Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Education Department

EDUC 352

Literature Review

Ranim Annous

Dr. May Shikani

 This literature review will discuss formative assessment through four articles: two articles

explaining the definition of formative assessment and the issues concerning it and two others

which present researches done using formative assessment techniques.

Introduction

First and foremost, one must understand the definition of formative assessment and that it

works hand in hand with summative evaluation. Summative evaluation is the end result that is

most visible to the student and/or his or her parents; the gravity of formative assessment is

overlooked so many times due to the importance societies and educational systems give grades.

Assessment for Learning Formative Assessment

This concept is discussed thoroughly in the article “Assessment for Learning Formative

Assessment”. OECD (2008) points out how crucial formative assessment is in the process of

learning and that it takes time adjusting learning/teaching styles, attending to students’ emotional

needs, and catering to students through differentiation. This task is not easy, however, and

teachers complain it is “time-consuming” and that their tight curriculums don’t offer time that

could be used for differentiation, in-class discussions, and journal logs. Rather than formatively

assess and cater to their needs, teachers mostly “teach to the test”. OECD (2008) emphasizes the

importance of transferring information from context to context and how using high-order

thinking, such as evaluation and analysis, can help students transfer and connect domains, such

as physics and math.

This article points out six elements of formative assessment. OECD (2008) states the

following: “First, establishment of a classroom culture that encourages interaction and the use of

assessment tools. Second, establishment of learning goals, and tracking of individual student
progress toward those goals. Third, use of varied instruction methods to meet diverse student

needs. Fourth, use of varied approaches to assessing student understanding. Fifth, feedback on

student performance and adaptation of instruction to meet identified needs. Sixth, active

involvement of students in the learning process.” OECD (2008) points out that teachers who

apply formative assessment techniques properly follow at least one of the six elements in their

classes.

The six elements can create a dynamic and healthy learning environment in any class and

in any grade. The first element advocates participation and risk-taking in the classroom. Students

are not shunned for giving a wrong answer and are encouraged to take smart guesses and ask any

questions they have. No question is “stupid”. The second element advocates the use of low-

stakes assessments throughout long tasks, such as writing a literature review. The third element

emphasizes the importance of diversifying teaching methods and catering to students’ own

learning styles. This element has been used very regularly in the modern-day educational system.

The fourth element encourages the use of performance-based assessment as well as paper-based

assessment. The fifth element discusses the importance of constructive feedback. Not all

feedback is constructive; some feedback is too vague. For example, a teacher should tell a

student “Your use of adjective clauses enriches your writing, but your subject-verb agreement is

not good, and you should reread the parts I’ve underlined so that you can fix them. I want to see

them corrected for next time. I’m excited to see how your literature review turns out! You have

some great ideas, but I think you need to add another article to support your claim” as opposed to

“your paper needs work”. Feedback needs to be exact, constructive, and encouraging, not

destructive. The sixth element advocates Vygotsky’s socio-cultural learning theory in which

students learn more when they have more active learning opportunities. This element emphasizes
“metacognition”, which is the awareness of one’s thinking processes. This can be practiced by

actively engaging and discussing during learning opportunities.

Formative Assessment: A Critical Review

The idea of formative assessment is delved in deeper with an insight of six issues

“Formative Assessment: A Critical Review” discusses that every formative assessor should take

into consideration before. The article written by Randy E. Bennett (2014) begins with a briefing

of the six issues which are as follow: definition, effectiveness, domain dependency,

measurement, professional development, and system.

Definitional Issue

In 1967 the distinction between summative and formative assessment was made by

Scriven. According to him, summative evaluation could evaluate an educational system as a

whole while formative focused more on the actual process. However, it was Bloom who made a

similar distinction but with relation to each student individually, not treated as a whole. Up until

today, Bloom remains the reference to summative and formative assessment techniques

(Bloom’s taxonomy) and is referred to by millions of educators today. He focused on students

instead of a system. What is interesting is that formative assessment is so often used that an

American testing expert Richard J. Stiggins doesn’t even use the word anymore because it is

ingrained in his testing practices and beliefs.

Diagnostic tests are a type of formative test that produce a quantitative score. Many

educators consider formative assessment to be a process and an eye into students’ thinking

processes which helps the teachers get more of an idea of students’ learning styles and adapting

lessons to their learning preferences. Formative assessment provides feedback to students and
teachers alike. Many stopped using the words “formative assessment” and instead refer to this

tool or process as “assessment for learning”. Nevertheless, summative evaluation cannot be

overlooked and works hand in hand with formative evaluation or assessment. Defining such a

tool is crucial because when it is defined, it can be meaningfully documented in its effectiveness

and broken down and synthesized time and time again logically and knowingly.

