Formative and summative assessment at course level

Formative assessment does not contribute to a student’s final mark. It embodies all activities that students and educators undertake to establish where students are in their learning, and to inform the next steps in teaching and learning (Black and Wiliam, 2009).  

Formative assessment can be either formal (e.g. build into the course guide, occurring in a set time and format) or informal (e.g. maybe set in a more spontaneous way, with no set expectations about timing and format). Both formal and informal formative assessments can be highly effective in preparing students for their summative assessments. 

The UK’s National Foundation for Educational Research report (NFER, 2007) classifies types of formative assessment and summative assessment as either formal or informal. Below are a few common examples of each category:

In the course-level assessment cycle, formative assessment promotes responsive teaching and student practice. Informal formative assessment also enables educators to consistently provide specific feedback tied to assessment criteria, with opportunities for students to revise or apply feedback before final submission. It is advisable to build informal formative assessments into every session. This good practice is not only recommended by the School, but also is requested as part of the National Union of Students Charter on Assessment.

How formative assessment influences learning 

1)The timing and scale of formative assessments are critical to student learning and should be manageable for marking and feedback.  

At LSE, courses are delivered over one term or two terms. Students experience varying assessment workloads and clusters of formal formative assessments from different courses. When setting time and format of a formal formative assessment, educators shall ensure the feedback and marking workload are manageable. Wiliam (2006) categorised three types of formative assessment: 

• Long-cycle formative assessments (4 weeks to 1 year) evaluate learning across a teaching term or a year. It benchmarks student learning and informs the design of the course for a better constructive alignment.  

• Medium-cycle formative assessments (1-4 weeks) evaluate learning within and between learning themes/topics. It helps students to continuously internalise the criteria for success.  

• Informal, short-cycle formatives assessments (minute-by-minute, day-by-day) evaluate learning within and between sessions. It encourages students to self-assess their own knowledge and skills.  

Framing formative assessment in terms of its scale and impact encourage educators to streamline a course’s formative assessment strategy and optimise its condition for timely feedback.  

2) Elicitation and interpretation of the learning evidence help educators to strengthen the link between formative and summative assessment tasks.  

All LSE courses include some kind of formal or/and informal formative assessment. Many research studies claim that interpretation of learning evidence from the formative assessments has often been neglected by students and educators. The following clarifies how learning evidence from a formative assessment can drive learning in minor steps:

Step 1: Learning objectives and summative assessment criteria should be explicit to the teachers and students.

Step 2: Use formative assessment tasks to elicit learning evidence that helps teachers and students find out where students are in their learning.

Step 3: Interpretation of learning evidence against learning objectives and criteria. So that objectives and criteria are better clarified, shared and understood.

Step 4: Provide feedback to students.

Step 5: Create and implement follow-up activities for students to use feedback. 

Summative assessment is designed to evaluate a student’s level of academic achievement against a set of academic standards in order to generate an overall indicator of students’ knowledge and abilities. It enables educators to draw inferences about the learning environment (e.g., by comparing assessment outcomes against years, amongst different groups of students, in different learning environments, etc.). To design individual assessment tasks for your course, take a look at our Assessment Methods section. It explains and critically evaluates each assessment method. 

How summative assessment influences learning

The impact of assessment upon teaching and learning has been termed ‘washback’ or ‘backwash’ (Alderson & Wall, 1993). Backwash is the impact that a test may have on learners and teachers, on educational systems, and on society at large (Hughes, 2020). For example, in a full unit course, students are asked to choose three out of eight questions to answer within a high-stakes timed exam. Four questions are based on learning from each term. None of the exam questions covers topics from both terms. This assessment structure may lead students to focus on topics from one term and completely avoid engaging with topics from another term. The backwash is that the learned curriculum was narrowed to the material that was anticipated on the test. Different variables contribute to the backwash effect in different situations. Taking a whole course approach to assessment helps educators to identify instructional opportunities (e.g., formative assessment activities) to mitigate negative backwash effects and achieve positive effects.  

Each academic department at the LSE has its own dedicated Eden Centre departmental advisers, who can work with you to discuss your course-level assessment strategy and identify ways to strengthen the links between formative (formal and informal) assessments and summative assessments on your course.  

Advance HE (2020) Transforming Assessment in Higher Education, Essential Frameworks for Enhancing Student Success, available online at https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/advance-he-essential-frameworks-enhancing-student-success 

Alderson, J. C., & Wall, D. (1993). Does Washback Exist? Applied Linguistics, 14, 115-129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/14.2.115 

Black, P., and D. Wiliam. 2009. Developing a theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 21, no. 1: 5–31. 

Hughes, A., & Hughes, J. (2020). Achieving positive backwash. In Testing for Language Teachers (Cambridge Professional Learning, pp. 57-62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009024723.006 

National Foundation For Educational Research (NFER) Report. (2007). NFER Position Paper on Assessment . https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/2326/99904.pdf 

Williams D (2011) What is assessment for learning? Studies in Educational Evaluation 31(1): 3-14  

Wiliam, D. (2006). Formative Assessment: Getting the Focus Right. Educational Assessment, 11(3/4), 283- 289. doi:10.1207/s15326977ea1103&4_7