Evaluación institucional: análisis de un concepto.

Debates based on dispute, and contention regarding research is a norm in the research community. In this way, it explores ‗two sides of the same coin‘ to facilitate educators and policy makers. When the researchers criticize formative assessment, mostly, they criticize the work of Black, Wiliam and their associates, the Assessment Reform Group of UK (ARG). For instance, Taras (2007) , who seems to respect ARG, finds they are being challenged less frequently. She thinks it is because of their

seniority, the position, and the respect accorded to them by the academic community. Furthermore, the undoubted contribution, which their work provided, has made an ethical and practical working philosophy of institutional learning. That also prioritizes formative assessment and therefore, learning over assessing.

Those who criticized Black and Wiliam and their associates include Perrenoud (1998), Smith and Gorard (2005a, 2005b), Stobart (2006), Taras (2009), Bennett (2009), and Burdett and Johnson (2009). They have been critical regarding the research on the implementation of formative assessment in the schools. As such acknowledging these researchers‘ criticisms, Black and Wiliam (2003), responded to them. Furthermore, Black and Wiliam believe many of them are undeniable and relevant to some studies. However, they also argue it is not fair to characterize the whole field of formative assessment entirely. Following, these criticisms from other researchers, Black and Wiliam also argued the critiques of formative assessment.

For instance, Perrenoud (1998) criticizes the lack of theoretical pedagogical context when Black and Wiliam discuss the success of formative assessment interventions. In this way, Perrenoud writes: ―If formative evaluation becomes an element in teaching practice, we cannot limit its analysis to the intentional acts of the teacher; we must address ourselves to the effective regulation of the processes, to the underlying

situations and organization‖ (p. 99). However, Black and Wiliam (as cited in Taras, 2009) responds to Perrenoud and provides an explanation for their success of their classroom interventions to improve learning in schools.

In this regard, Smith and Gorard (2005b) argue that students who have been assessed by formative assessment are disadvantaged by the interventions compared with their peers who are using other forms of assessments. They criticize the Assessment Reform Group (ARG) for bringing students and schools dis-improvement. However, Black, Harrison, Hodgen, Marshall, and Wiliam, (2005) argue that Smith and Gorard (2005a) need to make their study more relevant, trustworthy, and accountable. In response to Black et al. (2005), Smith and Gorard (2005b) yet again argue that although Black and Wiliam and their associates try to implement formative assessment into the curriculum, the schools are not practicing it as they are supposed to. Indeed, it is something policy makers and researchers need to be aware of in disseminating research on formative assessment.

Popham (2010) also agrees that implementation of formative assessment might not be an easy process. He states that it is tough to change teachers‘ already established assessment procedures. For example, he writes, ―When we ask teachers who are not using formative assessment to begin using it even if we can back up our entreaty with an avalanche of

supporting research evidence, most teachers will, smilingly, deaf-ear us‖ (p. 184). Therefore, Popham calls for developing ‗A formative assessment starter kit‘ to decrease such issues of the teachers.

When Taras (2007) reviewed the work of Black and Wiliam , she highlights irregularities and contradictions related to the definitions of summative and formative assessment. As such, Taras (2007) writes:

..firstly, that the summative assessment process becomes implicit and is often considered absent and therefore not a necessary precondition for formative assessment; and secondly, separating summative and formative assessment into two distinct processes necessitates repeating assessment for learning and assessment for accreditation. (p 370)

It is worth noting various consequences that occur during the initial stages of implementation of formative assessment. A negative consequence might be that the teachers‘ workload might double and could result in excluding the practice of formative assessment. The teachers might also start thinking that the processes of formative assessment are too complicated and time-consuming (Popham, 2011; Taras, 2007). As a result, Taras (2009) calls scholars from all over the world to take responsibility of assessment for learning and make it become meaningful and durable. In particular, she argues the definitions

of formative assessment making confusions among educators and the need for clear explanations. In fact, notably at present formative assessment/assessment for learning has become ‗an international property‘ and ‗international responsibility‘. Hence, Taras believes it is important to make this argument justified both theoretically and in practice. I believe this must be one of the reasons, quite recently, Wiliam (2011a) discusses definitions of formative assessment and makes them quite understandable.

Stobart (2008) points out that in high-stakes testing cultures , such as the UK, USA, Maldives, Singapore and Malaysia, teachers may start using formative assessment to ‗sugar the pill‘ for the examination. The teachers can claim that the regular test practice and monitoring of scores is formative. However, this often masks confusion, since much of this type of assessment is summative or mini-summative and formative assessment meaning is lost in the purpose. Thus, the teachers target the students learning in the classroom to bring success in external summative examination (Stobart, 2008).

Bennett (2009), who used to critique formative assessment, surprisingly believes formative assessment can show positive results if teachers with extensive knowledge about the practice implement it effectively in their classroom. Nevertheless, Bennett criticizes the Assessment Reform Group (ARG) for not providing a well defined set of practices for

formative assessment strategies. He expresses doubt about the capacity of American teachers to conduct formative assessment, although already many USA schools practice formative assessment and there are successful stories of formative assessment (Brookhart et al., 2008; Fisher et al., 2007; Stiggins & DuFour, 2009).

Burdett and Johnson (2009) point out that in many national education systems, summative assessment is dominant because of strong parental pressures. When the schools conducted summative testing for a long- time, the schools culture became engulfed in tests. For example, these summative tests became the basis for awarding of privileges that the parents liked and encouraged their children to achieve. In this manner, tests and exams satisfied the expectations held by the parents (Earl, 2013). As a result, these dominance behaviours lead the schools to have a negative impact on the direct implementation of formative assessment. For such reasons, many of the proposed models of formative assessment sometimes become unsuccessful (Burdett & Johnson, 2009). Although they criticize some models of formative assessment, they also believe it does not mean formative and summative assessment cannot be made successful and integrated into educational systems. They further believe, with careful implementation, formative and summative assessment improve outcomes and help to shift educational paradigms. However, because there are negative consequences at the initial stages of

implementation, Burdett, and Johnson advise the policy makers to be extremely conscious of the contextual issues.

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