There are five key strategies for formative assessment are: shared learning expectation,

questioning, feedback, self-assessment, and peer assessment. These five points are related to the

active learning advocate Lev Vygotsky who believes student learn best through social

interaction.

Effectiveness Issue

Paul Black and Dylan William, graduates of Kings College, London conducted an

experiment and found that students gained twofold more understanding than the average upper

primary to lower secondary school children would achieve in a certain amount of time. These

men conducted over 40 controlled experiments and got the same results. More studies were made

and Bloom and his disciples found there to be three to six times more effectiveness in learning

when using formative assessment.

This study focuses on the use of meta-analysis. “Meta-analysis is a quantitative, formal,

epidemiological study design used to systematically assess the results of previous research to

derive conclusions about that body of research. Typically, but not necessarily, the study is

based on randomized, controlled clinical trials. (Bennett, 2011, p.11)”

The collection of studies is too diverse to be summarized by meta-analysis.

The Domain Dependency Issue

 “To be maximally effective, formative assessment requires the interaction of general

principles, strategies, and techniques with reasonably deep cognitive-domain understanding

(Bennett, 2011, p. 15).” Many educators focus on the lower levels of cognitive understanding

such as remembering and understanding and do not have students broaden their thoughts and

reach mastery of high levels such as evaluation.

Bennett (2011) states the two implications about the domain-dependency issue. The first

is that teachers don’t know how to ask the probing questions that helps students enhance their

complex thinking and relation of ideas. Secondly, there aren’t the proper intellectual tools

available for teachers to use in class to maximize complex understanding.

The Measurement Issue

Measuring progress, emotionally and academically, is a crucial and sensitive process one

must proceed with the mastery of four activities: designing opportunities to gather evidence,

collecting evidence, interpreting it, and acting on interpretations (Bennett, 2011, p.16). Each

activity is fundamental to the measurement process, especially the third activity which isn’t done

properly by many educators. Bennett (2011) states formative assessment is an “inferential

process” (p.16) as one cannot read the mind of his or her student but can infer his train of thought

through his words, actions, and emotional responses.

Educators must observe students through their performance (paper-based and

performance-based), class work, participation, and homework. An educator can keep a journal

where he or she keeps note of his or her students’ progress, reactions, participation, and answers.

Once a week, he or she can make a small report about the students’ progress according to the

notes he or she has taken and take the necessary steps to help students improve. Teachers must
track the students’ thoughts and notice whether the student has committed and mistake to due a

slip or an actual misconception. If the case is a misconception, the teacher must dedicate time to

reteach the concept and then assess once more.

The Professional Development Issue

Although an educator can be a master of his or her subject or subjects, he or she cannot

ignore the fact the educational system is continually developing and new theories and discoveries

are made every year. An educator must be open minded and willing to professional develop, thus

accepting that he is a student as well.

Bennett (2011) points out the importance of refreshing one’s pedagogical skills, deep

domain understanding, and sense of measurement fundamentals. Materials educators can try out

and put to use are projects, diagnostic test, and journals.

The System Issue

Education and learning can be viewed as a system, each part intertwined with the next.

All elements of an educational system complement each other as they are co-dependent and each

have a significant role. For example, summative and formative assessment work hand in hand as

well as performance-based and paper-based assessment. There cannot be one without the other.

Bennett (2011) emphasizes the two types of coherencies in an educational system:

internal and external coherency. Internal coherency refers to the alignment of summative and

formative assessment. External coherency refers to the fact summative and formative

assessments must be consistent with learning theories.

The six issues must be taken into consideration when an educator plans on beginning

proper formative assessment with a class of students. Two researches about formative

assessment will be discussed in terms of the aim of the study, the method, and the results and
discussion. They will be analyzed and either approved as correctly formatively assessing or not

according to the six issues discussed in the article “Formative Assessment: A Critical Review”.

Effect of Using Formative Assessment Techniques on Students’ Grades

A research conducted by four professors Gil Pla-Campas, Joan Arumi-Prat, Anna M

Senye-Mir, and Eduard Ramirez at the University of Catalonia in Spain was done with the aim of

seeing a difference in final results of a course between a control group and an experimental

group. The control group was to be taught with direct instruction and no emphasis on formative

assessment while the experimental group was to be taught with active learning and great

emphasis on formative assessment. The research was conducted on June 2016 with the sample of

118 students who were studying their bachelor’s degree in education in four different classes.

