more about hundreds of online and independent courses for teachers covering a wide range of subjects.

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A Quick Guide to Formative and Summative Assessment

Get an overview of the key differences between formative and summative assessments, as well as examples of when each type of assessment is most appropriate.

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Reliable, accurate, and student-centered assessments form the basis of effective instruction. While it’s easy to fall into a pattern of thinking of assessments as exclusively cumulative and formal, there are many ways to assess students throughout a course. Instructors can use a strategic combination of formative and summative assessments to measure learning outcomes, prepare students for success, and inform their own instruction.

In this quick guide, we delve into the nuances of formative and summative assessment — two evaluation approaches that hold significant implications for college professors aiming to optimize teaching and learning experiences. As you work to gauge student progress and adapt your teaching to an ever-changing educational landscape, knowing the differences between and use cases for these two approaches can be useful.

What do we mean by summative assessment?

Summative assessments are implemented at the conclusion of a learning cycle and are meant to evaluate the final product of teaching and learning.

Examples of Summative Assessments Include:

• Final exams
• Midterm exams
• Term papers
• Cumulative portfolios*
• Standardised tests
• Final Presentations*

*Can be assessed as formative at various points in the learning process

When Summative Assessments Are Appropriate: Use summative assessments to evaluate students’ final understanding and abilities at the conclusion of a learning cycle.

What are the key differences between formative and summative assessments?

To summarise, formative assessment and summative assessments differ in their primary objectives, timing, and the role they play in the learning process. Formative assessment aims to provide ongoing feedback to students during their learning journey, enabling them to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. It occurs throughout the learning process and is often informal, focusing on development and growth. In contrast, summative assessment usually occurs at the end of a learning period, such as a unit, course, or semester. Summative assessment can be more formal in nature and serves as a culmination of the learning experience, providing a snapshot of overall student understanding and performance.

Deciding How to Assess Your Students

If you’re unsure which assessment approach is appropriate, it might be helpful to start by thinking about where you are in the scope and sequence of your unit/course. Here are a few ways that you can assess students whether you’re at the beginning, middle, or end of your course. Always keep in mind the intent of your assessment.

• Use formative assessment to identify pre-existing knowledge, opinions, and interests
• To fully assess student understanding prior to the start of a new unit, a diagnostic assessment might be fitting
• To determine whether students grasp a concept thoroughly enough to move on, or consider a reteach lesson → Formative
• To gather information on student understanding, student interests, and student opinions to inform upcoming lessons → Formative
• To mark the conclusion of a significant portion of the course of study and assess final understanding (midterms, unit exams) → Summative
• To provide final guidance and support as students prepare for a conclusive project/exam/paper/etc. → Formative
• To mark the conclusion of a unit and assess final understanding → Summative

It is important to note that formative and summative assessments work in tandem with one another to create a powerful feedback loop for educators and students. The intent of formative assessments is to prepare students for success — often on summative assessments. It can be valuable to design formative assessments with the summative in mind and vice versa.

Tools like Achieve and iClicker are valuable resources to personalize assessment and interpret the results. These research-backed systems provide synchronous and asynchronous options to receive student feedback, whether through surveys, polls, videos, animations, and more. With personalised, honest formative assessments, instructors can then set their students up for success on a summative assessment.

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Summative and Formative Assessment

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Although many instructors think of assessing student learning as synonymous with the process of arriving at a grade for student work, assessment can be used for other purposes and in other ways as well:

• to evaluate students’ work or their understanding of course concepts
• to communicate to the student how well their work or understanding compares to stated criteria or to other students’ work
• to motivate students to work to understand course material
• to organize a course by providing a transition between major sections

The process of arriving at a grade for a student (either for a test or assignment, or for an entire course) is known as summative assessment. Summative assessments (e.g., exams or term papers) are formal, usually graded, and focused on letting students show a range of skills and knowledge. They require a considerable investment of time, both from students and from instructors, and are consequently often completed outside of class.

To design a good summative assessment, it is important to begin with the course goals. What skills and knowledge should students have gained in the course? Once this question has been answered, an instructor can create assignments that will allow students to demonstrate that they have reached the course goals. Good summative assessments are authentic, in the sense that they require students to think like practitioners of the discipline (Wiggins, 1998). To learn more about how to make an assignment authentic, see the CITL resource on  Authentic Assessment .

In contrast, formative assessment is assessment of student learning that is designed to  improve  (rather than to evaluate) students’ skills or their understanding of specific course concepts. Formative assessments are typically done in class, can be anonymous, and are usually much more focused on particular skills or information. Formative assessments provide information to students as well as instructors about how well students understand specific course concepts, and are typically low-stakes, in the sense that they are often ungraded. The table below contrasts the two kinds of assessment.

A classic type of formative assessment is  Classroom Assessment Techniques , or CATs. CATs are learner-centered, teacher-directed, mutually beneficial formative assessments that can be tailored to specific disciplines and teaching contexts.  

Another widely-used type of formative assessment is the Conceptest (Mazur, 2001). A Conceptest is a multiple-choice question that tests students’ conceptual understanding of material presented in class. For more information, see these videos: 

• Erik Mazur’s talk “ Confessions of a Converted Lecturer ” about how he developed peer instruction
• “ Developing problem-solving skills and logical thinking ”

A well-designed course will have a balance of formative and summative assessments. An instructor might use CATs or other formative assessments while students are learning new material, to check on their understanding of the new concepts. The results of the formative assessments tell both the students and the instructor whether or not students are ready to move on to new material. After the instructor has determined that students have the knowledge and skills they will need, she can assign a summative assessment to allow them to show their new knowledge and skills.

Wiggins, G. (1998).  Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Practice . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Angelo, T.A. and Cross, K.P. (1993)  Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This is the original classic (and encyclopedic) volume defining CATs. It describes 50 different CATS and includes examples of how each can be used in the classroom.

Crouch, C. H. and Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. Am. J. Phys., 69, 970-977.

http://web.mit.edu/jbelcher/www/TEALref/Crouch_Mazur.pdf

This article by Catherine Crouch and Erik Mazur summarizes data from 10 years of teaching using Mazur’s Peer Instruction methods (which includes Conceptests), demonstrating that students taught using Peer Instruction more effectively master course concepts.

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Assessment | Career and Technical Education (CTE) | Curriculum Development | Classroom Planning

Formative vs. Summative Assessments: What's the Difference?

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March 19th, 2024 | 8 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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Whether you’re an administrator, supervisor, or teacher, you’ve heard of formative assessments and summative assessments . They're both essential parts of any curriculum map . But what do these terms actually mean?

In a nutshell, formative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how someone is learning material throughout a course .

Summative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how much someone has learned throughout a course .

In the classroom, that means formative assessments take place during a course, while summative assessments are the final evaluations at the course’s end. 

That's the simple answer, but there's actually a lot more that makes formative and summative assessments different. To fully understand formative vs. summative assessments, you'll need to understand the details of these two important forms of assessment.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at formative and summative quizzing and assessing. When you've finished reading, you'll understand how to better test student knowledge in your classroom.

What Are Formative Assessments?

Formative assessments are evaluations of someone’s learning progress in a classroom.

Common formative assessments include:

• Presentations
• Group activities

Formative assessments work great when they’re used on a regular basis. That regularity could be based on a calendar (every Monday, every Thursday, etc.) or your lesson plans (every unit).

They’re also more flexible than summative assessments. You don’t always have to use pencil and paper to get a feel for your students’ progress. Instead, you can use in-class games, group presentations, and hands-on activities to evaluate student progress.

Ultimately, the formative assessments you use are up to you. After all, no one knows your classes better than you. So if you’d prefer to get an overview of how well your students are learning, you can use a group-style assessment like a game. If you want to know where each student struggles, you can use an individual assessment like a quiz.

This flexibility is perfect for keeping students engaged in your class. It lets you stick to a syllabus while mixing up the exact task each student has to perform. That way, you don’t fall into a predictable routine of teach-test-teach-test. Instead, you have a varied routine of teach-game-quiz-teach-presentation-project or another interesting format.

By the time your course ends, you’ll have a full understanding of how students are learning as you teach a subject. Then, you can keep all of your grades to look for patterns among different class sections.

