The distinctions between formative and summative purposes of assessment have received much attention in the UK during the last 20 years (Wiliam 2011), with authors asserting the importance of the former and utilising a number of names to emphasise the definitions. Following Black and Wiliam’s review of assessment research (1998), the Assessment Reform
37 Group (ARG) argued for a clear distinction to be made between ‘Assessment of Learning’ (AoL), for the purposes of grading and reporting, and ‘Assessment for Learning’ (AfL), for the purpose of supporting learning (ARG 1999). The new terminology represented a call for: “different priorities, new procedures and a new commitment”, after: “too much attention being given to finding reliable ways of comparing children, teachers and schools” (ARG 1999: 2). By utilising a new term which contained ‘learning’, the aim was to promote a renewed focus on formative assessment which was felt to be the ‘key’ to improved learning (ARG 1999). Such a ‘rebranding’ was about shifting practitioner and policy focus, rather than the creation of new assessment concepts; the terms formative/AfL and summative/AoL are largely used interchangeably.
AoL aims to summarise pupils’ learning at a particular point in time for the purpose of accountability (Mawby and Dunne 2012: 139), for example, pupils are accountable for their performance towards certification or teachers are accountable for the performance of their pupils (Brown 2004). Such summaries of learning - either grades or narratives - can be reported, for example, to parents, other teachers, school leadership teams or school inspectors. In contrast, AfL is an: “ongoing planned process that focuses on identifying the next steps for improvement” (Harrison and Howard 2009: 28), the process is seen as an integral part of teaching and learning, providing feedback for both the teacher and the pupils. AfL requires the active involvement of children, and researchers stress the importance of dialogue and questioning (Black and Harrison 2004). Black and Wiliam suggest that: “assessment provides information to be used as feedback… Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs” (1998: 2), thus it is the use of assessment information to support the learning process which distinguishes formative and summative assessment, rather than the assessment task itself.
Harrison and Howard (2009) suggest that AfL guidance, with its aim of promoting learning, can be applied more widely than AoL guidance, since summative assessment practices may be more defined by country-specific guidelines, whilst formative assessment focuses on more generic principles of teaching such as the importance of rich dialogue and identifying the learner’s starting point. Such widespread application perhaps explains the wealth of
38 research into formative assessment; however, changes to government guidance with
regards to teacher summative assessment in primary science provides the opportunity for this study to provide new insights into the nature of summative assessment, in particular which information is used to make a summary judgement.
In recent years mounting evidence for positive impact of formative assessment on children’s learning (e.g. Hattie 2009, Gardner et al. 2010) has elevated the status of AfL, whilst
evidence demonstrating the harmful effects of high stakes summative testing (Newton 2009) and its distorting effects on the taught curriculum (Wiliam 2003) has led some teachers to view AfL and AoL as the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides of assessment respectively (Harlen 2013). However, there is also evidence that some teachers in the UK were
misinterpreting AfL to mean frequent testing, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the aims of assessment practices (Black 2012). Repeated summative assessments could be perceived as a type of formative assessment if the learner receives feedback, although if the feedback is a numerical score or similar, then it would effectively end the exchange rather than open up the dialogue (Webb and Jones 2009: 173). Swaffield (2011: 433) also
questions whether AfL and formative assessment are synonymous in practice, noting the: ‘distorted practices that are erroneously termed AfL’ in government policy (DCSF 2008). It appears that a simple split between formative and summative assessment has not led to universal understanding, making this a key area to explore in this research.
Some authors have argued that formative and summative are not separate forms of assessment, noting that it is: ‘difficult to draw clear distinctions’ (Davies et al. 2012), with the same tasks being used for both summative and formative purposes (Hodgson and Pyle 2010), for example, the formative use of summative tests (Black et al. 2003). Harlen (2007) suggests AfL and AoL differ only in purpose and degree of formality, whilst practitioners are likely to focus on the timing, with summative assessment coming at the end of a unit
(Mawby and Dunne 2012). Authors suggest that rather than a dichotomy, it may be more useful to see these assessment processes as dimensions (Harlen 2013) or perhaps a continuum (Wiliam and Black 1996), which could be a useful line of enquiry for this
research. Taras (2005) goes further and questions the underlying distinction arguing that: “all assessment begins with summative assessment (which is a judgement) and that
39 formative assessment is in fact summative assessment plus feedback which is used by the learner” (p466). Citing Scriven (1967), who was the first to use the terms formative and summative, Taras asserts that the process of assessment is the same, and the “choice of function should not impinge on the actual process of assessment” (2005: 468).In fact, she claims that the separation of formative and summative assessment is damaging since it requires separate systems of assessment leading to needless repetition (Taras 2007). The way teachers conceive and enact the relationship between formative and summative assessment is an area for research in this study.