Presentation Description
Abdulaziz Alothman
Matt Homer and Gemma Traviss-Turner
Background
Assessment is considered a key indicator of student learning. Traditionally, students are assessed mainly to measure their level of knowledge and skills to ascertain whether they have met the minimal requirements established by the educational institution. As the concept of student-centred education has become more popular, the idea of formative assessment (FA), also known as “assessment for learning” (AfL), has been on the rise. Identifying the FA components that consistently produce high-quality assessment systems would allow the development and implementation of high-quality FA.
Matt Homer and Gemma Traviss-Turner
Background
Assessment is considered a key indicator of student learning. Traditionally, students are assessed mainly to measure their level of knowledge and skills to ascertain whether they have met the minimal requirements established by the educational institution. As the concept of student-centred education has become more popular, the idea of formative assessment (FA), also known as “assessment for learning” (AfL), has been on the rise. Identifying the FA components that consistently produce high-quality assessment systems would allow the development and implementation of high-quality FA.
Summary of work
A scoping review explored the available literature concerning FA design and implementation. The search terms were: formative assessment or assessment for learning (implementation or application), medical and undergraduate. The search was limited to Titles and Abstracts and those published in English. The ‘advanced search’ option was used to combine search terms in seven databases: PubMed, Web of Science, and Ovid (for the following databases: Embase, Global Health, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO). Each included article’s reference list was manually searched for other papers that fulfilled the scoping review criteria.
Results and Discussion
Only 47 of the 339 publications that the search turned up met the inclusion criteria. The analysis of these articles found that the following were the common critical components required for developing high-quality FAs: enabling environment; creating effective classroom discussions; faculty and student training; commitment from institutions to support FA activities; creating a question bank; embedding in the instructional process; providing specific, timely, and ongoing feedback; activating students as instructional resources for one another; activating students as the owners of their learning;and receiving feedback from stakeholders to inform the development of subsequent implementations.
Conclusion
The implementation of high-quality formative assessment is a multifaceted process involving several factors that collectively influence the assessment’s overall quality.
References (maximum three)
The findings of this scoping review propose a set of components that, if employed appropriately, could assist educators in implementing valid, high-quality FA.
To achieve high-quality FA, each factor should be taken into account, appropriately used, and professionally implemented during the implementation process.
Al-Wassia, R., Hamed, O., Al-Wassia, H., Alafari, R. and Jamjoom, R. 2015. Cultural challenges to implementation of formative assessment in Saudi Arabia: An exploratory study. Medical Teacher. 37(S1), pp.S9–S19.
Black, P. and Wiliam, D. 2009. Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. 21(1), pp.5–31.
Schellekens, L.H., Bok, H.G.J., de Jong, L.H., van der Schaaf, M.F., Kremer, W.D.J. and van der Vleuten, C.P.M. 2021. A scoping review on the notions of Assessment as Learning (AaL), Assessment for Learning (AfL), and Assessment of Learning (AoL). Studies in Educational Evaluation. 71, p.101094.