Editorial

Interim and benchmark assessments are typically given more than once per year with the purpose of providing both teachers and administrators with information on student learning to inform educational decision-making. In the USA, these assessments arose from the larger educational accountability movement of the 1990s and 2000s. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and data-driven decision-making efforts relied on educators both to have access to appropriate and meaningful data and to be able to interpret such data (Brunner et al. 2005) in order to improve teaching and learning. End-of-year summative tests provide little instructionally useful information (Perie, Marion, and Gong 2009), creating a perceived need for additional (and more frequent) measures. Interim assessments are expected to provide actionable information to both teachers and school and district administrators. Administrators are intended to use the results for school-level curricular planning, identification of professional development needs, and resource allocation. Teachers are intended to use the results to modify instruction to improve student learning. Most of these assessments have several of the following characteristics: They are administered to students periodically (i.e., typically more than once per year). Administration is required by the school or district. The constructs assessed tend to be those targeted in end-of-year summative assessments (i.e., English Language Arts, mathematics, and science). The assessment forms and their items resemble those of end-of-year summative assessments. The assessment results are provided to students and educators within a short enough time frame as to be instructionally useful, but generally do not provide instant feedback. It is expected that the data from the assessments can be used at the classroom level as well as aggregated at the school or district level (Perie et al. 2009). Use depends on the individual capacity of the user, the context of use, and supports for use. The most important supports to promote use of interim assessments are: alignment with standards and curriculum; availability and accessibility of technology; professional development for interpreting results and modifying instruction; and time to use the assessments as intended. The extent to which, and in what ways, interim assessments impact teaching and learning is still an open question, and the research on the effectiveness of these assessments is sparse. When assessments are aligned to learning standards, they can serve to focus teachers’ and students’ attention on important content (Clune and White 2008). However, if teachers do not receive support, training, and/or mentorship in how to link assessment results to instruction, teaching is unlikely to improve (Goertz et al. 2009; Shepard et al. 2011). Studies using quasi-experimental and randomized-control designs have both found small or statistically non-significant effects on student learning. As use of these assessments has become more widespread, researchers have called for users to evaluate them based on their unique value over other assessments and on the total cost of implementation, including displaced instructional time (Perie et al. 2009). Potential benefits should be compared with what teachers already know about their students from other types of assessment (Abrams et al. 2015).

Over 10 years ago, a National Research Council committee led by Jim Pellegrino and Robert Glaser generated the fundamental text on educational assessment titled, Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (NRC, 2001). In this document, the authors emphasize that assessment is a process of reasoning from evidence, ‘‘a process by which educators use students’ responses to specially created or naturally occurring stimuli to draw inferences about the students’ knowledge and skills’’ (National Research Council 2001, p. 20). Knowing What Students Know (NRC, 2001; KWSK) was fundamental to advancing the conversation on assessment in science and other disciplines for several reasons. First, KWSK provided a set of guiding principles for the development and evaluation of educational assessments. The assessment triangle, introduced as an assessment model, was particularly important as it brought recognition to the importance of using cognitive models to drive the design of the assessment and define the empirical evidence needed to support the interpretations derived from observed performance. Second, KWSK called for a ‘‘balanced assessment system’’ of classroom and large-scale assessments that are: comprehensive—using multiple sources of evidence about students’ learning; coherent—a shared learning model coordinating curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and continuous—longitudinal assessment of learning progress over time. This assessment system posed a model to follow in any educational system. Third, KWSK confirmed the idea that assessment should be designed with a specific purpose in mind and cannot serve multiple purposes. Fourth, KWSK emphasized the necessity for assessments to be sensitive to cultural and linguistic difference characteristics of the tested audience. Fifth, KWSK presented new advances in educational measurement, psychometrics, and technology. In all of these ways, KWSK set a high bar for quality assessments. At the

Local assessment systems are being marketed as formative, benchmark, predictive, and a host of other terms. Many so‐called formative assessments are not at all similar to the types of assessments and strategies studied by Black and Wiliam (1998) but instead are interim assessments. In this article, we clarify the definition and uses of interim assessments and argue that they can be an important piece of a comprehensive assessment system that includes formative, interim, and summative assessments. Interim assessments are given on a larger scale than formative assessments, have less flexibility, and are aggregated to the school or district level to help inform policy. Interim assessments are driven by their purpose, which fall into the categories of instructional, evaluative, or predictive. Our intent is to provide a specific definition for these “interim assessments” and to develop a framework that district and state leaders can use to evaluate these systems for purchase or development. The discussion lays out some concerns with the current state of these assessments as well as hopes for future directions and suggestions for further research.

