Formative Assessment Helps Students Learn Over Time: Why Aren’t We Paying More Attention to It?

Abstract

In the world of postsecondary assessment, summative practices take center stage, particularly at the program level. Formative assessment can be overlooked, for example, as institutions direct focus and effort toward fully implementing summative assessment for accreditation requirements. While summative practices are important, formative assessment is also worth promoting as a means to see improvements in student learning within a quicker time frame (i.e. over the course of a term instead of several terms or years later). With an intended audience of college faculty, assessment professionals, and administrators, this article summarizes ways formative assessment is employed to improve student learning and inform curriculum and program improvement. It also identifies barriers to formative assessment implementation and suggests ways those barriers may be overcome. One key strategy is faculty development, but the literature on faculty development about teaching with formative assessment is sparse and tends to be focused at the K-12 level, so we offer suggestions for a way forward by fostering professional development using best practices, ensuring equitable and culturally responsive assessment, and integrating formative assessment into larger efforts to support learning improvement over time.