The article begins by offering a clear definition of formative assessment and its

importance in the integration in the teaching/learning process (Procedia, 2016, p.191). Formative

assessment is described as a process that encourages independent learning, fosters learning

autonomy, and generates constructive feedback (Procedia, 2016, p. 191).

Method

The tool used to record the activities that would formatively assess the students was a

planning table which comprises of six columns listed as follows: means, formative assessment

techniques, assessment instruments, social dimension, digital skills, establishment of assessment

indicators. The means describe the task or evidence of learning produced by the student for

assessment: written, oral, and practical. The assessment techniques are the strategies the lecturer

uses to gather information about students’ output, such as self-assessment, peer assessment,

democratic assessment, and teacher assessment. The assessment instruments are the tools the
lecturer and students use to express the information gathered in an organized way and carry out

the assessment (Procedia, 2016, p. 192).

The promising table gives sense that the study will be in-depth and provide reliable

results, but unfortunately, the task of applying this table properly wasn’t carried out.

The professors agreed among themselves to generate proper feedback and to use

assessment tools and record them into the table. The professors carried out two different types of

techniques, participatory assessment techniques (PAT) and non-participatory assessment

techniques (NPAT). The article briefly discusses the actual method applied in class but no exact

instances of classroom experiences. Instead, the article skips to the results obtained.

Results and Discussion

The results were analyzed through a system called ANOVA which measured data

statistically. The table of results showed eight columns and three rows. The three rows are PAT,
NPAT, and Total which the columns are N, Aver. Stand. Dev. Typical error, Lower Limit, Upper

Limit, Min. Max. (Procedia, 2016, p. 193). The table shows the students who were in the PAT

group achieved slightly higher results, achieving a 7.35 average as opposed to the NPAT group

that achieved a 6.68 average. The typical errors committed in the NPAT were higher than the

PAT, 0.35 and 0.08 respectively. However, the minimum scores between the two groups show

an impressive difference with 5.5 in the PAT group and 0.63 in the NPAT group.

Although the results obtained were as expected, the PAT group achieving higher results

than the NPAT, the study is still lacking in terms of the issues discussed in the second article of

this review, “Formative Assessment: A Critical Review”.

Analysis of the Research through the Six Issues

Starting with the definitional issue, this article clearly stated the definition of formative

assessment and what it comprises of. As for the effectiveness issue, there was no actual instance

or example of formative assessment done in the class, so it has failed to convince the reader any

actual effective feedback or active learning has been done in class. Moving onto the domain-

dependency issue, again, no actual mention of cognitive domains nor high-order level of thinking

have been mentioned. As for the measurement issue, the article has come up with an ideal

planning table that can be used in any study for measuring formative assessment, but the

professor failed to use it properly. As for the professional development issue, no mention of

training nor reflection has been mentioned, giving the impression there was no reflection or

analysis of the data obtained. The last issue, the systemic issue, wasn’t tackled either, as there

was no mention of external or internal coherency.

The Impact of Feedback as Formative Assessment on Student Performance

A research conducted by a professor Leanne Owen at Neumann University was done

with the aim of applying formative assessment methods on students and seeing improving grades

throughout the semester as a result of it. This research was conducted in the span of a semester at

Neumann with a bachelor’s class of nineteen students.

Firstly, Owen (2016) asserts his belief that curriculum, instruction, and assessment must

be aligned. Owen discusses some ideas of other researchers such as Pellegrino, Carpenter, and

Lehrer who believed learning for understanding facilitates transfer of knowledge from context to

context, which was an issue discussed earlier, “the domain-dependency issue”.

Method

As for the method, Owen decided he wanted to work according to the higher levels of

Bloom’s taxonomy, targeting in specific application, evaluation, and analysis. He believed the

lower levels did not assist in the transfer of knowledge from context to context.

However, before Owen could realistically apply any of his methods, he studied his

students, got to know them and their learning preferences, and was acquainted with the students’

feelings about the course and the idea of a literature review. Owen was to have his students to

write a literature review, but he did not assign one right away. Owen decided to take proper steps

and necessary pauses to break the complex task of writing a literature review simpler.