In many school districts, the pressure to raise test scores has created overnight celebrity status for formative assessment. Its powers to raise student achievement have been touted, however, without attending to the research on which these claims were based. Sociocultural learning theory provides theoretical grounding for understanding how formative assessment works to increase student learning. The articles in this special issue bring us back to underlying first principles by offering separate validity frameworks for evaluating formative assessment (Nichols, Meyers, & Burling) and newly‐invented interim assessments (Perie, Marion, & Gong). The article by Heritage, Kim, Vendlinski, and Herman then offers the most important insight of all; that is, formative assessment is of little use if teachers don't know what to do when students are unable to grasp an important concept. While it is true that validity investigations are needed, I argue that the validity research that will tell us the most—about how formative assessment can be used to improve student learning—must be embedded in rich curriculum and must at the same time attempt to foster instructional practices consistent with learning research.

Assessment is an essential part of offline and online learning, especially when determining student learning results. Each learning process requires an assessment to ensure the learning objectives are achieved. Assessment is also needed as a form of teacher accountability. The assessments that can be done in the learning process are formative and summative. This assessment uses a literature research method where the data obtained comes from literature or literature that examines summative assessment and formative assessment of online learning. In online learning environments, formative and summative assessment methods require more consideration. Formative and summative assessments are used to assess students' views on online learning. Making an assessment for online education, whether formative or summative, also requires the function of related principles and objectives. Formative assessment is carried out while the technique of learning and teaching activities of a particular unit/competency is underway. Formative assessment has the purpose of knowing the development of learner mastery of the unit/competency that is being studied. Summative assessment is accessible in online learning classes because it can efficiently determine the value of student learning outcomes. Summative assessment is usually done at the end of the learning process. The purpose of summative assessments is to understand how much the student's achievement of the studies has been completed. This article will provide an overview of formative and summative assessment methods suitable for online learning environments.

Multidimensional Student Assessment

Workplace-Based Assessment and Assessment for Learning: Threats to Validity.

