Section 1 Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment

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I.Thinking

【Case Reflection】

Mr H, in his fifties, is a famous local English teacher who is willing to accept and utilise new teaching philosophies. However, referring to task-based teaching, he says, “The new curriculum concept truly works well, and task-based teaching can indeed train students' ability to use the language, but the College Entrance Examination（CEE）doesn't focus on students' ability; and the purpose of senior middle school education is to prepare students academically for higher education. If we put too much emphasis on training their abilities, they will fail in the CEE and can't go to university. For these reasons, I can't adopt a task-based approach in teaching.”

What do you think about Mr H's opinion?

Assessment is indispensable to learning, as it is the only way to verify whether the learning objectives are achieved. This chapter is concerned with formative assessment and summative assessment, as well as basic methods in language testing. Some approaches to teaching reviewing will also be discussed.

The main purpose of assessment is to analyse and evaluate how and what learners learn. It's a decision-making process based on whether the learners have achieved their learning objectives. It aims at promoting teaching and learning, and enabling learners to recognize, educate and develop themselves. It is not only a learner's current level that assessment stresses, but also the progress and the process which led to the result; it does not implement comparison among those assessed, but comparison of the same learner at different times.

There are many categories of assessment, for instance, authentic assessment, process-based assessment, formative assessment, summative assessment, performance-based assessment, alternative assessment, dynamic assessment, and multiple assessment. All of these have overlap in concepts, with each of them having their own emphasis. Performance-based assessment emphasizes that learners should accomplish a certain task in practice, rather than merely recognize or get a correct answer. It requires knowledge construction and reflection, such as writing a paper, doing an experiment, giving an oral presentation, mapping or making a model, etc. The purpose of process-based assessment is to perfect a teaching plan and serve its anticipated teaching purpose by getting feedback and making prompt adjustment in the teaching process. It pays equal attention to the goal and the process of teaching, and comprehensively assesses learner motivation, learning outcomes, learning process and other non-intelligence elements closely related to learning Formative assessment and summative assessment are more widely used and thus will be analyzed in this section.

II.The Definition and Methods of Formative Assessment

Formative assessment, aiming at obtaining feedback information in related learning in the teaching process, is the systematic evaluation done on students' acquisition of the identified knowledge and mastery of skills. As an integral part of the teaching process, it is a kind of process-based assessment that focuses on students' learning behaviour and ability development. Formative assessment, as distinct from summative assessment, is continuous. It involves learning behaviour, learning ability, emotion, attitude, learning strategies, participation and cooperation consciousness etc.

Formative assessment shares characteristics with a number of assessment types, such as process-based assessment, performance-based assessment and authentic assessment etc. Studies have found that formative assessment is conducive to the improvement of students' language skills and the development of comprehensive quality, and it can also help teachers to promote student diagnosis, stimulate feedback, summarize their reflection, and document development.

Through formative assessment, teachers can learn the shortcomings of students in their learning process, identify the goals they have not yet reached, and uncover the reasons for their learning difficulties so as to improve learning and teaching. The results of evaluation are presented to the students in a scientific, appropriate and constructive way, thereby promoting their development. Students can also sum up the gains and losses, reflect on their learning process and record their own development process through formative assessment, which provides a platform for students from which to view their efforts and achievements.

Principles behind formative assessment include subjectivity, expansibility, process and authenticity. According to the principle of subjectivity, students are the main subject in the evaluation, and they are assessed through a combination of teacher-assessment, self-assessment and peer assessment. Students can reflect on themselves continuously through self-assessment, forming effective ways of learning which are consistent with their personality traits. Student teamwork and cooperation can be cultivated through peer assessment.

The goal of evaluation is to promote comprehensive development of students; and the goal of formative assessment is to promote students' learning. Effective formative assessment therefore, must adhere to the principle of development, which marks it as being significantly different from traditional unit tests, weekly tests and monthly tests, which do not reflect this principle. According the principle of development, undesirable test results from the learning process will not be put into a student's final assessment result. Instead, the principle allows students to repeatedly answer one question, finish one programme, or accomplish one proposition, and record only the final desirable results.

Formative assessment, unlike summative assessment, focuses on the process of learning and is carried out during the learning and teaching process. It is student behaviour in the learning process that it emphasizes; especially authentic behaviour in accomplishing learning tasks. In this way, student self-knowledge construction, self-ability construction and autonomous development can be truly accelerated.

