The document discusses two linked projects that evaluated formative assessment practices in distance learning, highlighting the importance of feedback and student-tutor dialogue. It found that students perceive formative assessments as more beneficial than summative ones, and that tools facilitating communication, such as social software, enhance learning. Recommendations include prioritizing computer-based assessment methods that foster engagement and empowerment among students.

1. Identifying Effective Formative Assessment Practices and
Feedback Processes: Lecturer and Student Experiences
Project description
The first of two linked projects compared methods of
formative assessment in open and distance learning
environments and identified techniques that could
enhance student learning.
The second project evaluated students' perceptions of
formative assessment using structured interviews. Replies
suggested that the assessment in many distance learning
courses was too tightly focused on exams, providing
insufficient feedback, and that computer mediated
communication tools such as social software can facilitate
formative assessment practices and learning.
Methods
Formative assessment aims
at providing students with
feedback on their marked work
that will enable them to engage
with their studies and improve
their performance.
These two linked projects
set out to explore tutors’
and students’experiences of
formative assessment in distance
education, and to recommend
good practice. The first project
involved conducting interviews
with tutors across several
disciplines in three disparate
institutions involved in distance
education and building up a set
of case studies.
There was agreement that
dialogue between students and
tutors leading to“empowering”
of the students is particularly
important in formative
assessment.
Strategies for computer-
based formative assessment
that maintain this dialogue
and the active participation
of students are to be
preferred, although this
can be difficult in some
instances such as end-of-
year assessments. Peer
assessment, which was used
most widely by the Open
University, was seen as
particularly valuable.
The second project explored
the experience with
formative assessment of
distance learning students at
the same three institutions.
Students found formative
assessment extremely
valuable and generally
learned less from summative
assessments such as exams.
The use of communication
Teaching and Research Awards
University of London International Programmes Centre for Distance Education www.cde.london.ac.uk and cde@london.ac.uk
tools that encourage dialogue
between student and tutor,
including social software,
in assessment practices
can facilitate dialogue and
understanding and it would
be useful to explore these
tools further.
Outputs
Papers
Hatzipanagos, S. and
Warburton, S. (2009).
Feedback as Dialogue:
Exploring the Links between
Formative Assessment and
Social Software in Distance
Learning. Learning, Media and
Technology, 34(1), 45 – 59.
Researchers
Stylianos Hatzipanagos
s.hatzipanagos@kcl.ac.uk
Paul Black
Ana Lucena
Steve Warburton
King's College London
Bob McCormick
Open University
Presentations
Hatzipanagos, S. & Warburton, S. (2007).
Closing the Loop: Exploring the Links between
Formative Assessment and Social Software in
Distance Education. Paper presented at the
World Conference on Educational Multimedia,
Hypermedia and Telecommunications, June 2007,
Vancouver, Canada
Lucena, A. Hatzipanagos, S. (2008). Rethinking
assessment in distance learning contexts: do tutors’
beliefs matter? Paper presented at the European
Conference on Educational Research, September
2008, Göteborg, Sweden.
Hatzipanagos, S. (2008) Feedback in formative e‐
assessment: closing the loop in distance learning.
Presented at Computers and Learning Research
Group conference, June 2008, The Open University,
Milton Keynes, UK.
Hatzipanagos, S. (2010) Feedback as dialogue
and learning technologies: can e-assessment be
formative? Seminar at the Centre for Distance
Education, April 2010