Valuing Assessment in Science Education: An Introductory Framework, Deborah Corrigan, Cathy Buntting, Alister Jones, Richard Gunstone.- International Assessments of Science Learning: Their Positive and Negative Contributions to Science Education, Peter J. Fensham.- International, National and Classroom Assessment: Potent Factors in Shaping what Counts in School Science, Alister Jones, Cathy Buntting.- Improving Science Education: Why Science Matters, Robin Millar.- Towards an Authentically Assessed Science Curriculum, Peter J. Fensham, Leonie J. Rennie.- Aligning Science Curriculum Renewal Efforts and Assessment Practices, Wilmad Kuiper, Elvira Folmer, Wout Ottevanger.- Content to be Assessed Across the History of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Audrey B. Champagne.- The Influence of Assessment on Moderating Science Teachers' Beliefs and Practices, Deborah Corrigan, Rebecca Cooper.- Issues in Teaching for and Assessment of Creativity in Mathematics and Science, Mike Askew.- Science Teachers' Understanding of the College Entrance Examination in a Climate of National Curriculum Reform in China, Hongming Ma.- Pedagogy in Theory and in Practice: Formative and Summative Assessments in Classrooms and in Systems, Paul Black.- An Assessment Perezhivanie: Building an Assessment Pedagogy for, with and of Early Childhood Science Learning, Marilyn Fleer, Gloria Quinones.- Classroom Assessment: Making Space for Diversity, Bronwen Cowie.- Formative Assessment as a Cltural Practice: The Use of Written Formative Assessment in Samoan Science Classrooms, Desmond Lee Hang, Beverley Bell.- The Disparity Between Achievement and Engagement in Students' Science Learning: A Case of East-Asian Regions, Jinwoong Song.- Embedding Assessment Within Primary School Science: A Case Study, Angela Fitzgerald, Richard Gunstone.- Formative Assessment in Learning to Teach Science, Pernilla Nilsson, John Loughran.- Changing Assessment Practices in Science Classrooms, Chris Harrison.- Assessment: Where to Next?, Deborah Corrigan, Cathy Buntting, Richard Gunstone, Alister Jones.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the roles that assessment plays in promoting learning. Formative assessment is considered to be a powerful device for improving students’ learning. However, its learning potential has been less extensively explored in contexts where summative assessment dominates, as summative assessment is considered to undermine the effective implementation of formative assessment. Abandoning summative assessment completely in real classrooms is not possible; therefore, how to implement formative assessment along with summative assessment becomes important. This study explores students’ responses to classroom English assessment in the Chinese high school context, a context typically dominated by summative assessment, in an attempt to identify features of formative assessment, and to examine whether and to what extent summative assessment can be used formatively. The study chooses to explore classroom assessment mainly from the perspectives of students, as they are a critical factor in the learning process.
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\nA qualitative approach was adopted to investigate this topic in five classes from two high schools in China. Participants were six teachers teaching five different classes and their forty-eight secondary students (aged 16-18). Data were collected from multiple sources, including classroom observations, the draw-a-picture technique and interviews.
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\nThe study identified various assessments in classrooms, from informal ones integrated into the classroom teaching to formal tests. This thesis focuses on the three most prominent assessments in the two schools: oral presentations, dictation, and tests and related test follow-up. The in-depth exploration of these three methods reveals students’ affective responses to assessment and their understandings of the relationship between assessment and learning. Assessment was found to be an emotionally charged issue, and students responded to it with both negative and positive feelings. The complex roles of assessment have also been unraveled. At the informal end, students did not distinguish clearly between assessment and learning activities. At the formal end, tests were considered to be a tool to summarize students’ language learning achievement; and there was also the potential to use summative tests formatively, in particular through test follow-up. On the basis of the findings presented in the thesis, this study identifies three key related issues which form the framework of this research, namely, assessment tasks, feedback or judgment, and potential follow-up actions. This framework presents the assessment process and how assessment could be used to improve student learning. Central to this framework is students’ active engagement with assessment.
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\nThe significance of this study is threefold. First, it contributes to the theoretical understanding of formative assessment, including the potential variations of classroom assessment and the potential interplay between formative and summative assessment. Second, it provides insights into students’ responses to assessment, including their affective responses, what they perceive assessments are, how and to what extent assessments contribute to their learning and factors affecting their perceptions. Finally, situated in a context dominated by high-stakes tests, this study uses empirical evidence to develop a contextual perspective of formative assessment; hence, the findings enrich our knowledge about implementing formative assessment in a context dominated by summative assessment.

This book focuses on interim and formative assessments as distinguished from the more usual interest in summative assessment. I was particularly interested in seeing what the experts have to say about a full system of assessment. This book has particular interest in what information a teacher, a school or even a state could collect that monitors the progress of a student as they learn. The authors were asked to think about assessing the effects of teaching and learning throughout the student’s participation in the curriculum.This book is the product of a conference by the Maryland Assessment Research Center for Education Success (MARCES) with funding from the Maryland State Department of Education.

As assessment plays an important role in the process of teaching and learning, this research explored the impacts of formative and summative assessments on academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill of EFL students in Iran. To fulfill the objectives of this research, 72 Iranian EFL learners were chosen based on the convenience sampling method assigned to two experimental groups (summative group and formative group) and a control group. Then, the groups took the pre-tests of test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill. Then, one experimental group was trained by following the rules of the formative assessment and the other experimental group was taught according to the summative assessment. The control group was instructed without using any preplanned assessment. After a 15-session treatment, the post-tests of the test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill were administered to all groups to assess the impacts of the instruction on their language achievement. Lastly, a questionnaire of attitude was administered to both experimental groups to examine their attitudes towards the impacts of formative and summative assessment on their English learning improvement. The outcomes of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni tests revealed that both summative and formative assessments were effective but the formative one was more effective on academic motivation, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. The findings of one sample t-test indicated that the participants had positive attitudes towards summative and formative assessments. Based on the results, it can be concluded that formative assessment is an essential part of teaching that should be used in EFL instructional contexts. The implications of this study can help students to detect their own weaknesses and target areas that need more effort and work.

