Summative Versus Formative Assessments

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Recommended: Stay away from summative assessment

There are many ways in which teachers can test their students to see where they are at and what still needs to worked on. These can be broken down into two distinct categories. First there is summative testing. Summative assessments are formal tests that are constructed by professionals to compare students with other students. Summative tests are used to measure outcomes of learning over time and can be criterion or norm referenced. Comparatively assessments can also be informal. Informal assessments also known as formative are generally constructed by the student's teacher. Formative assessments are a great resource to see where a student is at and measure what needs to be learned and help prepare a student for the summative assessment.

The first type of summative test is norm-referenced. This type of test is used to compare students with other students. This can be an advantage when looking at where a group of students stands in compassion to their peers. Another advantage is that these tests are are highly structured and all materials are provided so they are easily administered and machine scored so it leaves little room for any bias or other influences tainting the outcome. This however can be a disadvantage because the multiple choice doesn’t necessarily test the students higher order of thinking and the student could possibly select the correct answer when guessing what an answer should be. Another disadvantage of the norm-referenced test is that the test compares students to the level that their peers are at and doesn't necessarily compare them to where they should be at. Which could be a problem if the majority of the students are below where they should be.

The next form of summative test is the criteria referenc...

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...bout is writing samples. Getting a writing sample from your students is a great way to asses multiple concepts and can be a great way to see how well a student can apply the techniques that have been taught. However when getting writing samples a teacher can run into some issues. Writing can often be time consuming and not all students can easily translate their thoughts into writing. Also it can take a long time to grade writing assignments and the grading can be ambiguous because a lot is left up to the teachers discretion.

In conclusion it is easy to see that both summative and formative assessments have their pros and cons but when they are used together they work to help a student reach the educational milestones. It is up to the teacher to determine which informal assessments will help her students reach those milestones and achieve educational success.

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