According to the National Curriculum Standards, “The evaluation system for an English course should reflect the diversity of subjects and have variety in evaluation forms. It should be concerned with the developing process of the students' comprehensive competence and learning outcomes. It should combine formative assessment and summative assessment and focus both on the results and the process of learning”. The standard has also made it clear that teachers should attach importance to the influence of formative assessment on the development of students.

Evaluation includes the assessment of learning results and learning process. Learning results include the achievement of knowledge and skills, while learning process is the progression of learning, understanding, mastering and applying any knowledge or procedure. What tools can be employed to evaluate students' recognition and understanding of knowledge? What can be used to evaluate the application of knowledge and ability? What can evaluate the process itself? In terms of formative assessment, the most commonly used approaches are as following：

(I) Evaluative tests

Firstly, an evaluative test is formative. It is carried out during the learning process rather than in the middle or at the end of the semester. Secondly, the aim of the test is not to examine for knowledge, but rather for the application of knowledge. It examines students' development of language competence, emotional attitudes, and awareness of culture and strategy through their accomplishment of real tasks.

If teachers, for instance, want to examine students' understanding and application of the grammatical term be going to, instead of employing grammatical choice, they can ask students to talk about their plans for the weekend and then either write or present the plans verbally in class. If it is students' emotional attitudes that need to be checked, teachers can ask students to read a moving story and talk about their feelings. If teachers want to examine students' use of reading strategies, there is no need to design questionnaires and ask questions like “What kind of reading skills can you use to understand the main idea of a text”, as this will only check students' awareness of strategy use rather than their ability to use it. Instead, teachers can ask students to read a paragraph and select its main idea as well as their own way of reading it.

When designing evaluative tests, teachers should pay more attention to the differences of students' multiple intelligences and vary the testing methods instead of sticking to only one option. Since unit tests, weekly tests and monthly tests are often in the form of standardized tests, which only involve linguistic intelligence, they cannot implement the concepts of evaluation and do not belong to evaluative tests. Evaluative tests provide students with various opportunities to display their abilities to understand and apply their knowledge and skills through such things as painting, acting etc.

(II) Rating scale

A rating scale is an effective tool for evaluation. The application of a rating scale is time-saving and makes evaluation more reliable and fair. It can diagnose student strengths and weakness. For instance, Table 15-1 is an itemized rating scale for a writing task.

Table 15-1

By using this kind of rating scale, students can do self-assessment, peer-assessment, and teachers can do itemized assessments on student behaviour as well. This can help students to find their strengths and face up to their weaknesses.

(III) Classroom observation

Classroom observation is a qualitative evaluation through which observers can get information that a rating scale cannot reflect. In the classroom, teachers can observe student behaviour, change in attitude, participation, process, and quality of task completion. Classroom observation can help to analyse various classroom behaviours of students as well as the diverse operations of the teacher, thus providing information conducive to the perfection of teaching.

Generally speaking, careful design should be done before classroom observation. The observation points and means of recording should be properly selected according to the purpose（s）of the observation. The observer can choose to observe the whole class or individual students. He or she can also observe the participation and attitudes of the students and their cooperation in group activities.

(IV) Learning documentation

Learning documentation is not a learning diary in which the students write about their learning experience and feelings in the learning process. Learning documentation is a record of the learning procedures. The following is a learning documentation for a programme.

Table 15-2 Learning documentation

（revised from Berman Multiple Intelligences and Project Learning — A Guideline for Activity Design, China Light Industry Press, 2004 edition, p.28-30）

(V) Portfolio

A portfolio is also called a documentation of development or study document file. It is an instrument for recording student learning process and achievement. It is a useful tool for summative assessment and it can also be applied in formative assessment and selection as well. Based on the differences in content, portfolios can be categorized into achievement portfolios or process portfolios. An achievement portfolio mainly records excellent work from students as the reference for summative assessment, while a process portfolio usually includes students' questions, illustrations, drafts, initial drafts, revised editions, final work and self-evaluations.

To make a portfolio effective, students should take part in the selection of tasks to be included and reflect on them. The teacher should not only issue instructions to this effect, but also ask students to fill out a simple form to facilitate their reflection.

Table 15-3 Students' portfolio

（Berman Multiple Intelligences and Project Learning—A Guideline for Activity Design, China Light Industry Press, 2004 edition, p.218）

III. The Definition and Methods of Summative Assessment

(I) The definition of summative assessment

Summative assessment is commonly used to measure student achievement after the process of learning. It is usually carried out to assess how well the objectives of teaching and learning are achieved after a comparatively complete teaching stage.

