The Formative Assessment Process: Excerpts from Research

Research into one or more of the strategies, practices, and techniques included in the formative assessment process traces back at least to studies from the early 1970s - making formative assessment the most-researched assessment practice today.

The recent interest in formative assessment gained momentum in the United States with the publication and subsequent, almost viral, sharing of the 1998 Phi Delta Kappan article by the United Kingdom's Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black entitled, "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment." Some confusion exists among educators about the definition of formative assessment, since many test publishers use the term in association with their off-the-shelf products. Measured Progress has consistently viewed formative assessment as an instructionally embedded process, adhering to definitions developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Dylan Wiliam, and others.

Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment

The article summarized the results of a meta-analysis of hundreds of international studies (many conducted in the U.S.) of one or more practices, which research demonstrated could profoundly improve student learning. In other words, these practices help teachers become more effective.

"Firm evidence shows that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement, Mr. Black and Mr. Wiliam point out. Indeed, they know of no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie case can be made."

Black and Wiliam also concluded that "innovations that include strengthening the practice of formative assessment produce significant and often substantial learning gains. These studies range over age groups from 5-year-olds to university undergraduates, across several school subjects, and over several countries.

For research purposes, learning gains of this type are measured by comparing the average improvements in the test scores of pupils involved in an innovation with the range of scores that are found for typical groups of pupils on these same tests. The ratio of the former divided by the latter is known as the effect size. Typical effect sizes of the formative assessment experiments were between 0.4 and 0.7. These effect sizes are larger than most of those found for educational interventions. The following examples illustrate some practical consequences of such large gains.

  • An effect size of 0.4 would mean that the average pupil involved in an innovation would record the same achievement as a pupil in the top 35% of those not so involved. 
  • An effect size gain of 0.7 in the recent international comparative studies in mathematics would have raised the score of a nation in the middle of the pack of 41 countries (e.g., the U.S.) to one of the top five.

Many of these studies arrive at another important conclusion: that improved formative assessment helps low achievers more than other students and so reduces the range of achievement while raising achievement overall. A notable recent example is a study devoted entirely to low-achieving students and students with learning disabilities, which shows that frequent assessment feedback helps both groups enhance their learning."

Black, P. and Wiliam, D., Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment. Phi Delta Kappan. October 1998. Pp. 139-144.

Assessment for Learning - Formative Assessment

By the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Centre for Educational Research and Innovation

An eight-nation study of formative assessment practice by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (1) revealed that it promotes increased achievement, equity in student outcomes, lifelong learning, and "better enabled teachers to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations."

The report noted that "Quantitative and qualitative research on formative assessment has shown that it is perhaps one of the most important interventions for promoting high-performance ever studied." It also pointed out that "Teachers who use formative assessment systematically make fundamental changes: in their interactions with students, the way they set up learning situations and guide students toward learning goals, even how they think about student success."

(1) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Centre for Educational Research and Innovation - "Assessment for Learning - Formative Assessment" OECD/CERI International Conference "Learning in the 21st Century: Research, Innovation and Policy." 2005