Why formative? What is it? Why doesn’t it work ? How can we

do formative better?

Dr Tansy JessopHead of L&T, University of Winchester

Programme Leaders’ Forum 1 October 2014

Bearing the load…

Sisyphus rolls a boulder up a hill“an eternity of endless labour, useless effort and frustration”Homer, 8th Century BC

21st century equivalent

“You end up assessing for assessment’s sake rather than thinking about what the assessment is for”.Programme Leader, Winchester (2008)

“Feedback is the single most influential factor in student learning” (Hattie 2009).

“Innovations that include strengthening the practice of formative assessment produce significant and often substantial learning gains” (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.40).

Why do formative assessment?

1) Because it provides low-risk, more frequent opportunities for students to learn from feedback (Sadler, 1989)

2) Because it helps students to fine-tune and understand requirements and standards (Boud 2000, Nicol, 2006)

3) Because feedback to lecturers from formative tasks helps to adapt teaching (Hattie, 2009)

4) Because it engages students in cycles of reflection and collaboration (Biggs 2003; Nicol & McFarlane Dick 2006)

5) Because it encourages and distributes student effort (Gibbs 2004).

Why formative matters

It was really useful. We were assessed on it but we weren’t officially given a grade, but they did give us feedback on how we did.

It didn’t actually count so that helped quite a lot because it was just a practice and didn’t really matter what we did and we could learn from mistakes so that was quite useful.

Getting feedback from other students in my class helps. I can relate to what they’re saying and take it on board. I’d just shut down if I was getting constant feedback from my lecturer.

I find more helpful the feedback you get in informal ways week by week, but there are some people who just hammer on about what will get them a better mark.

Why students say it matters

Why it matters to students

He’s such a better essay writer because he’s constantly writing. And we don’t, especially in the first year when we really don’t have anything to do. The amount of times formative assignments could have taken place…

The more you write the better you become at it. It only comes through practice and in the end if we’ve only written 40 pieces over three years that’s not a lot.

So you could have a great time doing nothing until like a month before Christmas and you’d suddenly panic. I prefer steady deadlines, there’s a gradual move forward, rather than bam!

What is formative assessment?

“Definitional fuzziness” Mantz Yorke (2003)

Basic idea is simple – to contribute to student learning through the provision of information about performance (Yorke, 2003).

A fine tuning mechanism for how and what we learn (Boud 2000)

Definitions of formative assessment

Formative assessment is concerned with how judgements about the quality of student responses can be used to shape and improve students’ competence by short-circuiting the randomness and inefficiency of trial-and-error learning” (Sadler, 1989, p.120).

TESTA – ungraded, required, eliciting feedback

Defining formative (2)

Why we struggle to do formative

Theory 1: Content drives our view of curriculum

The best approach from the student’s perspective is to focus on concepts. I’m sorry to break it to you, but your students are not going to remember 90 per cent – possibly 99 per cent – of what you teach them unless it’s conceptual…. when broad, over-arching connections are made, education occurs. Most details are only a necessary means to that end.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/a-students-lecture-to-professors/2013238.fullarticle#.U3orx_f9xWc.twitter

A student’s lecture to professors

Theory 2: Summative competes for time and effort with formative

If there weren’t loads of other assessments, I’d do it.

Unless I find it interesting I will rarely do anything else on it because I haven’t got the time. Even though I haven’t anything to do, I don’t have the time, I have jobs to do and I have to go to work and stuff.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to stay here. We’re off to do our assignment” (Harland, 2014).

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A Student Effort Graph

Week 6 Week 12

Low Effort

Modest Effort

Max effort

Theory 3: Students are grades-oriented

It’s good to know you’re being graded because you take it more seriously.

I would probably work for tasks, but for a lot of people, if it’s not going to count towards your degree, why bother?

A lot of people don’t do wider reading. You just focus on your essay question.

I always find myself going to the library and going ‘These are the books related to this essay’ and that’s it.

Although you learn a lot more than you would if you were revising for an exam, because you have to do wider research and stuff, you still don’t do research really unless it’s directly related to essays.

Theory 4: Academics have competing demands

I found the consequence of it not being officially part of the diet being that a hard core did it and no more.

At any particular assessment point... somebody in our department would probably have to read something between 300,000 and 0.5 million words.

You end up assessing for assessment’s sake rather than thinking about what the assessment is for.

We’re finding formative assessment more difficult as the numbers grow on the courses, and a lot of us now are thinking I can’t do this because it’s just so much extra time....

1) Competes for time and effort with summative assessment

2) The volume of summative assessment squeezes out formative

3) Modules and semesters4) Marks driven culture, weak theory and rationale

for formative among students and lecturers5) It’s not required.

Summary of TESTA evidence about missing formative assessment

Grades …the administrative device that actively diverted students from really learning anything (Becker, 1968).

Feedback on summative tasks is more readily dismissed when there is a grade (Black and William 1998, Orrell 2006, Taras 2002; 2008).

Timing of summative tasks, often too late to act on feedback.

Why summative can’t do the same job as formative

Good cop, bad cop?

Assessment of, for or as learning Different functions, some overlaps False dichotomy is unhelpful Rebuilding formative-summative relationship Linked, integrated, multi-stage assessment

Good cop, bad cop?

1) Align it with summative tasks – multi-stage, linked, integrated

2) The value of feedback feeding forward3) Set formative tasks in the public domain4) Set the tone in first year5) Adopt a whole programme approach6) Habituate students to peer review7) Taking risks and providing rationale to students8) Real world tasks, authentic, linked to previous and own

experience9) Research based tasks10)Group accountability

Ten principles for making formative work

Formative Assessment Triads: MA Education Blogging on ITE (BA Primary) modules and American

Studies Drafting process on American Studies Structured 3:1 process of formative in Sports programme Multi-stage formative to summative on Media degrees Gamification on Finance, Accounting and Media degrees E-portfolio and portfolio examples from Social work and

ITE modules Examples of authentic assessment: Problem-based

learning, case studies, scenarios, professional reflections etc

Home-grown examples

Becker, H. (1968) Making the grade: the academic side of college life. Boud, D. (2000) Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society, Studies in Continuing Education, 22: 2, 151 — 167.Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.Hattie, J. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1) 81-112.Harland, T. et al. (2014) An Assessment Arms Race and its fallout: high-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship. Assessment and Evaluation inn Higher Education. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2014.931927Nicol, D. J. and McFarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice. Studies in Higher Education. 31(2): 199-218.Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2013) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale study of students’ learning in response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. ifirst.Jessop, T, McNab, N and Gubby, L. (2012) Mind the gap: An analysis of how quality assurance processes influence programme assessment patterns. Active Learning in Higher Education. 13(3). 143-154.Sadler, D.R. (1989) Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems, Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.Yorke, M. (2003) Formative assessment in higher education: Moves towards theory and the enhancement of pedagogic practice. Higher Education. 45

References