Is there an area where students seem to do worse than others? Could you adjust a lesson and shoot for better results?

Naturally, you’ll never get a class that’s straight A’s from top to bottom. But you can still design your classroom assessments to work for as many students as possible!

Top 3 Formative Assessment Examples

Formative assessments are excellent opportunities to let your students flex their creative muscles.

Even if a student isn’t much of a writer or artist, they can still have a little fun with these assessments.

1. Make an Advertisement

Have your students create an advertisement for a concept they just learned. Use visuals and text to really sell an idea.

This makes students apply what they’ve learned into a creative exercise, which helps with long-term retention.

2. Idea Comparisons

Instruct students to lay out the main ideas of a new concept they learned. Then, have them compare that concept to another to see where they agree and disagree.

In addition to helping students remember these concepts, this exercise makes them apply previous knowledge to a new format so they can remember it better in the future.

3. Misconceptions

After you introduce a concept to students, introduce a popular misconception about it. Have students discuss why the misconception is false and where it may have started.

This exercise makes students think critically about what they’ve just learned while showing them how to debunk misinformation.  

How Do You Track Formative Assessments?

You can track formative assessments in one of three ways: by grade, by feel, and with student data .

Let's take a closer look at using each of these methods to monitor student progress.

Track by Grade

First, you can track them by grade . This gives you a specific, concentrated view of how a student (or group of students) learns. However, graded assessments are sources of stress for many students. So if you want to make a unit fun or loose, graded assessments may not work well for you. 

Track by Feel

Second, you can track them by feel . This is more based on your teacher instinct, allowing you to pick which students need additional support based on your observation. On the downside, you can’t “show” this information to your administrators. If you have certain standards to meet throughout a marking period, you won’t be able to prove you’ve fulfilled those standards without grades.

Track with Student Data

Finally, you can track formative assessments with  student data . This is non-graded information that may reflect how your students are learning, such as questions they've frequently answered incorrectly or subject areas where they've had trouble. After all, not everything has to be a grade!

When you have a comprehensive data management system in place, tracking with student data can be the most effective way to measure student progress.

With all of that said and done, let’s next consider summative assessments.

What Are Summative Assessments?

Summative assessments are evaluations of what someone has learned throughout a course. 

Common summative assessments include:

• Final exams
• End-of-class projects

Summative assessments almost always take place at the end of a course unless a teacher decides to break a course into more manageable chunks. They’re often cumulative, and they’re used to evaluate a student’s long-term information retention.

In summative assessments like final exams , you can include questions from the first week or two of a course to ensure students retained introductory information. In other assessments like papers, your students can pull from a full marking period of learning to apply to a topic.

Either way, your students have to do some serious reflecting and critical thinking to bring together the information from an entire course.

This is a great way to ensure students retain essential information from one course to another. So if you teach introductory courses, summative assessments are perfect to set students up for success in their next classes.

That’s important because a student’s success in your classroom is just one step for them. When you prepare them for the next step, you make it easier for them to succeed in the future as well.

In that way, summative assessments serve two purposes:

First , they evaluate what someone learned while they’ve been in your class.

Second , they evaluate how prepared someone is to go to the next academic level.

Combined with the rest of a student’s performance in class, summative quizzing and assessments are excellent ways to gauge progress while ensuring long-term information retention.

Top 3 Summative Assessment Examples

Summative assessments are traditionally more structured and standardized than formative assessments.

Still, you have a few options to shake things up that go beyond a pen-and-paper test.

1. In-depth reports

Instruct students to choose a topic that resonated with them in class and report in-depth on it. This is a great opportunity for students to take an idea and run with it under your supervision.

These reports often showcase a student’s interest, and you’ll be able to evaluate a student’s engagement level in the class by how they approach the report.

The goal is a passionate, intelligent, and comprehensive examination of a concept that matters to a student. 

2. Cumulative, individual projects

Have your students pick a project to complete. This project should somehow reflect what they’ve learned throughout the course.

Projects are great for any practical application class from health science to physics. Creating a cross-section of the human heart, designing a diet, or creating a protective egg-drop vessel are all fun ways students can show off their knowledge of a topic.

3. Personal evaluation papers

Require students to apply principles from your class to their personal lives. These papers are excellent fits for psychology, nutrition, finance, business, and other theory-based classes.

In a nutshell, personal evaluations let students look at themselves through a different lens while exploring the nuances of the principles they learned in class.  Plus, it lets students do something everyone loves — talk about themselves!

Now that you have a few ideas on summative assessments, how can you track their success?

How Do You Track Summative Assessments?

While everyone has their own ideas on this topic, grades are the best way to evaluate someone’s success with a summative assessment.

How you grade is ultimately up to you. Presentations are great ways to grade someone based on a number of factors, including soft skills like public speaking. Written exams or project-based assessments are ideal to see a student’s full-scope understand of your class after a marking period.

Whatever you choose, stick to a consistent grading scale so you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses in the classroom as students complete your course. 

What’s More Important: Formative or Summative Assessments?

Many new teachers have this question — are formative or summative assessments more important?

In a perfect world, they’re equally important. Formative assessments let students show that they’re learning, and summative assessments let them show what they’ve learned.

But American public education values summative assessments over formative assessments. Standardized tests — like the SATs — are great examples of high-value summative assessments.

It’s rare to find the same emphasis on formative quizzing and assessments. That’s because formative assessments act like milestones while summative assessments show the bottom line.

We encourage teachers to look at these assessments as two sides of the same coin. Formative and summative assessments work together flawlessly when implemented properly.

With all of that in mind, you only have one question left to answer. How are you going to add these assessments to your curriculum ?

Use Formative and Summative Assessments and Meet Your Challenges

As a teacher, you’ll likely need to employ both summative and formative assessments in your curriculum. An effective balance of these assessments will help you understand your students’ needs while meeting your standards.

However, CTE teachers face challenges in the classroom each day that sometimes get in the way of connecting with students and preparing them for these assessments.

If you want to feel less overwhelmed and spend more time helping your students succeed, download your free guide . You’ll learn about five of the most significant challenges teachers face and how you can overcome them.

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Formative and Summative Assessments: Examples and Differences

One of the primary benefits of using formative and summative assessments is that you aren’t forced to choose between them. They work exceptionally well when used in combination.

In this article, we’ll be breaking down precisely what formative and summative assessments are, the key differences between them, the benefits of their use, and providing a range of examples to help illustrate how they can be implemented in the classroom.

If you’re looking for an effective way to assess student learning and measure progress, read on to find out how formative and summative assessments can help.

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Formative assessments: definition and purpose.

Before we get into examples of their use, it’s essential that we first define precisely what both formative and summative assessments are and how they differ.

Formative assessments are employed regularly throughout a set learning period, be that a chapter, unit, or term, and help track progress and identify areas where students may struggle or need more support.

They also give the teacher and course designer the data they need to improve the learning experience and make any necessary changes that may be required throughout a system.

Rather than strict exams, formative assessments are usually relatively low-stakes, meaning they do not always need to be graded or even marked. This helps to create a non-threatening atmosphere and encourages students to take risks in their learning without fear of failure.

Formative assessment tasks usually rely on feedback from both students and the teacher, with learners receiving feedback on performance as soon as possible.

Uses of Formative Assessments

As mentioned, one of the primary uses of a formative assessment is to gauge student understanding and identify knowledge gaps that may need extra work.

Formative assessments can also be used to help inform curricular decisions, provide valuable data on the effectiveness of a course or lesson, and allow students to monitor their progress over time.

In addition, formative assessments are valuable in helping teachers gain real-time insight into a group’s collective understanding, allowing them to rapidly adapt their training or lessons accordingly.

Benefits of Using Formative Assessments

There are a range of benefits to employing formative assessments as part of your teaching strategy, including the following:

• Improved student or employee engagement and motivation – By allowing students to track their learning journey, you can help them take ownership of their learning experience. This can be highly motivating for students, as it encourages a sense of progress and accomplishment.
• Better assessment of real-world understanding – By using formative assessments that involve practical skills or application, you can better understand how well your students understand the real-world implications of the content they are studying.
• Enables rapid identification of areas of difficulty for learners – Through formative assessments, you can quickly identify areas that students may be struggling with. This helps to ensure that these areas are addressed rapidly and effectively.
• Allows teachers to tailor their lessons to the needs of the group – Teachers and course designers can use the data from formative assessments to tailor their studies according to the group’s needs and ensure that they meet all learning objectives.

