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International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching pp 1359–1386 Cite as

Formative Assessment and Feedback Strategies

  • Susanne Narciss 5 &
  • Joerg Zumbach 6  
  • Reference work entry
  • First Online: 17 December 2022

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Part of the Springer International Handbooks of Education book series (SIHE)

Formative assessment and formative feedback strategies are very powerful factors for promoting effective learning and instruction in all educational contexts. Formative assessment, as a superordinate term, refers to all activities that instructors and/or learners undertake to get information about teaching and learning that are used in a diagnostic manner. Formative feedback is a core component of formative assessment. If well designed and implemented in terms of a formative feedback strategy, it provides students and teachers with information on the current state of learning in order to help the further regulation of learning and instruction in the direction of the learning standards strived for. This chapter presents the issues in, as well as selected approaches for, designing formative assessment and feedback strategies. Based on recent meta-analyses and literature reviews, it summarizes core theoretical and empirical findings on the conditions and effects of formative assessment and feedback in (higher) education. Furthermore, it discusses challenges and implications for applying the current insights and strategies for effective formative assessment and feedback in higher education. Finally, suggestions on helpful resources are provided.

  • Formative assessment
  • Assessment for learning
  • Formative feedback strategies

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Narciss, S., Zumbach, J. (2023). Formative Assessment and Feedback Strategies. In: Zumbach, J., Bernstein, D.A., Narciss, S., Marsico, G. (eds) International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28745-0_63

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The following resources provide an introduction to formative assessment techniques that can be used in your teaching:

  • Regier, N. (2012). 60 formative assessment strategies. Resource Centre for CareerTech Advancement.  https://edusites.uregina.ca/danicafinlay/wp-content/uploads/sites/618/2021/11/Formative-assessment-strategies.pdf  
  • Lambert, K. (2012). Tools for formative assessment. OCPS Curriculum Services.  https://www.utwente.nl/en/examination/faq-testing-assessment/60formativeassessment.pdf

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  • Student Self-Assessment

Self-assessments encourage students to reflect on their growing skills and knowledge, learning goals and processes, products of their learning, and progress in the course. Student self-assessment can take many forms, from low-stakes check-ins on their understanding of the day’s lecture content to self-assessment and self-evaluation of their performance on major projects. Student self-assessment is also an important practice in courses that use alternative grading approaches . While the foci and mechanisms of self-assessment vary widely, at their core the purpose of all self-assessment is to “generate feedback that promotes learning and improvements in performance” (Andrade, 2019). Fostering students’ self-assessment skills can also help them develop an array of transferable lifelong learning skills, including:

  • Metacognition: Thinking about one’s own thinking. Metacognitive skills allow learners to “monitor, plan, and control their mental processing and accurately judge how well they’ve learned something” (McGuire & McGuire 2015).
  • Critical thinking: Carefully reasoning about the evidence and strength of evidence presented in support of a claim or argument.
  • Reflective thinking: Examining or questioning one’s own assumptions, positionality, basis of your beliefs, growth, etc.
  • Self-regulated learning: Setting goals, checking in on one’s own progress, reflecting on what learning or study strategies are working well or not so well, being intentional about where/when/how one studies, etc.

Students' skills to self-assess can vary, especially if they have not encountered many opportunities for structured self-assessment. Therefore, it is important to provide structure, guidance, and support to help them develop these skills over time.

  • Create a supportive learning environment so that students feel comfortable sharing their self-assessment experiences ( Create a Supportive Course Climate ).
  • Foster a growth-mindset in students by using strategies that show students that abilities can be grown through hard work, effective strategies, and help from others when needed ( Fostering Growth Mindset ; Identifying teaching behaviors that foster growth mindset classroom cultures ).
  • Set clear, specific, measurable, and achievable learning outcomes so that students know what is expected of them and can better assess their progress ( Creating and Using Learning Outcomes ).
  • Explain the concept of self-assessment and some of the benefits (above).
  • Provide students with specific prompts and/or rubrics to guide self-assessment ( assessing student learning with Rubrics ).
  • Provide clear instructions (see an example under Rubrics below).
  • Encourage students to make adjustments to their learning strategies (e.g., retrieval, spacing, interleaving, elaboration, generation, reflection, calibration; Make It Stick , pp. 200-225) and/or set new goals based on their identified areas for improvement.

