Formative assessment: do the costs outweigh the benefits?

 

Formative assessment has been shown to considerably aid learning by providing students with feedback on how their learning is progressing before they engage with ‘high-stakes’ summative assessment. However, a common concern amongst staff (and students) is that it will be an additional burden in an already busy teaching schedule.

A recent paper (López-Pastor, Pintor, Muros & Webb, 2013) suggests that the perception of an increase in workload is perhaps worse than the reality. The paper analyses two aspects of formative assessment processes within universities in Spain: the academic performance of the students and the workload that formative assessment creates for both academic staff and students.

The research highlights:

(a) the positive impact that formative assessment has on student engagement and performance;
(b) the reduction in student failures and withdrawals; and
(c) the disparity between the subjective views of students and tutors regarding the workload created by using more formative assessment.

The final analysis suggests that it is true that moving from traditional assessment methods to include more formative assessment does increase student and tutor workload, but not to the degree that students and staff might perceive.

 

Reference:

Victor M. López-Pastor , Patricia Pintor , Beatriz Muros & Graham Webb (2013):
Formative assessment strategies and their effect on student performance and on student and tutor workload: the results of research projects undertaken in preparation for greater convergence of universities in Spain within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), Journal of Further and Higher Education, 37:2, 163-180