Examples of Formative Assessments

To clarify how formative assessments can be used, below are a few examples of tasks that could be used both in the classroom and in a digital learning environment.

Classroom-Based Examples

The following examples can be valuable to employ in a classroom setting:

1. Quizzes and polls

Simple and easy to execute, quizzes and polls are a low-effort way of gauging student understanding at regular intervals throughout a lesson.

2. Peer feedback and self-assessment

Peer-based feedback sessions and self-assessment questionnaires can help identify areas where students may need extra support or guidance while giving vital insight into how students perceive their progress.

3. Class discussions and debates

Encouraging students to discuss their different perspectives on a given topic or concept allows teachers to better understand how well they comprehend the material. It also gives students the opportunity to have their ideas heard and helps create a sense of solidarity within the classroom.

Online and Digital Examples

With the rise in the use of digital learning tools and technologies , there is also a range of online-based practices that can be used as formative assessments, including:

1. Interactive quizzes and games

The gamification of quizzes or other learning activities can provide an engaging way to assess student understanding and offer real-time feedback.

2. Virtual simulations and case studies

Where more vocational skills are being taught, virtual simulations and case studies can test students’ problem-solving capabilities in a low-stakes environment.

3. Online discussion forums and feedback platforms

One of the benefits of using an online learning platform is the wide range of features available to assess student understanding. Discussion forums, peer feedback platforms, and automated feedback systems can all be used as formative assessment tools.

Summative Assessments: Definition and Purpose

Compared to formative assessments, summative assessments are conducted at the end of a defined learning period and often represent the final grade for the course.

To provide a comprehensive assessment grade, summative assessments evaluate a student’s overall understanding and performance of the skill or concept studied.

They can also be used to track educational progress over time, such as in standardised testing, as well as help to inform curricular decisions and the effectiveness of teaching methods.

Uses of Summative Assessments

Summative assessments test student mastery of content, assess their overall understanding of a subject or topic area and generally give them a final mark.

For teachers and course designers, a summative assessment allows them to measure the effectiveness of their teaching and make any necessary changes or improvements.

Summative assessments can also be used to compare student performance across different classes, courses, and programs.

Benefits of Summative Assessments

As with formative assessments, there is a range of benefits associated with the use of summative assessments, including:

• Provides an overall assessment score – Summative assessments can provide a more accurate assessment of student understanding and performance, offering an overall grade or score.
• Helps track educational progress over time – Educators can track student progress to identify improvement areas through standardised testing or other summative assessments.
• Helps inform curricular decisions – Summative assessments can assess the effectiveness of a particular course or program and help inform future curricular choices.
• Offers an efficient way to measure learning outcomes – By providing an overall assessment grade, summative assessments offer a convenient way to measure the success of a teaching strategy in one go.

Examples of Summative Assessments

To clarify how summative assessments can be implemented, here are a few examples of traditional assessment methods, such as essays and exams, and performance-based assessments, such as presentations and projects.

Traditional Assessment Methods

Below are some examples of traditional assessment methods:

1. Examinations and final tests

Examinations are widely used to assess student knowledge and understanding at the end of a course or program. They are easy to implement and provide a quick and efficient way to evaluate student performance.

2. Term papers and essays

Essays and term papers are another traditional assessment method used alongside examinations. Essays test students’ ability to analyse a given topic or concept in detail, providing insight into their understanding of the subject matter.

3. Projects and presentations

Where skill-based or vocational courses are being taught, projects and presentations can test a student’s performance in class. These assessments allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter and show their ability to apply and transfer the knowledge in a practical context.

Performance-Based Assessments

Performance-based assessments are best employed when assessing practical skills or processes. Examples of performance-based summative assessments include:

1. Practical exams and demonstrations

Practical tests and demonstrations are often used to assess students’ physical abilities, such as in sports or vocational courses. These assessments test a student’s understanding of a particular skill or concept by having them demonstrate it in a real-world setting.

2. Portfolios and showcases

Where creative or design-based courses are being taught, portfolios and showcases allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts in a practical way. These assessments require students to use their creative skills to produce a tangible output, such as an artwork or multimedia presentation.

3. Capstone projects and dissertations

Dissertations and capstone projects are often used to assess students’ understanding of complex topics or skills. These assessments require students to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter by producing an in-depth research or project that meets specific criteria.

Critical Differences Between Formative and Summative Assessments

Now that you have a fuller understanding of what both formative and summative assessments represent and how they can be employed, here’s a summary outlining the key differences between the two:

Timing and Frequency

One of the most essential distinctions between the two types of assessment is when they are conducted. Formative assessments occur throughout the course and act as checkpoints to monitor student progress.

In contrast, summative assessments are shown at the end of a defined learning period and only count towards an overall grade or score.

Purpose and Focus

Formative assessments are designed to provide feedback on understanding and inform instruction in real-time. In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student performance of a skill or concept and can help inform curriculum decisions.

Feedback and Evaluation Process

The feedback and evaluation process for formative and summative assessments differs significantly. Formative assessments are designed to offer real-time feedback on performance.

In contrast, summative assessments provide an overall assessment score or grade that reflects the student’s understanding of the subject matter at the end of a course or program.

Which is the Right Assessment Approach to Utilise?

Choosing the correct assessment approach for your students ultimately depends on the goals you are trying to achieve, the type of course or program being taught and the knowledge and skills that need to be assessed.

To help you decide, consider the following:

Considerations for Selecting Formative Assessments

Some of the critical considerations for making use of formative assessments include:

• Regular feedback – Formative assessments should be implemented regularly to ensure students receive regular feedback on their understanding and performance.
• Low-stakes testing – As formative tests don’t count towards an overall grade, they should be designed as low-stakes tests to help encourage participation.
• Inform instruction – Formative assessment results can inform instruction in real-time, allowing educators to tailor their teaching approach to student needs.

Considerations for Selecting Summative Assessments

When making use of summative assessments, it’s essential to consider the following points:

• Assessment goals – Before designing a summative assessment, clearly define the purposes of the evaluation and how it will be used to evaluate student performance.
• Assessment criteria – When creating a summative assessment, ensure that you set clear and concise evaluation criteria that allow students to demonstrate their understanding fully.
• Inter-rater reliability – To ensure fairness and accuracy, consider having multiple assessors score each student’s work when creating a summative assessment.

Using Both Formative and Summative Assessments in Learning and Development

As mentioned, one of the primary benefits of using formative and summative assessments in learning and development is that they can provide a more comprehensive evaluation of student performance.

By implementing both assessment forms, educators can better understand their student’s progress and tailor their instruction for maximum impact.

Formative assessments can measure progress and inform instruction in real-time, while summative assessments provide an overall score or grade that indicates learning success.

Final Thoughts

While formative and summative assessments have apparent differences, such as in their purpose, timing and feedback mechanisms, there are significant benefits to using both assessment types in learning and development.

Educators can better assess student performance and tailor instruction by implementing formative and summative assessments. Additionally, the use of both reviews provides a comprehensive view of understanding that can be used to inform curriculum decisions.

If you are looking for more guidance and resources on creating and implementing formative and summative assessments, check out the other articles on the Skillshub blog .

As an eLearning company , we are committed to creating efficient and impactful learning experiences. Our team are experts in developing eLearning content , so skillshub can help create customised learning materials tailored to your organisation’s needs. To learn more about our services, get in touch with us today.

Sean McPheat

Sean is the CEO of Skillshub. He’s a published author and has been featured on CNN, BBC and ITV as a leading authority in the learning and development industry. Sean is responsible for the vision and strategy at Skillshub, helping to ensure innovation within the company.

Updated on: 20 September, 2023

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Formative, Summative, and More Types of Assessments in Education

All the best ways to evaluate learning before, during, and after it happens.

When you hear the word assessment, do you automatically think “tests”? While it’s true that tests are one kind of assessment, they’re not the only way teachers evaluate student progress. Learn more about the types of assessments used in education, and find out how and when to use them.