Background: Assessment is fundamental to medical education, driving student learning and ensuring that key objectives are met. Formative assessment, in particular, serves as both an instructional strategy and an assessment tool, aiding in the consolidation of learning. Objective: The objective of this narrative review was to examine the implementation of formative assessment in medical education, with a focus on its role in fostering deep learning, enhancing learning outcomes, and preparing students for real-world clinical challenges. Methods: This narrative review synthesized existing evidence on formative assessment in medical education. The authors employed a systematic approach to identify relevant literature using search strings such as "formative assessment in medical education" and "assessment for learning." Databases searched included PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library. Inclusion criteria were studies examining formative assessment practices in medical education, while exclusion criteria included studies focusing solely on summative assessment or unrelated to medical education. Results: The findings highlighted the effectiveness of formative assessment in promoting deep learning, providing feedback, and addressing learning difficulties. Bloom's concept of mastery learning underscored the importance of diagnosing learning difficulties through formative evaluations. Consistent low scores on assessments were attributed to various factors, which were effectively addressed through weekly formative assessments. The review emphasized the need for formative assessment in medical education, balanced with summative assessment, while acknowledging challenges related to faculty training, resource limitations, and cultural emphasis on summative assessment. Conclusion: Balanced implementation of formative and summative assessments in medical education enhances learning outcomes, promotes intrinsic motivation, and ensures that future healthcare professionals are well-prepared, ultimately contributing to improved healthcare outcomes and patient experiences.

Both summative and formative assessments are known to facilitate student learning and understanding and help students to identify areas of weakness. However, few studies have investigated students' preference for either summative or formative evaluations, particularly in the area of preclinical medicine. The current study addresses this deficit by surveying 137 first-year graduate entry to medicine (GEM) preclinical medical students from 2 consecutive years (2018-2019 and 2019-2020), for their thoughts on the 6 summative (i.e., for a small percentage of marks), proctored and the 5 informal, formative (i.e., no marks available) continuous assessments in physiology that they encountered in semesters 1 and 2, respectively. Our survey revealed that between 75 and 90% of students felt that both evaluation formats were roughly equally useful (i.e., selecting options, "agree" or "strongly agree") both for providing feedback about their understanding of physiology and for identifying deficits in their physiology knowledge. However, although a significantly larger number of students felt that summative evaluations motivated them to study more than the formative evaluations (P = 0.006), overall, more students favored formative over summative assessments. Notably, however, GEM students from nonbiomedical backgrounds were significantly more in favor of summative assessments than those from either biomedical backgrounds (P = 0.003) or the whole GEM survey cohort (P = 0.01). The implications of these findings will be discussed, with suggestions as to how the student views outlined here might be facilitated within an academic program to maximize both student learning as well as their motivation to study and keep up with taught material.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Although several studies have investigated the relative effectiveness of regular summative versus formative assessments as tools to facilitate student learning and understanding, ours is the first to explicitly solicit students' views on, and preferences for, either regular formative or summative assessment in preclinical medicine. We demonstrate that, overall, students preferred formative- to summative-type assessments, due to the immediacy of feedback, but also that summative tests incentivized them to study and keep up with material more.

The debate between summative and formative assessment is creating a situation that increasingly calls to mind the famous slogan in George Orwell’s (1945) Animal Farm – ‘Four legs good, two legs bad’. Formative assessment is increasingly being portrayed in the literature as ‘good’ assessment, which tutors should strive towards, whereas summative assessment is ‘bad’ assessment on which tutors should minimise their focus, instead moving towards formative assessment (Taras 2005). By revisiting the origins of formative assessment, this article aims to bring back to light that summative and formative assessment are connected at their inception. It highlights how research in the literature has unintentionally created a harmful dichotomy between summative and formative assessment, and it identifies some attempts in the literature to re-connect formative and summative assessment. This paper challenges the dichotomy in the literature and invites those in higher education to consider the fundamental idea that formative and summative assessment need to work in harmony and should not be seen as contrary to each other.

This study used hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship between data from an internet-based mathematics formative assessment and data from a mathematics summative assessment for primary grade learners (ages 5-7). Results showed a positive relationship between formative assessment data related to the concepts of counting and decomposing numbers and summative data. This relationship was stronger in classrooms where students demonstrated lower average performance on the formative assessment data. The results suggest that formative assessment can be more beneficial to encourage low-achieving students in primary-grade mathematics classrooms. Therefore, we recommend teachers use formative assessment practices more frequently in low-achieved primary grade classrooms. The formative assessment process includes the cycle of data collection, data analysis, planning future instruction, and examining the impact of that instruction through cycling back to data collection. This study contributes to the field by providing more empirical data about the relationship between formative and summative assessment with primary grades’ learners.