Summative assessment is always conducted at the end of a semester or a unit to determine the degree of teaching objective achievement, including student performance, understanding and application of certain knowledge and skills, and ability development. These can provide the basis for both teachers and students to determine the succeeding starting point of teaching and learning.

Although the term “terminating assessment” is employed on some occasions, it is not the same concept as summative assessment. As it is not a termination, but rather a summary of a stage, the more accurate term “summative assessment” will be adopted in this book.

Both summative assessment and testing evaluate learning effects, but they employ different instruments and standards, and therefore achieve different goals.

1.Assessment instrument

The main instrument for a test is generally a comprehensive examination by means of a standardized exam, in which（multiple）choice is the main question type, with few constructed-response test questions, other than in writing. The hundred-mark system is usually adopted to grade the results.

Summative assessment, however, mostly employs performance instruments such as student art work, theses, research papers, drawings, portfolios etc. The other instruments of summative assessment are constructed-response and performance tasks. Both score grading and grade rating are used.

Of course, a test question form can at times be used in summative assessment. It should be noted, however, that the test is merely a part of the summative assessment which includes a lot more than the test score in its final result.

2.Standards for evaluation

Test questions, except for some constructed-response ones（mostly in writing or oral tests）, mainly take the form of multiple choice questions where answers are comparatively set. Since it is student ability output that summative assessment stresses, it usually takes a rating scale, either a top-score rating scale or sub-item assessment rating scale as its evaluation standard.

(II) Methods of summative assessment

Student learning outcomes and degree of performance excellence can be measured through summative assessment. This can provide the students with feedback, and encourage them to work on more challenging tasks; help teachers to arrange compensating assignments, and also assess their own teaching. Summative assessment is not the same as unit quizzes or a final exam. It does not indicate the end of teaching and learning, but is a relay station in the teaching and learning process, and a link for the next section after the overall evaluation of all aspects and analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the previous stage. Many instruments applied in formative assessment can be used in summative assessment; most data obtained from formative assessment can also be the supportive data of summative assessment.

1.Tests

A test is a basic method in summative assessment, but not the only or the most important one. Nevertheless, it has become the most frequently used method due to its widely acknowledged reliability.

2.Portfolios

A portfolio records a student's learning course and achievements in a learning phase, including procedural records, periodical achievements and work done. All the content in the portfolio can be comprehensively assessed through summative assessment, and students' development of language skills, emotions and attitudes can be judged according to the work in the portfolio.

3.Elaboration

Student abilities to generalize, construct, organize, integrate, associate and confirm ideas are mainly measured by elaboration. There are two types of elaboration： Restrictive and extensive. Restrictive elaboration puts a limit on the content and student reaction in the instruction such as “Describe two situations where people have to wear masks. Do not use the example in the text or any that we have talked about in class”. However, extensive elaboration allows students to select any information they think is related to the topic; choose the best way they think to present their answer; and integrate all the information they are to assess. For example, “Suppose you and your friend witnessed a robbery on your way to school. Can you tell the story and write it down? ”

4.Restrictive performance

Restrictive performance refers to elaboration based on a previous option or options. For instance, we can ask students to choose an item and explain the reasons why they made such a choice. For example： There are twenty students in Mr Wang's class. Most of them say the clothes they wear have pockets. Which of the following diagrams most likely shows the number of pockets the students have?

Explain why you chose a certain chart and share your reasons.

（From Linn, R.L.& N.E. Gronlund, Measurement and Assessment in Teaching, China Light Industry Press, 2003, 1st edition, p.180）

5.Programme

A programme can also be applied as a method of summative assessment. For example, we can examine various abilities of students through their performance in acting out a story, like The Little Red Riding Hood, instead of asking them to take written graduation tests in elementary school. In this way, as an activity itself, a programme can also be used as the basis of formative assessment, and the demonstration or performance can be used in summative assessment.

Take the teaching of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice as another example. Teachers can ask students to prepare the script and rehearse the play after learning the text, and their final performance can be the basis of the final evaluation.

There are wide variations in programmes, including poster making, homepage design, survey reports, model building etc. Any activity that enables students to collect, organize and analyse information, and finally to output their thought, imagination and creation, belongs to constructed tasks and can be used in summative assessment.