Diagnostic Assessments

Formative assessments, summative assessments.

• Criterion-Referenced, Ipsative, and Normative Assessments

What is assessment?

In simplest terms, assessment means gathering data to help understand progress and effectiveness. In education, we gather data about student learning in variety of ways, then use it to assess both their progress and the effectiveness of our teaching programs. This helps educators know what’s working well and where they need to make changes.

There are three broad types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, and summative. These take place throughout the learning process, helping students and teachers gauge learning. Within those three broad categories, you’ll find other types of assessment, such as ipsative, norm-referenced, and criterion-referenced.

What’s the purpose of assessment in education?

In education, we can group assessments under three main purposes:

• Of learning
• For learning
• As learning

Assessment of learning is student-based and one of the most familiar, encompassing tests, reports, essays, and other ways of determining what students have learned. These are usually summative assessments, and they are used to gauge progress for individuals and groups so educators can determine who has mastered the material and who needs more assistance.

When we talk about assessment for learning, we’re referring to the constant evaluations teachers perform as they teach. These quick assessments—such as in-class discussions or quick pop quizzes—give educators the chance to see if their teaching strategies are working. This allows them to make adjustments in action, tailoring their lessons and activities to student needs. Assessment for learning usually includes the formative and diagnostic types.

Assessment can also be a part of the learning process itself. When students use self-evaluations, flash cards, or rubrics, they’re using assessments to help them learn.

Let’s take a closer look at the various types of assessments used in education.

Diagnostic assessments are used before learning to determine what students already do and do not know. This often refers to pre-tests and other activities students attempt at the beginning of a unit. ADVERTISEMENT

How To Use Diagnostic Assessments

When giving diagnostic assessments, it’s important to remind students these won’t affect their overall grade. Instead, it’s a way for them to find out what they’ll be learning in an upcoming lesson or unit. It can also help them understand their own strengths and weaknesses, so they can ask for help when they need it.

Teachers can use results to understand what students already know and adapt their lesson plans accordingly. There’s no point in over-teaching a concept students have already mastered. On the other hand, a diagnostic assessment can also help highlight expected pre-knowledge that may be missing.

For instance, a teacher might assume students already know certain vocabulary words that are important for an upcoming lesson. If the diagnostic assessment indicates differently, the teacher knows they’ll need to take a step back and do a little pre-teaching before getting to their actual lesson plans.

Examples of Diagnostic Assessments

• Pre-test: This includes the same questions (or types of questions) that will appear on a final test, and it’s an excellent way to compare results.
• Blind Kahoot: Teachers and kids already love using Kahoot for test review, but it’s also the perfect way to introduce a new topic. Learn how Blind Kahoots work here.
• Survey or questionnaire: Ask students to rate their knowledge on a topic with a series of low-stakes questions.
• Checklist: Create a list of skills and knowledge students will build throughout a unit, and have them start by checking off any they already feel they’ve mastered. Revisit the list frequently as part of formative assessment.

Formative assessments take place during instruction. They’re used throughout the learning process and help teachers make on-the-go adjustments to instruction and activities as needed. These assessments aren’t used in calculating student grades, but they are planned as part of a lesson or activity. Learn much more about formative assessments here.

How To Use Formative Assessments

As you’re building a lesson plan, be sure to include formative assessments at logical points. These types of assessments might be used at the end of a class period, after finishing a hands-on activity, or once you’re through with a unit section or learning objective.

Once you have the results, use that feedback to determine student progress, both overall and as individuals. If the majority of a class is struggling with a specific concept, you might need to find different ways to teach it. Or you might discover that one student is especially falling behind and arrange to offer extra assistance to help them out.

While kids may grumble, standard homework review assignments can actually be a pretty valuable type of formative assessment . They give kids a chance to practice, while teachers can evaluate their progress by checking the answers. Just remember that homework review assignments are only one type of formative assessment, and not all kids have access to a safe and dedicated learning space outside of school.

Examples of Formative Assessments

• Exit tickets : At the end of a lesson or class, pose a question for students to answer before they leave. They can answer using a sticky note, online form, or digital tool.
• Kahoot quizzes : Kids enjoy the gamified fun, while teachers appreciate the ability to analyze the data later to see which topics students understand well and which need more time.
• Flip (formerly Flipgrid): We love Flip for helping teachers connect with students who hate speaking up in class. This innovative (and free!) tech tool lets students post selfie videos in response to teacher prompts. Kids can view each other’s videos, commenting and continuing the conversation in a low-key way.
• Self-evaluation: Encourage students to use formative assessments to gauge their own progress too. If they struggle with review questions or example problems, they know they’ll need to spend more time studying. This way, they’re not surprised when they don’t do well on a more formal test.

Find a big list of 25 creative and effective formative assessment options here.

Summative assessments are used at the end of a unit or lesson to determine what students have learned. By comparing diagnostic and summative assessments, teachers and learners can get a clearer picture of how much progress they’ve made. Summative assessments are often tests or exams but also include options like essays, projects, and presentations.

How To Use Summative Assessments

The goal of a summative assessment is to find out what students have learned and if their learning matches the goals for a unit or activity. Ensure you match your test questions or assessment activities with specific learning objectives to make the best use of summative assessments.

When possible, use an array of summative assessment options to give all types of learners a chance to demonstrate their knowledge. For instance, some students suffer from severe test anxiety but may still have mastered the skills and concepts and just need another way to show their achievement. Consider ditching the test paper and having a conversation with the student about the topic instead, covering the same basic objectives but without the high-pressure test environment.

Summative assessments are often used for grades, but they’re really about so much more. Encourage students to revisit their tests and exams, finding the right answers to any they originally missed. Think about allowing retakes for those who show dedication to improving on their learning. Drive home the idea that learning is about more than just a grade on a report card.

Examples of Summative Assessments

• Traditional tests: These might include multiple-choice, matching, and short-answer questions.
• Essays and research papers: This is another traditional form of summative assessment, typically involving drafts (which are really formative assessments in disguise) and edits before a final copy.
• Presentations: From oral book reports to persuasive speeches and beyond, presentations are another time-honored form of summative assessment.

Find 25 of our favorite alternative assessments here.

More Types of Assessments

Now that you know the three basic types of assessments, let’s take a look at some of the more specific and advanced terms you’re likely to hear in professional development books and sessions. These assessments may fit into some or all of the broader categories, depending on how they’re used. Here’s what teachers need to know.

Criterion-Referenced Assessments

In this common type of assessment, a student’s knowledge is compared to a standard learning objective. Most summative assessments are designed to measure student mastery of specific learning objectives. The important thing to remember about this type of assessment is that it only compares a student to the expected learning objectives themselves, not to other students.

Many standardized tests are criterion-referenced assessments. A governing board determines the learning objectives for a specific group of students. Then, all students take a standardized test to see if they’ve achieved those objectives.

Find out more about criterion-referenced assessments here.

Norm-Referenced Assessments

These types of assessments do compare student achievement with that of their peers. Students receive a ranking based on their score and potentially on other factors as well. Norm-referenced assessments usually rank on a bell curve, establishing an “average” as well as high performers and low performers.

These assessments can be used as screening for those at risk for poor performance (such as those with learning disabilities) or to identify high-level learners who would thrive on additional challenges. They may also help rank students for college entrance or scholarships, or determine whether a student is ready for a new experience like preschool.

Learn more about norm-referenced assessments here.

Ipsative Assessments

In education, ipsative assessments compare a learner’s present performance to their own past performance, to chart achievement over time. Many educators consider ipsative assessment to be the most important of all , since it helps students and parents truly understand what they’ve accomplished—and sometimes, what they haven’t. It’s all about measuring personal growth.

Comparing the results of pre-tests with final exams is one type of ipsative assessment. Some schools use curriculum-based measurement to track ipsative performance. Kids take regular quick assessments (often weekly) to show their current skill/knowledge level in reading, writing, math, and other basics. Their results are charted, showing their progress over time.

Learn more about ipsative assessment in education here.

Have more questions about the best types of assessments to use with your students? Come ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, check out creative ways to check for understanding ..

