Improving Student Outcomes through Formative Assessment: Swedish Professional Development Initiatives

• In Event: Assessment to Support Learning Across Borders and Systems of Education: Examining Enactment at Scale

Abstract

Purpose & Perspective
Research reviews show that formative assessment (FA) can have a large impact on student achievement (e.g., Lee et al., 2020), although effects vary substantially. It has been argued to have positive effects on student motivation, but empirical studies are few and the effects have not been large (Authors, Year). Most studies concern FA focusing on either the teacher or the students as proactive agents. This paper synthesizes multiple studies examining teachers’ FA practice and the impacts of professional development (PD) initiatives. We focus on a multi-approach to FA, a process involving both teachers and students as proactive agents (Black & Wiliam, 2009). Teachers assess students’ learning and adapt feedback and learning activities accordingly, and the students conduct peer-assessment, peer-feedback, and self-assessment with subsequent actions. This FA has a strong potential for positive effects on student outcomes. However, PD initiatives have often been unsuccessful in accomplishing FA with large effects on student achievement (e.g., Anders et al., 2022).

In Sweden, teachers have considerable autonomy in making decisions on teaching. The National Agency for Education encourages using FA through, for example, support materials. Still, studies show there is room for improvement in teachers’ multi-approach FA (e.g., Authors, Year).

Methods & Results
We explored what multi-approach FA may look like, and its influence on student learning in multiple studies (See Table 1). In one study, Authors (Year), we used classroom observations, questionnaires, and interviews to investigate FA in one mathematics teacher’s classroom. The FA condition positively affected students’ self-regulated learning compared to a control class. We also identified how this FA provides opportunities to develop beliefs suggested as mediating effects on student motivation (e.g., self-efficacy, internal locus of control) (Authors, Year).

In Authors (Year), we studied PD in FA and its effects in a randomized experiment with grade-4 mathematics teachers in a Swedish municipality. We collected data through classroom observations, teacher interviews, questionnaires, and observations of the PD. We found that students of teachers receiving PD significantly outperformed the students in the control group on a posttest after one year of FA implementation, controlling for pretest scores (See also: Authors, Year). We concluded that expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) could explain teachers' FA implementation and development. Teachers chose to enact FA activities they expected to be able to carry out with low costs and believed would provide valuable outcomes (Authors, Year). This was also found in work with grade-7 teachers (Authors, Year). In quasi-experimental studies of a similar PD, we found that it significantly increased teachers’ conceptions that assessment and formative feedback can improve learning, and that these conceptions were associated with self-reported feedback practices. Meanwhile, these conceptions remained unchanged in a control group (Authors, Year).

Significance
The above-mentioned studies contribute to our understanding of how important characteristics of multi-approach FA and PD work to accomplish positive effects on student and teacher outcomes in the Swedish context.

Authors

• Torulf Palm, Umeå University

• Catarina Andersson, Umeå Universitet

• Björn Palmberg, Umeå Universitet