Summative Versus Formative
The words "summative" versus "formative" is self-explantory. But, the words "assessment" versus "evaluation" are used interchangeably in many cases, so distinguishing between the two is difficult for most educators. Would you agree?
Joseph,
True, and education isn't separate steps. It is all interrelated and connected. I really believe in constructivist theory. We build on what we know and can do.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Kelly, Good Point. We, as educators, can sometimes place too fine a point on what should be considered in a broader context. We have many theories and little laws that govern the art of teaching and the internal learning processes.
Joe Skeens
Alfred,
What a great post! You raise a great point about focusing on grades rather than the improvement.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Alfred,
Great post! Every insightful. It does include timing.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Alfred,
We should remember that since our students are submitted to exams, the assessments are also evaluations.
Greetings, Jack. Good to run into you here. Truth is, these two things are inextricably intertwined in the structure of our courses, such taht teasing them apart is more an exercise in semantics than in practical application. We download assignments each week, then evaluate and assess them simultaneously.
The grade carries most of the weight of the evaluation, though any feedback used to justify the grade also contains an evaluation component. The feedback potentially contains useful assessment information, though the grade also provides a rough measure of assessment (What I did either worked or did not work). Where assessment and evaluation come into conflict is where the feedback contains both components in the same syntactical structure. It is important for us to NOT use feedback to "justify" a grade, but rather to point out what was done well, and where opportunities exist for improvement.
"The problem is that evaluations can be set in concrete as a grade or a score, and, in most learning environments I have been in, the student is stuck with it. I like the idea of assessments where there is a recovery component in that students learn from mistakes..."
I want to comment on this, reflecting on my own experience. Where I teach, evaluation is required each week, no each assignment that is turned in. This would seemingly preclude a recovery component.
However, if a student truly does not "get it", I use the product for critique of both the content delivered and the process by which it was learned and the process by which it was delivered. "You did not get these concepts. You might benefit from a more structured study method like SQ3R (see Instructor Files)." "The sriting is good, as is the research for this assignment. You left out these parts of the assignment ____, and did not open with definitions of your terms before using them." Then I ask the student to redo the work, improving on the processes of learning and doing, as well as correcting the deficiencies in the content.
The words "assessment" versus "evaluation" are used interchangeably in many cases, so distinguishing between the two is difficult for most educators. Would you agree?
I hesitate any time I see qualifiers like “mostâ€. I will agree that “many†educators face this difficulty. Further, I argue that one of the causes of this confusion may be built into the evaluation / assessment structure. Where I teach, for example, each week there usually are two assignments due from students – an individual or group project and a discussion board assignment. At the end of the week, I download papers and evaluate them, providing both a grade and some comments. This produces evaluation – a grade – but also assessment, in the form of the feedback that I post with the grade.
Further tension is produced over the terms formative and summative. The feedback on the assignment is summative, in that it is a summary assessment of the assignment, but it can also have formative properties, to the extent that some of the feedback is focused on the processes by which the student demonstrated knowledge. That component can carry over to the assignments that follow. In my assignment and evaluation, I strive to provide both formative assessment – by commenting during the week on discussion board posts, and by providing process oriented feedback on the assignments – as well as summative assessment regarding whether the student demonstrated subject matter mastery of the course concepts that are to be assessed.
Nate,
I think you are there! Actually, I like the4 way you put it.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Jessica,
Yes, although both have distinct purposes.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Dr. Michael,
You are correct, your formative assessment is the "are we on track" assessment that is used to make adjustments.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I would definitely agree that assessment and evaluation are terms that are rarely clearly differentiated. From the discussion in this course, it is clear that evaluation involves "grading" activities or products. That is not exactly how I learned it. For example, "formative evaluation" was, as I learned it, assessment done along the way to make sure that, day by day, the student was learning and achieving.
I think it depends on how the information builds on itself throughout the quarter and if there is more gray area to the information than just black and white true/false, write/wrong.
I too see the interchaneability witin the context, but I also think understand the difference after reading the module. It is somewhat confusing though. Maybe I look at it like this, Assessment is the process of evaluating what is being taught. Evaluation is assigning a grade to the assessments throughout the course. Assessment is a process, evaluation is an action. Does that make sense, or am I way off base?
Hello Esther,
I agree with you in that the words 'assessment' and evaluation can be of a challenge as to how to use the terms properly. As you mentioned, the terms are used interchangeably (I was perhaps one of them, but knew that there was a difference between them). After taking this course, I am a bit more clear on its definitions and how to use them respectively.
Cheers
Dr. E. Somnarain
Kelly,
Of course. That completes the second part of the the attributes.
Kelly,
So you isolate, or study separately the formative part from the part on which you apply the Summative assessment. Is that what you mean?
Kelly, FYI...in the instructional design world, there is a big difference between evaluation and assessment. Specifically, as per the Dick, Carey, L., & Carey, J. (2009) text entitled "The Systematic Design of Instruction", formative evaluation is "the collection of data and information during the development of instruction that can be used to improve the effectiveness of the instruction" (p.257). Summative evaluation, on the other hand, is the "collection of data to verify the effectiveness of instructional materials with target learners" (p.320), in other words, measuring if learning occurred. Some may call that evaluation, some may call that assessment, regardless, it is the measurement of learning which is the genesis of summative evaluation.
The emphasis in formative evaluation is on the "collection and analysis of data" and the revision of instruction, while summative evaluation focuses on the "effectiveness" of instruction (testing). That said, I can see where in in the typical K-12 classroom evaluation and assessment are used synonymously, however, in the instructional design world, they are two different processes, although both have the same intent: the improvement of human performance.
Paul,
That will work! We need to remember that the data must be tied to context ( that is how we use it)
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