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Formative and Summative Assessments PowerPoint

Subject: Pedagogy and professional development

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15 August 2023

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All educators know the value of giving feedback - but what exactly is the difference between formative and summative assessments and how does it look in the classroom? This 32-slide Professional Development PowerPoint is a comprehensive tutorial of Formative and Summative Assessments that can be adapted to any content or classroom. Product includes the fundamentals of assessing students, tips for giving feedback, and (10) fun and fabulous Formative Assessments that can be used in any class. Perfect for instructional coaching, professional development, or New Teacher Induction programs.

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A Guide to Types of Assessment: Diagnostic, Formative, Interim, and Summative

Assessments come in many shapes and sizes. For those who are new to assessment or just starting out, the terms can be hard to sort out or simply unfamiliar. Knowing one type of assessment from another can be a helpful way to understand how best to use assessment to your advantage. In this guide to types of assessments, we will cover the different types of assessments you may come across: diagnostic, formative, interim, and summative.

Nature of Assessments

The multi-faceted nature of assessments means that educators can leverage them in a number of ways to provide valuable formal or informal structure to the learning process. The main thing to remember is that the assessment is a learning tool. What all assessments have in common is that they provide a snapshot of student understanding at a particular time in the learning process.

Reasonably so, when you were a K-12 student yourself, you may not have been aware of the variety of assessments that teachers leverage.  To the average student, or anyone who has ever been a student, the word ‘test’ has a pretty clear cut definition and it usually includes some level of anxiety and expectation about a final outcome.  But, to educators, tests – or assessments – are actually quite multi-faceted and have both formal and informal places throughout the learning process.

Different Types of Assessments

Assessments can run the gamut from start to finish when it comes to instruction. Think of it like a long distance race that has a start and finish line and many stations to refuel in between.  The race can be any instructional period of time, such as a unit, a quarter, or even the full year.  In this metaphor, the student is the runner and the teacher is the coach who is trying to help the student run the race as well as they possibly can.  Different assessments types, when utilized by the coach (teacher) in the right way, can help the runner (student) run the race better and more effectively.

Some assessments are helpful before the race even begins to help determine what the best running strategy is ( diagnostic ). Some assessments are beneficial during the race to track progress and see if adjustments to the strategy should be made during the race ( formative ). Some assessments are given to see if students in entire schools or districts, the entire running team, are moving forward and learning the material ( interim ). And some assessments are best at the very end of the race, to review performance, see how you did, and see how to improve for the next race ( summative ).

How to Use Assessments

Assessments help the teacher determine what to teach, how to teach, and in the end, how effectively they taught it. Assessments can run the gamut from start to finish when it comes to instruction. Think of it like a race that has a start and finish line and many stations to refuel in between.

If you have ever asked the question, “What is a formative assessment?” or have been confused by formative assessment vs. summative assessment or interim vs final, that’s OK! The Pear Assessment team is here to help!

What is a Diagnostic Assessment?

Are students ready for the next unit?  What knowledge do they already have about this topic?  Teachers who are curious about how much their class knows about a future topic can give diagnostic assessments before diving in.

Diagnostic assessments are pretests. They usually serve as a barometer for how much pre-loaded information a student has about a topic. The word diagnosis is defined as an analysis of the nature or condition of a situation, which is exactly how teachers tend to use them.

Diagnostic tests help to tell the teacher (and the student) how much they know and don’t know about an upcoming topic. This helps to inform the teacher’s lesson planning, learning objectives, and identify areas that may need more or less time spent on.

Components of a Diagnostic Assessment

• Happen at the beginning of a unit, lesson, quarter, or period of time.
• Goal of understanding student’s current position to inform effective instruction
• Identify strengths and areas of improvement for the student
• Low-stakes assessments (Usually do not count as a grade)

Difference Between Diagnostic and Formative Assessments

Though both diagnostic assessments and formative assessments aim to inform teachers to instruct more effectively, they emphasize different aspects.  Formative assessments are taken during a unit to assess how students are learning the material that the teacher has been teaching.  Diagnostic assessments come before this, analyzing what students have learned in the past, many times from different teachers or classes.  Both are very helpful for the teacher, and the results are used to identify areas that need more attention in future instruction.

Diagnostic Assessments Examples

At the beginning of a unit on Ancient Greece, a teacher may give a pre-test to determine if the class knows the basic geography, history or culture.  The class’ responses will determine where the teacher begins and how much time is dedicated to certain topics.  The teacher may learn from this diagnostic assessment that many students already have knowledge on cultural aspects of Greece, but know little about its history. From this, they may adjust the lesson plan to spend a bit more time on the history and origins of Ancient Greece and slightly less on culture.

Keep In Mind  

Another valuable use of a diagnostic pre-test is to give the students an idea of what they will have learned by end of the learning period.  When combined with a post test, their score on a pre-test will show students just how much knowledge they have gained.  This can be a powerful practice for building esteem in students.   In fact, some teachers even use the same pre-test and post-test to make this difference more evident. This strategy provides great data on how students have progressed is a sure-tell way to measure and analyze growth over the year.

The grading scale for a diagnostic assessment is usually not based on the number of correct answers and holds little weight for a student’s final grade. You might consider this type of test to be a low-stakes assessment for students.

Diagnostic Assessment Tools

Teachers use Pear Assessment to find or develop diagnostic assessments in a number of creative ways. Some teachers set up diagnostics in the form of introductory activities, classic multiple-choice assessments, or tech-enhanced “quizzes”. The automated grading feature of Pear Assessment  makes it easy to instantly know how much information the class as a whole already knows.

Access Free Diagnostic Assessments

Start off the year strong and know where student are at when they begin the school year. Access FREE grade level SmartStart diagnostic assessments for grades 3-12 ELA and Math. Click here to learn more and explore these diagnostic assessments and more in the Pear Assessment Test Library.

What is a Formative Assessment?

How are students doing? Are they picking up the information they should be learning? Teachers who don’t want to wait until the end of a unit or semester use various tactics, like formative assessment, to “check in” with students and see how they are progressing.

What makes formative assessment stand out?

Formative assessment involves the use of immediate insights to guide instruction. If we break down the term, we see that “Formative” comes from Latin formare ‘to form.’  Assessment simply refers to an evaluation. Together the words “formative” and  “assessment” refer to a guiding evaluation that helps to shape something.  With formative assessment, teachers mold or form instruction to better suit student learning. To glean actionable insights, the best formative assessments are generally easy to implement and offer immediate results that lead to instant intervention or instructional adjustments.

Here’s how education academics Paul Black and Dylan William explain the differences between formative assessment and the general term “assessment”:

We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers — and by their students in assessing themselves — that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs.

Another Way to Check-up on Everyone

One common way to think of a formative assessment is to think about “check-ups” with the doctor. During a check-up, the doctor assesses the status of your health to make sure you are on track and to identify any areas where you might need more attention or support. It can be used to promote healthy habits or catch symptoms of illness. If the doctor notices something amiss, they may ask you to exercise more or eat less sugar and more vegetables! The goal is to make strategic changes based on new insights. Similarly, formative assessment provides feedback to teachers, allowing them to “check-in” on how students are doing, or, to match this analogy, the “health” of learning!

Components that Define Formative Assessment

The main intent of formative assessment is to gather insight about student learning during a unit to track student progress and inform instruction.

Formative assessments usually comprise of the following key aspects

• Low-stakes assessment
• Goal of informing instruction
• Gain insight on learning status
• Helps identify knowledge retention and understanding
• Daily, weekly, or otherwise frequent checks
• Generally short and quick checks
• Comes in many forms: quiz, exit ticket, artwork, venn diagram, game, presentation, etc.

Examples of Formative Assessment

Formative assessments could include benchmark tests, a class discussion, an “exit ticket” activity or any check-in the teacher conducts to see how much has been learned.  By taking a quick formative assessment, the teacher can see how much has been retained and then modify the upcoming lessons or activities to fill in the gaps or pick up the pace.  It allows, as the name suggests, a teacher to form or reshape the lessons as they go. Formative assessments can sometimes be called interim assessments.

As you might be able to tell, formative assessments come in many shapes and sizes. They are used by a teacher to assess, or diagnose, how much information has been learned at periodic times in the middle of a unit, subject or year. Formative assessments are the close cousin to diagnostic assessments (add link).

