What is the Difference Between Formative and Summative assessment?

The main difference between formative and summative assessments lies in their purpose and the stage of learning they are used for. Here are the key differences between the two types of assessments:

Formative Assessment:

The goal is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to improve learning.
Helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work.
Helps faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately.
Generally low stakes, meaning they have low or no point value.
Examples include in-class discussions, weekly quizzes, and low-stakes group work.

Summative Assessment:

The goal is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against a standard or benchmark.
Measures how much a student has learned after a unit or course.
Often high stakes, meaning they have a high point value.
Examples include midterm exams, final projects, final essays, and final presentations.

Both formative and summative assessments are essential components of effective teaching and learning. Achieving a balance between the two is important, as over-reliance on summative assessment can provide very little feedback that helps students develop and improve before they reach the end of a unit or course. Formative assessments can help students improve their self-regulatory skills and enable faculty to identify areas where students are struggling, allowing them to address issues immediately.

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What is the Difference Between Formative and Summative assessment?

Comparative Table: Formative vs Summative assessment

Here is a table comparing the differences between formative and summative assessment:

Aspect	Formative Assessment	Summative Assessment
Focus	Assessment for learning	Assessment of learning
Purpose	Improve ongoing student learning outcomes in real time	Evaluate how well instruction worked in the past
Timing	Ongoing, throughout the learning process	After the learning process, at the end of a course or unit
Examples	In-class discussions, weekly quizzes, 1-minute reflection writing assignments	Instructor-created exams, final projects, final essays, final reports, final grades
Feedback	Provides meaningful feedback to improve student learning	Evaluates student achievements and assigns grades indicating whether the student achieved the learning goal or not
Stakes	Low-stakes, feedback-oriented	High-stakes, evaluation-oriented

Formative assessment focuses on evaluating student learning during the learning process, providing feedback to improve student outcomes, and is ongoing. Summative assessment, on the other hand, evaluates student learning and achievements at the end of a course or unit, assigning grades and determining whether students have achieved the learning goals.

Guilherme Mazui

Guilherme Mazui is graduated in journalism from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and a master's degree in Communication from the University of São Paulo (USP). In addition, he has experience in advertising writing and has worked as a content editor in several companies.