This document discusses formative and summative assessment and the importance of balancing the two. It analyzes data showing assessment patterns with different programs and how formative versus summative assessment relates to deep versus surface learning. The document also examines why formative assessment is important but often struggles to be implemented, providing several theories for this. Finally, it outlines five case studies of programs successfully incorporating formative assessment and has attendees brainstorm principles from these cases to adapt for their own disciplines.

1. Good cop, bad cop?
Cracking formative, using
summative well
Tansy Jessop
SLTI Workshop
17 March 2017

2. This session
• Data about formative and summative balance
• Implications for student learning
• The bitter divorce
• Why we need formative
• Why we struggle
• Distilling principles from five case studies

4. Assessment patterns (n=73 programmes)
Characteristic Low Medium High
Volume of summative
assessment
Below 33 40-48 More than 48
Volume of formative only Below 1 5-19 More than 19
% of tasks by examinations Below 11% 22-31% More than 31%
Variety of assessment
methods
Below 8 11-15 More than 15
Written feedback in words Less than 3,800 6,000-7,600 More than 7,600

5. Deep and Surface Learning (Marton and
Saljo (1976)
Deep Learning
• Meaning
• Concepts
• Active learning
• Generating knowledge
• Relationship new and
previous knowledge
• Real-world learning
Surface Learning
• External purpose
• Topics
• Passive process
• Reproducing knowledge
• Isolated and
disconnected knowledge
• Artificial learning

6. Biggs 3P model

7. Measures of educational
process predict learning gain:
• Class size,
• the level of student effort
and engagement,
• who undertakes the
teaching,
• the quantity and quality of
feedback to students
Gibbs 2010

8. Good cop, bad cop?

9. 1) Low-risk, more frequent opportunities for students to
learn from feedback (Sadler, 1989)
2) Helps students to fine-tune and understand
requirements and standards (Boud 2000, Nicol, 2006)
3) Feedback to lecturers from formative tasks helps to
adapt teaching (Hattie, 2009)
4) Engages students in cycles of reflection and
collaboration (Biggs 2003; Nicol & McFarlane Dick 2006)
5) Encourages and distributes student effort (Gibbs 2004).
Why formative matters

10. What is formative assessment?
Process of …..short-circuiting the randomness
and inefficiency of trial-and-error learning
(Sadler 1989, p.120).
TESTA – ungraded, required, eliciting feedback

11. Why we struggle to do formative

12. Theory 1: Content drives our view of
curriculum

13. Theory 2: Summative competes for time
and effort with formative
If there weren’t loads of other assessments, I’d do it.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to stay here. We’re
off to do our assignment” (Harland, 2014).

14. Theory 3: Students are grades-oriented
It’s good to know you’re being graded because you take it
more seriously.
I always find myself going to the library and going ‘These are
the books related to this essay’ and that’s it.
Although you learn a lot more than you would if you were
revising for an exam, because you have to do wider research
and stuff, you still don’t do research really unless it’s directly
related to essays.

15. Theory 4: Academics struggle with systemic
problems and low student interest

16. I found the consequence of it not being officially part of the diet
being that a hard core did it and no more.
At any particular assessment point... somebody in our
department would probably have to read something between
300,000 and 0.5 million words.
You end up assessing for assessment’s sake rather than thinking
about what the assessment is for.
We’re finding formative assessment more difficult as the
numbers grow on the courses, and a lot of us now are thinking I
can’t do this because it’s just so much extra time....

17. So, how do we do it?
Five case studies of
successful formative
Your task will be to identify
the principles that make
them work
How could you adapt them?

18. Case Study 1: Business School
• Reduction from average 2 x summative, zero
formative per module
• …to 1 x summative and 3 x formative
• Required by students in entire business school
• All working to similar script
• Systematic shift, experimentation, less risky
together

19. Case Study 2: Social Sciences
• Education, Sociology and PGCAP degrees
• Problem: silent seminar, students not reading
• Public platform blogging
• Current academic texts
• In-class
• Threads and live discussion
• Linked to summative

20. Case Study 3: Media degree
• Media degree
• Presentations formative
• Students get feedback (peer and tutor)
• Refines their thinking for…
• Linked summative essay

21. Case study 4: Film and TV
• Seminar
• Problem: lack of discrimination about sources
• Students bring 1 x book, 1 x chapter, 1 x
journal article, 2 x pop culture articles
• Justify choices to group
• Reach consensus about five best sources

22. Case study 5: Engineering
• Engineering
• Problem low averages
• Course requirement to complete 50 problems
• Peer assessed in six ‘lecture’ slots
• Marks do not count
• Lectures, problems, classes, exams unchanged
• Exam marks increased from 45% to 85%

23. Your task
• In groups, identify five principles for making
formative work. Write them down on flipchart
paper.
• Devise one or two adaptations for your
discipline, using the principles, and make one
poster which outlines/draws your adaptation.
You can be creative!

24. Becker, H. (1968) Making the grade: the academic side of college life.
Boud, D. (2000) Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society, Studies in
Continuing Education, 22: 2, 151 — 167.
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning.
Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.
Hattie, J. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1) 81-112.
Harland, T. et al. (2014) An Assessment Arms Race and its fallout: high-stakes grading and the case for
slow scholarship. Assessment and Evaluation inn Higher Education.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2014.931927
Nicol, D. J. and McFarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning: A Model
and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice. Studies in Higher Education. 31(2): 199-218.
Jessop, T. (2017) Inspiring transformation through TESTA’s programme approach. In Carless (2017)
Scaling up Assessment for Learning in HE. Singapore. Springer.
Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2013) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-
scale study of students’ learning in response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and
Evaluation in Higher Education. ifirst.
Jessop, T, McNab, N and Gubby, L. (2012) Mind the gap: An analysis of how quality assurance
processes influence programme assessment patterns. Active Learning in Higher Education. 13(3). 143-
154.
Sadler, D.R. (1989) Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems, Instructional
Science, 18, 119-144.
Yorke, M. (2003) Formative assessment in higher education: Moves towards theory and the
enhancement of pedagogic practice. Higher Education. 45
References