Formative assessments are used in the middle of a learning process to determine if students are maintaining the right pace.

The second trend driving formative assessments is the common-core style of standardized tests.  Many schools are using formative tests to help guide the preparation of their students for the formal spring testing season– a time when results have an important impact on the school, district, and even the state. These kind of high-stakes assessments, such as PARCC, SBAC, AIR, ACT Aspire, etc., are driving the need for formative assessments throughout the year.

Like diagnostic assessments, formative assessments are usually given “cold”, without prior access to the information, to get an accurate sample of what has been retained. Similarly, they most often carry little weight towards the student’s final grade.

Online Formative Assessment with Pear Assessment

Many teachers use online digital assessment to gain immediate insights into student progress so they can immediately adjust teaching strategies or intervene where needed. Online assessment autogrades so ultimately teachers are able to save time and spend more time focusing on strong and effective instruction.

Log onto Pear Assessment to access a wide number of online digital assessments in the public assessment library. You may notice that a significant portion of digital assessments in the library are dedicated to helping students prepare for spring testing. Many Pear Assessment Certified assessments are modeled after the tech-enhanced style of questions that are found on the spring assessments. Using these throughout the year helps students build a comfort level with tech-enhanced maneuvers that are key to success on spring tests.

Try out some online formative assessments created by teachers across the country. Assign them to your students or log in to Pear Assessment to create a free account and start making your own!

What is a Benchmark/Interim Assessment?

Are students within a whole school or district understanding the material? Where is there room for growth and how can instruction be improved? These are the types of questions that teachers and school leaders ask and hope to answer when giving benchmark exams.

Defining Benchmark Assessments

A benchmark exam is given across many classes, an entire grade level, a whole school, or across a district. The purpose of a benchmark exam is to understand if students have mastered specific standards and are ready to move on. Typically, benchmark exams are given to help students prepare for end of year state testing, like PARCC, AIR, SBAC, FSA, or PSSA.

It’s important to note that the terms “benchmark exam” and “interim assessment” are used interchangeably. They both are used to measure academic progress of large groups of students. Ideally, the results of a benchmark exam help teachers understand what lessons they need to reteach and which students need extra support. Beyond this, benchmark exams act as a “preview” to how a class, school, or district will perform on state tests or summative exams.

Components of a Benchmark Exam:

• Help drive future instruction
• Term used interchangeably with “interim assessment”
• Given to many classes, a whole school, or across an entire district
• Act as a “predictor” to state test scores

Is There a Difference Between Interim Assessment and Benchmark Exam? What About Formative Assessment?

There can be lots of confusion about the different types of assessments. It’s important to recognize these differences and understand how each type of assessment fits into the overall learning process of each student.

There is little to no difference between an interim assessment and a benchmark exam. They are both formal tests often given using technology, like Pear Assessment, to thoroughly and efficiently monitor student progress.

Benchmark exams are also formative in that they help teachers drive their future instruction. While traditional formative assessments are given in one class, benchmark exams are usually given across many different classes or across an entire school. The best benchmark exams give data quickly, so teachers can act on it. This is why digital assessment is great for benchmark exams

Online Benchmark Exams With Pear Assessment

Schools and districts across the country have turned to Pear Assessment Enterprise to administer their common benchmark exams. When benchmark exams are given online, the results are instant and the data can immediately be used to help teachers modify their future lessons. School leaders can set up the test quickly and easily; they even can tie every question to a state standard.

For example, at Burton School District in California, district leaders and teachers are able to push out districtwide benchmark exams without a headache. David Shimer, Director of Education Services at Burton Schools, explains, “I think the ‘aha’ moment was when, within a period of one week, we were able to get every student across the district logged in, have teachers get an assessment from their students, and as a district we were able to get the charts and graphs back in ways that allowed us to adjust instruction and training.”

What is a Summative Assessment?

How well did a student do in this class? Did they learn this unit’s material? When people talk about classic tests or finals, a summative assessment is normally the type of assessment they are referring to.

In this category of assessments, you’ll find the “Big Kahuna” of tests, such as the finals that we pull all-nighters for as well as the tests that get you into college or let you drive on the roads.  Summative assessments document how much information was retained at the end of a designated period of learning (e.g. unit, semester, or school year).

Components of Summative Assessments:

• Evaluate learning/understanding at the end of a checkpoint
• Normally help to determine students’ grade
• Used for accountability of schools, students, and teachers
• Usually higher stakes than other assessment forms
• Preparation and review is helpful for best performance

Summative Assessment Examples

At the end of a semester or a school year, summative tests are used to see how much the student actually learned. It can be the midterm,  final grade, or standardized tests. The best summative assessments require a higher level of thinking that synthesizes several important concepts together.

In the traditional sense of the term, summative assessments are what we think of as the big end-of-the-year bubble-sheet or pen-and-paper finals. In the modern-day tech-enhanced classroom summative assessments are increasingly delivered online. Summative assessments can even take the shape of multi-media presentations, group projects, creative writing, plays or other hands-on projects that demonstrate a mastery of the material. In summative assessments, the scores tend to have a significant effect on the student’s final grade or whatever is designated as the measurement of success.

Summative Assessment Tools

Teachers use Pear Assessment’s multimedia function to create summative assessments that use video as a prompt.  The multimedia can engage students with audio and visual items and then requires the students to summarize their learning in a classic essay.  The result is a traditional, “classic” exam with sophisticated multi-media components.

With Pear Assessment’s standards-tied questions, teachers who give summative assessments can immediately identify if students mastered the concepts they needed to know.

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Related Papers

Dalal Salheen

David W Armstrong

Bernie Moreno

Sibonisiwe Mashizha

JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)

JRSP-ELT - Journal for Research Scholars and Professionals of English Language Teaching

This paper predominantly focuses on Formative and Summative Assessment for Learning (AFL) that is an approach and a continuing process to teaching and learning. Formative assessment encapsulates the process of learning in view of identifying gaps, misunderstanding, and developing understanding before summative assessments; whereas summative is undertaken to test the validity of a theory or determine the impact of an educational practice.

welly ardiansyah

The use of formative assessments, or other diagnostic efforts within classrooms, provides information that should help facilitate improved pedagogical practices and instructional outcomes. However, a review of the formative assessment literature revealed that there is no agreed upon lexicon with regard to formative assessment and suspect methodological approaches in the efforts to demonstrate positive effects that could be attributed to formative assessments. Thus, the purpose of this article was to set out to clarify the terminology related to formative assessment and its usage

TEACHING Exceptional Children

Kyena Cornelius

Dr Rashid Nasser Al Maamari

Dr Rashid N Al Maamari

This paper highlights the current differences among assessment experts in the way they perceive and define formative assessment. It stresses the need for an operational definition for formative assessment as a basis for any research study that investigates the impact of formative assessment on students’ learning and teachers’ instruction. It also summarizes the concerns that some experts have about the use of summative assessment and their argument for the use of formative assessment instead. The paper provides examples on some of the prominent formative assessment tasks in the literature along with purposes and characteristics of formative assessment. Issues and concerns about the validity and reliability of formative assessment are discussed and some of the arguments and counter-arguments of some of the assessment experts are highlighted. The paper also provided some recommendations as to how formative assessment should be implemented best. Finally, some literature on the impact of formative assessment on students’ learning achievement and teachers’ instruction is discussed.

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28 Best Formative Assessment Examples for Teachers

September 24, 2024

If you’re a teacher building a classroom built on student-centered pedagogy—where your students and their abilities help to determine the pace and breadth of the learning environment—you have to know how your students are absorbing the information you teach them along the way. That’s where formative assessment comes in.  Formative assessments—evaluating the development of your students as they progress—will help you understand if your teaching methods are working and, if so, for how many students in your class. Below you’ll find 28 examples of formative assessment. 

Teachers often want to know: 

• How many of my students are able to demonstrate knowledge and use of the course content? 
• To what degree are my students capable of displaying proficiency with the course content? 
• What objectives and concepts need more time and attention in the classroom? 
• Which pedagogical techniques have been effective for this group of students? And do we need to employ other tactics to convey course content more effectively? 