First, Owen had students discuss amongst themselves what they believe a literature

review would consist of, thus encouraging peer interaction and sharing of ideas. Secondly, he

explained the idea of a literature review to students and began to assign low-stakes assignments

every week or so. Owen encouraged sharing of articles, peer criticism, and abandoning the use of
textbook lessons and replacing them with interactive strategies. In comparison to the same course

he taught last semester with different students, Owen noted these students showed more

motivation, less fear to ask possibly “silly” questions, and an overall more positive attitude and

outlook on a literature review.

He recorded the students’ progress throughout the semester with low-stakes assignment

at three different times (T1, T2, and T3). Owen kept these grades to himself and considered them

formative assessment, not summative.

Owen continued with this method and began asking the students for articles, first three,

and then more. Every time Owen would assign an assignment, he would add onto the previous

assignment a bit, thus enriching the students’ literature review sources, brainstorms, and even

easing the students’ emotional comfort.

Owen showed the students a rubric of a literature review and gave them an idea of what

was expected of their assignments. In this way, students could put themselves in their teacher’s

shoes and evaluate themselves, and in a way, use metacognitive methods.

Towards the end of the semester, Owen had his students write several logs in a journal

expressing their feelings towards the semester, and in specific, the literature review. Owen used

these logs as feedback for how his teaching has been.

 Results and Discussion

While the grades of the students’ first drafts were not at all remarkable, their second

drafts which were corrected at T2, were impressive in comparison to their first drafts. The

improvement in grades can be seen in the table below.

However, the differences in T2 and T3 were not as remarkable, and Owen admits his

mistakes that he did not properly teach his students how to actually compile the resources into

one cohesive whole. “Most grades improved between the first draft of the literature review (T1)
and the final proposal (T3), with the exception of one that stayed exactly the same (Owen, 2016,

p. 172).”

Owen reflects on what he did right and wrong and records his analysis of his formative

assessment methods on paper. Owen plans on repeating the same process but with some changes

he will make according to his reflection.

Analysis of the Research through the Six Issues

Beginning with the definitional issue, Owen clearly states the definition and his

intentions when proceeding to the study. Owen has successfully applied and adhered to his

principles and the methods he planned on applying in class. Regarding the effectiveness issue,

this study has been effective in periods between T1 and T2. As for the domain-dependency issue,

Owen knew every probing question to ask the students, when the perfect time to have students

discuss an issue, when the perfect time to have students reflect on their own work and at last how

to synthesize articles into a literature review, acting according to a higher-order level of thinking.

Owen also had them be self- and peer-evaluators. As for the measurement issue, the skills and

techniques could have been divided and been shown visually through a planning table;

nevertheless, these methods have been applied and their results were written in a journal by

Owen. In addition, he measured students’ progress through three different times throughout the

semester. As for the professional development issue, Owen showed an act of getting out of his

comfort zone by the fact he decided to change the way he teaches a course he’s been teaching for

years in a different way. Moreover, even after the end of the course, Owen is reflective, analyzes

his mistakes and why they happened. On top of that, Owen lists suggestions as to what he could

change for the next time he teaches the course. Lastly, the systemic issue can be referred to when
Owen has students do first and second drafts (formative assessment) which align with the same

objectives writing the final proposal has (summative assessment).

Conclusion

While taking into consideration the six elements discussed in the first article and the six

issues considered in the second article, one can thoroughly analyze the two research studies on

formative assessment with a critical eye. As previously stated, the study at the University of

Catalonia lacked essential issues, such as the professional development issue and the systemic

issue. With a critical eye, one can view this as an invalid study that wasn’t done properly. On the

other hand, although there were slight issues with the study done by Owen at the Neumann

University, he showed impressive results and methods of formative assessment. Owen tackled all

six issues of formative assessment, thus yielding reliable results and a valid study.
Reference List

Bennett, E. R. (2011). Formative assessment: A critical review. Assessment in Education

Principles Policy and Practice, 18(1), 5-25.

OECD. (2008). Assessment for Learning Formative Assessment. Learning in the 21st Century:

Research, Innovation, and Policy.

Owen, L. (2016). The Impact of Feedback as Formative Assessment on Student Performance.

International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28(2), 168-

175.

Pla-Campas, G., Arumi-Prat, J., Senye-Mir, A., & Ramirez, E. (2016). Effect of using formative

assessment techniques on students’ grades. Procedia Social and Behavioral

Sciences, 228, 190– 195.