Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. Generally speaking, summative assessments are defined by three major criteria:
·
The
tests, assignments, or projects are used to determine whether students have learned
what they were expected to learn. In other words, what makes an assessment
“summative” is not the design of the test, assignment, or self-evaluation, per
se, but the way it is used—i.e., to determine whether and to what degree
students have learned the material they have been taught.
·
Summative
assessments are given at the conclusion of a specific instructional period, and
therefore they are generally evaluative, rather than diagnostic—i.e., they are
more appropriately used to determine learning progress and achievement,
evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs, measure progress toward
improvement goals, or make course-placement decisions, among other possible
applications.
·
Summative-assessment
results are often recorded as scores or grades that are then factored into a
student’s permanent academic record, whether they end up as letter grades on a
report card or test scores used in the college-admissions process. While
summative assessments are typically a major component of the grading process in
most districts, schools, and courses, not all assessments considered to be
summative are graded.
Summative assessments are commonly
contrasted with formative assessments, which
collect detailed information that educators can use to improve instruction and
student learning while it’s happening. In other words, formative assessments
are often said to be for learning,
while summative assessments are of learning.
Or as assessment expert Paul Black put it, “When the cook tastes the soup,
that’s formative assessment. When the customer tastes the soup, that’s
summative assessment.” It should be noted, however, that the distinction
betweenformative and summative is often fuzzy in practice, and
educators may have divergent interpretations and opinions on the subject.
Some of the most well-known and
widely discussed examples of summative assessments are the standardized tests administered by states and testing organizations, usually in
math, reading, writing, and science. Other examples of summative assessments
include:
·
End-of-unit
or chapter tests.
·
End-of-term
or semester tests.
·
Standardized
tests that are used to for the purposes of school accountability, college
admissions (e.g., the SAT or ACT), or end-of-course evaluation (e.g., Advanced
Placement or International Baccalaureate exams).
·
Culminating demonstrations of learning or other forms of “performance assessment,” such as portfolios of student work that are collected
over time and evaluated by teachers or capstone projects that students work
on over extended periods of time and that they present and defend at the
conclusion of a school year or their high school education.
While most summative assessments are
given at the conclusion of an instructional period, some summative assessments can
still be used diagnostically. For example, the growing availability of student
data, made possible by online grading systems and databases, can give teachers
access to assessment results from previous years or other courses. By reviewing
this data, teachers may be able to identify students more likely to struggle
academically in certain subject areas or with certain concepts. In addition,
students may be allowed to take some summative tests multiple times, and
teachers might use the results to help prepare students for future
administrations of the test.
It should also be noted that
districts and schools may use “interim” or “benchmark” tests to monitor the
academic progress of students and determine whether they are on track to
mastering the material that will be evaluated on end-of-course tests or
standardized tests. Some educators consider interim tests to be formative,
since they are often used diagnostically to inform instructional modifications,
but others may consider them to be summative. There is ongoing debate in the
education community about this distinction, and interim assessments may defined
differently from place to place. See formative assessment for
a more detailed discussion.
Reform
While educators have arguably been
using “summative assessments” in various forms since the invention of schools
and teaching, summative assessments have in recent decades become components of
larger school-improvement efforts. As they always have, summative assessments
can help teachers determine whether students are making adequate academic
progress or meeting expected learning standards, and results may be used to
inform modifications to instructional techniques, lesson designs, or teaching
materials the next time a course, unit, or lesson is taught. Yet perhaps the
biggest changes in the use of summative assessments have resulted from state
and federal policies aimed at improving public education—specifically,
standardized high-stakes tests used to make
important decisions about schools, teachers, and students.
Debate
While there is little disagreement
among educators about the need for or utility of summative assessments, debates
and disagreements tend to center on issues of fairness and effectiveness,
especially when summative-assessment results are used for high-stakes purposes.
In these cases, educators, experts, reformers, policy makers, and others may
debate whether assessments are being designed and used appropriately, or
whether high-stakes tests are either beneficial or harmful to the educational
process. For more detailed discussions of these issues, see high-stakes test, measurement error, test accommodations, test bias, score inflation,standardized test, and value-added measures.