You can tackle these questions with different formative assessments. Games, quizzes, group conversations, and one-on-one chats with students are all ways to meet your students where they are —and determine how you can better assist them in meeting or exceeding the course goals and objectives. 

In this post, we’ll dive into 28 different ways that teachers at any level—elementary, middle, high school, and university—can assess student growth and progress. Formative assessment can not only act as an evaluation tool that demonstrates student progress, it can also act as a teaching tool, working to reinforce knowledge that students have already absorbed by putting that knowledge into practice. It really is an indispensable tool that can be used multiple times throughout a semester or academic year. You and your students might just have some fun with it, too!

1) Intro and Exit Slips

Giving students a quick five minutes to pause and quietly reflect can make a world of difference. Start the lesson by having each student pick up a half sheet of paper, and ask them to write out what they remember from the past week, from the first several weeks of the course, or simply from your previous lesson. Let them know it won’t be graded. It can be anonymous if that fits your needs. Have students hold onto their half sheets until the end of class. Then, at the end of that day’s lesson, ask them to put the information from that day’s lesson into context with what they wrote about at the start of class on the back side of their half sheet of paper. Ask: how does the information we learned today fit together with what you’ve already learned in this course? Collect the responses at the end of the class and make a list of the content areas that are most prevalent in the responses. How do they line up with your learning objectives? What’s missing in the responses? Work to address those areas in future lessons. You can also obviously split this into two sheets of paper or whatever configuration is most convenient.

2) Teacher/Course Feedback + Evaluation

One way of conducting a formative assessment without putting students on the spot is by having them conduct an evaluation of you, the teacher, and the course in general. Similar to Intro and Exit Slips, you’ll give students time at the start or end of the lesson to reflect on a series of questions about you and your teaching. This can also be anonymous to help preserve students’ ability to speak honestly about you and your performance. You should let them know that this assessment is meant to help you be a better teacher, so they should be honest while being constructive. When it comes to student evaluations, I also like to joke that if they have something to say about my hair or the sound of my voice, that isn’t super helpful. But! If they want to help me do my job better by telling me what helps them learn, that would be awesome. Students tend to respond well when you tell them specifically that this exercise is designed to help you help them better. Questions to get you started: -What activities do you remember most from this section? Why did those activities stick with you? -Which things that I did helped me understand and remember the information in our course? -What do I do (or what happens in the class) that distracts from your ability to remember the things we’re learning? -Which concepts have been most difficult for you to understand and remember? Are there any questions you still have about those concepts?

Best Formative Assessment Examples

3) think, pair, share.

Think, Pair, Share is a classic activity that works to help cement student learning, provides an environment to build community, and facilitates assessment! What’s not to love? Have students think independently about the target of your assessment. You could ask about a specific concept you wanted them to learn or you could ask an open-ended question about the course content in general. Then, pair students with a partner, and have them share their responses with one another, learning together about what it is they have learned about the concept or up to this point in the course. Ask them to synthesize their shared knowledge and to find commonalities, differences, or new understandings based on what they shared with their partner. Finally, invite the pairs to share their group experience with the rest of the class. This can promote full class discussion, which can, in turn, invite further assessment on the basis of a full class conversation. 

4) Creating a Shared Labor Contract

One way to assess student labor is to invite students into the self-assessment process at the start of assignments and academic calendars (semesters, trimesters, years, etc.). Professor Asao B. Inoue develops the idea of the shared labor contract, including how those contracts can be created , in his book Labor-Based Grading Contracts.   The idea, rooted in antiracism and student-centered pedagogy, provides students the opportunity to determine an assessment of their effort on a project or in a course based on the labor, time, and perceived effort they expended into the work—among other factors. Students and teachers work together to create the contract at the start of a learning period. Developed collaboratively, it helps students to understand precisely how they will be assessed at the end of that learning period or project. Students are then invited to self-reflect on the effort they could bring to the work, ultimately discovering for themselves (and you!) what that work translated into.

5) Building a Borrow/Lend Log

A great way to assess student contributions to course discussions (both internalized and externalized) is to incorporate a “borrow/lend log” into your course curriculum. At the start of the learning period, students are given a worksheet with weekly rows that provide space for the three things they “borrowed” and three things they “lent” to the class. Every week, give students reminders to write in the log when they feel they’ve learned something formative from another person (and be sure to note who it was!). They should also note three times they “lent” something positive, insightful, or helpful to the class, and why that contribution was worthwhile. Check in on the borrow/lend log weekly. Students can chat in pairs or small groups about their work, and report out to the class—or to you alone—verbally or with a written reflection. To add a “summative” component, students can give themselves a mock “pass/fail grade” at the end of the unit and reflect on their personal assessment.

6) 3X Summarization

Ask students to write three summaries of varying lengths: -One in 10-15 words -One in 30-50 words -Another in 75-100 words The differing lengths of summaries require students to conceptualize information in different ways. Have them share their examples with peers and then out loud with the class! Ask them to track the changes between the different lengths of summaries. Ask them: what do we notice about what we include and don’t include in each length of summary? 

7) Problem Solving

Ask students to anonymously write in questions about things they don’t understand in the current unit. “Crowdsource” answers by asking students to explain, in their own words, the answer to the question.

8) Reverse Troubleshooting

Similar to Problem Solving above, ask students to write out 3–5 questions or issues others might have with the course content. Then, have those students write the answers to those problems or issues and create a “troubleshooting document” for the entire class in a shared Google Doc or on a large piece of paper in the class.

9) Self-Graded Quizzes

Since formative assessments are meant to understand where students are in their learning—and to help teachers address and adapt course content—self-graded quizzes are a great way to ask students to recall information without affecting their grade. Give a normal quiz, and then go through the answers together, instructing and providing time for students to write the correct answers in the margin along the way. Collect the quizzes to assess areas that need review.

10) Work It Out Whiteboards (Or Chalkboards!)

Working in groups, students go up to the whiteboard (or chalkboard) in the classroom. Each group tackles a different question or problem , out loud, together, while the other groups are working, as well. Then, each group shares their responses to the question, their process for arriving at the answer, and any questions from the class. You can ask each group the same question or a series of different questions to elicit different results.

11) Draw It!

Instruct students to choose a concept from a recent lesson and to draw it in a picture.

12) Build It!

Provide simple building materials like popsicle sticks, cardboard, and craft items (think: pom-pons, sparkles, yarn, pipe cleaners). Ask students to build something based on their experience with the course content. It could be a concept, a moment in history, a depiction of a story—the only limit is their imagination. Have each student share their creation with the class, and talk about why the different creations help them to understand the course content better.

13) Write Me a Letter

Ask students to write you an anonymous letter asking questions, providing feedback, and reflecting for you on the way your teaching is working or not working for them.

14) Crumple and Throw

Give students five minutes at the start of class to think of the biggest question or questions they have at the start of class. When the five minutes are up, tell everyone to crumple up their paper into a ball and throw it at you as you sit at the front of the class. It’s a fun way to get out a little frustration—and then you open and answer the questions.

15) Reading Memo

After reading a book, short story , article, essay, or poem, ask students to write someone else in the class a “reading memo” to provide a quick, one-page summary of the text, as if their peer hadn’t also read it and needed to know the point. Ask: what information was necessary to keep in the memo? What did you choose to keep and what did you choose to keep out? Why?

16) Body Scale

Write a scale from 1–10 on the whiteboard or chalkboard, and ask students to come up and sort themselves on a scale from 1–10 based on how well they think they understand the current unit. Ask: why did you choose this position on the scale? Then, turn the whiteboard over to them. Instruct them to write what one thing they understand and one thing they don’t understand on the board.

17) Emoji Scale

Similar to the Body Scale above, print out or draw different popular emoji reactions and place them in various areas around the room. Ask students specific questions about course content, like a pop quiz, and then have them run to the emoji that best represents their confidence about the answer. Have folks in the confident groups answer the questions, as a form of reinforcement and review.

18) Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down Thermometer

During a lecture or lesson, stop yourself and ask students to give you a thumbs down, thumbs down, or “thumb in the middle” to indicate whether or not they understand what you’re teaching.

