How Formative Assessment in Mathematics Can Help Improve Student Performance in Summative Assessments

• In Event: Exploring the Current Status of Formative Assessments in California’s P-12 Schools as Compared With Schools Nationwide: A National Science Foundation-Funded Project

Abstract

A major component of our NSF supported formative assessment project is examining the possible links between formative assessment practices and student performance in the end-of-course or the end-of-year summative assessments. This link is one the most fundamental concepts underlying the principle of formative assessments. However, there is currently very little research evidence to identify this link and to understand the strength of the link. Part of the problem stems from the lack of objectivity in defining formative assessments and their related application in the classroom. Many assessment experts define formative assessments as a practice not as an assessment tool. Therefore, based on this definition, formative assessments could include a variety of practices including teacher’s interaction with students, portfolio assessments, quizzes, and other classroom works or activities. As such, it is difficult to provide content and psychometric definition for these assessments and in the absence of such definition it is difficult to establish any objective link between two assessment practices, i.e., the formative and the summative assessments.
In this session , we will present the data we have collected from both our qualitative and quantitative research that establishes a link between formative and summative assessments. We have made a substantial effort thus far to provide a more operational definition of the formative assessments used across the nation, particularly in California.
In the qualitative approach we asked school principals, state assessment directors in the nation, and district assessment directors in California to convey to us their views as well whatever data evidence they might have to help us define this link. Preliminary analyses of the data suggest that a major purpose of formative assessment (instrument or practice) is to inform curriculum, instruction and summative assessments.
The most convincing evidence on the impact of formative assessment practices on summative assessments may come from the quantitative analyses of assessment outcomes. While this aspect of our study comes later in the next phase of our project, we will present a comprehensive psychometric plan for examining the link in this symposium. It is formed by using a set of latent variables of all formative assessment information that a teacher has access to and then correlating these latent variables with the students’ state assessment outcomes. We will also present the results of a small scale psychometric study demonstrating such link.

Authors

• Jamal Abedi, University of California - Davis

• Ann M. Mastergeorge, Arizona State University