19) 1–5 Thermometer

Similar to the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down exercise, pause during a lesson and ask students to raise their hands and give you a 1–5 ranking with their fingers based on how well they’re understanding the lesson. Do the same while asking them how well you’re teaching the content.

20) Kahoot Quizzes

Use the Kahoot app to make gamified quizzes to stir up excitement and friendly competition in the classroom.

21) Quizlet Live

Use Quizlet Live to build a fun, hands-on, game-based quiz to get students thinking—and demonstrating to you how much they know.

22) Pop PowerPoint or Prezi

Give students (working independently or in small groups) 15 minutes to build a one-slide PowerPoint or Prezi presentation on a specific topic from the current lesson. Groups or individuals should present the information to the class, with the goal of teaching everyone as much as possible about the concept. Have students vote on the most informative presentation.

23) Use Flubaroo and Google Forms to Build Meaningful Statistics

Create a quiz in Google Forms and use Flubaroo and Google Sheets to give yourself meaningful statistics on student retention and understanding.

24) Tell it to your parents, grandparents, or another adult

Ask students to give a quick summary of an important idea. This should be as if they were telling it to their parents, grandparents, or another adult.

25) Teach it to a little kid

The above exercise is also great when paired with its counterpart: teaching to a younger kid. Ask students to teach a lesson to child in a grade much younger than they are. How would they do it? Then, if you combine it with “Tell it to your parents,” ask students how they needed to change their thinking and delivery of the topic to make it make sense to these different audiences.

26) Improvised check-ins

Take time for simple, improvised check-ins during lectures or lessons. Ask students to summarize what you’re talking about. Make space for questions or misunderstandings. Ask students directly what was unclear or what you skipped over too quickly. Redirect and recover.

27) Circle/X Flip Cards

Give students index cards with an empty black circle on one side and an X on the other. Instruct them to flip the card to the circle when they have “complete” understanding of an idea. Ask them to flip it to the X when they’re missing the point of a lesson. Students can do this soundlessly and without speaking out loud in front of the class. Take time to observe throughout the lesson without calling out specific responses; adjust as necessary. You can do the same thing with the colors green and red. Green means “got it!” Red means “stop/slow down!” Use the colors to adjust your teaching on the fly.

28) Do the assignment yourself

Oftentimes, we might assign projects or tests to students with the expectation that they can simply do what we tell them. Try doing your assignment first yourself. The general rule is: if it’s easy for you, it’s hard for them. If it’s hard for you, it’s impossible for them. Adjust/pare down assignments accordingly. 

Best Formative Assessment Examples – Additional Resources

• 45 Fun Classroom Games for Kids
• 70 Best Brain Breaks for Kids
• 131 Amazing Riddles for Kids with Answers—2024
• 67 Most Common Teacher Interview Questions and Answers 
• 100 Best Quotes About Education & Teachers
• Team Building Activities for Middle/High School
• Teacher Tools

Brittany Borghi

After earning a BA in Journalism and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, Brittany spent five years as a full-time lecturer in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa. Additionally, she’s held previous roles as a researcher, full-time daily journalist, and book editor. Brittany’s work has been featured in The Iowa Review, The Hopkins Review, and the Pittsburgh City Paper, among others, and she was also a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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{{item.title}}, my essentials, ask for help, contact edconnect, directory a to z, how to guides, strengthening assessment, high-impact formative assessment practice.

High-impact formative assessment practices provide teachers with information about student knowledge, understanding and skills, to inform next steps in teaching and learning for individuals or groups of students.

More detailed information about high-impact formative assessment practices is available in the Effective assessment practices guide .

Formative assessment practices

Formative assessment provides information about student knowledge, understanding and skills. It informs next steps in teaching and learning and enables teachers to differentiate for the whole class and/or individual students. Formative assessment often occurs before, within or between lessons.

Assessment is most effective when it is an integral part of teaching and learning programs (CESE, 2020a).

The high-impact assessment strategies that enable learning are:

• learning intentions and success criteria
• effective questioning
• peer and self-assessment
• goal setting.

Effective use of these strategies engage students in their learning. This equips them with the skills they need to become assessment capable learners who take ownership of their learning, using assessment information to determine what they need to do next.

Students who have developed their assessment capabilities are able and motivated to access, interpret, and use information from quality assessments in ways that affirm or further their learning. Absolum et al. (2009:19)

Learning intentions and success criteria

Learning intentions are statements that clearly describe what students should know, understand or be able to do following an activity, lesson or series of lessons.

Effective learning intentions are:

• aligned to syllabus outcomes
• planned for and embedded in units/teaching and learning programs
• written in student-friendly language
• supports for students to understand what they are learning and why
• visible and referenced to throughout a lesson or period of learning
• used in conjunction with success criteria.

Success criteria unpack how students achieve the learning intention. They summarise the key steps or ingredients the students need to fulfil the learning intention – the main things to do, include, or focus on. They can also describe ‘what a good one looks like’.

Success criteria:

• are usually shared early in a lesson and are visible and referenced throughout the period of learning
• support the provision of effective feedback and enable impactful peer and self-assessment
• should be used by students to evaluate their learning and progress towards the learning intention.

Effective questioning

Teachers use questions to:

• cause thinking
• gather information about what students know and can do to determine next steps before and during instruction.

Where possible, questioning of key concepts should be incorporated into units and/or teaching and learning programs. The questions should be at an appropriate level of challenge to cause thinking for all students. Teachers should use a range of questioning strategies to engage students and support them to share their thinking.

Effective questioning also takes advantage of opportunities to promote deep thinking that may arise during general observations of learning activities.

Feedback is recognised as one of the most powerful influences on student learning.

• is most useful when aligned with learning intentions and success criteria (Clarke et al., 2003)
• should be timely, specific and provided throughout a lesson or period of learning
• can be verbal or non-verbal, written, visual, formal or informal
• should provide detailed and explicit direction about what students need to do to move their learning forward (CESE, 2020a).

Peer and self-assessment

Self-assessment and peer assessment require students to make judgments about their own and others' work, identify the gap between their current performance and the desired standard and take actions to close the gap. Yan et al. (2022:2)

Peer and self-assessment:

• are most effective when aligned to explicit quality criteria, such as success criteria
• must be modelled and scaffolded by the teacher – students must be explicitly taught how to peer and self-assess
• empower students to plan next steps and identify future learning goals
• should not be considered as grading or marking.

Goal setting

Goal setting:

• promotes a growth mindset
• must be explicitly taught and modelled by teachers
• is most effective when informed and supported by feedback aligned to explicit quality criteria, such as success criteria
• empowers students to be autonomous, self-reflective and analytical learners (Clarke et al. 2003:90).

Further reading

NSW Department of Education (2024) Effective assessment practices – a guide for teachers and leaders .

Absolum M, Flockton L, Hattie J, Hipkins R and Reid, I (2009) 'Directions for assessment in New Zealand – developing students' assessment capabilities' [PDF 505KB] , Te Kete Ipurangi, accessed 29 June 2023.

CESE (Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation) (2020a) 'What works best 2020 update' , NSW Department of Education, accessed 29 June 2023.

Clarke S (2005) Formative Assessment in Action – Weaving the Elements Together , Hodder UK, Birmingham.

Clarke S, Timperley H and Hattie J (2003), Unlocking Formative Assessment: Practical Strategies for Enhancing Students' Learning in the Primary and Intermediate Classroom , Hodder, Auckland.

Clarke S, Timperley H and Hattie J (2003), Unlocking Formative Assessment: Practical Strategies for Enhancing Students' Learning in the Primary and Intermediate Classroom, Hodder, Auckland.

Hattie J and Clarke S (2019) Visible Learning – Feedback , Routledge, New York.

Wiliam D (2011) Embedded Formative Assessment , Solution Tree Press, Bloomington.

Yan Z, Lao H, Panadero E, Fernández-Castilla B, Yang L and Yang M (2022) ‘Effects on self-assessment and peer-assessment interventions on academic performance – a meta-analysis’, Educational Research Review , 37:1-15.

Effective assessment advice

Assessment advice and support for teachers and leaders.

Elements of effective assessment

Outlines the elements of effective assessment that should be considered when planning and designing assessments.

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