Self-Assessment Techniques

Expand the boxes below to learn more about techniques you can use to engage students in self-assessment and decide which would work best for your context.

To foster self-assessment as part of students’ regular learning practice you can embed prompts directly into your formative and summative assignments and assessments. 

  • What do you think is a fair grade for the work you have handed in, and why do you think so?
  • What did you do best in this task?
  • What did you do least well in this task?
  • What did you find was the hardest part of completing this task?
  • What was the most important thing you learned in doing this task?
  • If you had more time to complete the task, what (if anything) would you change, and why?

Providing students the opportunity to regularly engage in writing that allows them to reflect on their learning experiences, habits, and practices can help students retain learning, identify challenges, and strengthen their metacognitive skills. Reflective writing may take the form of short writing prompts related to assignments (see Embedded self-assessment prompts above and Classroom Assessment Techniques ) or writing more broadly about recent learning experiences (e.g., What? So What? Now What? Journals ). Reflective writing is a skill that takes practice and is most effective when done regularly throughout the course ( Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning ).

Rubrics are an important tool to help students self-assess their work, especially for self-assessment that includes multiple prompts about the same piece of work. If you’re providing a rubric to guide self-assessment, it is important to also provide instructions on how to use the rubric.

Students are using a rubric (e.g., grading rubric for written assignments (docx) ) to self-assess a draft essay before turning it in or making revisions. As part of that process, you want them to assess their use of textual evidence to support their claim. Here are example instructions you could provide (adapted from Beard, 2021):

To self-assess your use of textual evidence to support your claim, please follow these steps:

  • In your draft, highlight your claim sentence and where you used textual evidence to support your claim
  • Based on the textual evidence you used, circle your current level of skill on the provided rubric
  • Use the information on the provided rubric to list one action you can take to make your textual evidence stronger

Self-assessment surveys can be helpful if you are asking students to self-assess their skills, knowledge, attitudes, and/or effectiveness of study methods they used. These may take the form of 2-3 free-response questions or a questionnaire where students rate their agreement with a series of statements (e.g., I am skilled at creating formulas in Excel”, “I can define ‘promissory coup’”, “I feel confident in my study skills”). A Background Knowledge Probe administered at the very beginning of the course (or when starting a new unit) can help you better understand what students already know (or don’t know) about the class subject. Self-assessment surveys administered over time can help you and students assess their progress toward meeting defined learning outcomes (and provide you with feedback on the effectiveness of your teaching methods). Student Assessment of their Learning Gains is a free tool that you can use to create and administer self-assessment surveys for your course.

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Wrappers are tools that learners use after completing and receiving feedback on an exam or assignment ( exam and assignment wrappers , post-test analysis ) or even after listening to a lecture ( lecture wrappers ). Instead of focusing on content, wrappers focus on the process of learning and are designed to provide students with a chance to reflect on their learning strategies and plan new strategies before the next assignment or assessment. The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon includes multiple examples of exam, homework, and paper wrappers for several disciplines.

References:

Andrade, H. L. (2019). A critical review of research on student self-assessment . Frontiers in Education , 4, Article 87. 

Beard, E. (2021, April 27). The importance of student self-assessment . Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA).

Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

McGuire, S. Y., & McGuire, S. (2015). Teach students how to learn: Strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student metacognition, study skills, and motivation . New York, NY: Routledge. 

McMillan, J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement . Educational Horizons , 87 (1), 40–49.

Race, P. (2001). A briefing on self, peer and group assessment (pdf) . LTSN Generic Centre, Assessment Series No. 9. 

RCampus. (2023, June 7). Student self-assessments: Importance, benefits, and implementation . 

Teaching (n.d.). Student Self-Assessment . University of New South Wales Sydney.

Further Reading & Resources: 

Bjork, R. (n.d.). Applying cognitive psychology to enhance educational practice . UCLA Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab.

Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Classroom Assessment Techniques . University of Colorado Boulder.

Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Formative Assessments . University of Colorado Boulder.

Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Student Peer Assessment . University of Colorado Boulder.

Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Summative Assessments . University of Colorado Boulder

Center for Teaching and Learning (n.d.). Summative Assessments: Types . University of Colorado Boulder

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  1. PDF 60 Formative Assessment Strategies

    Why are formative assessment strategies used? How do I determine what types of formative assessment strategies to use? How can teachers use the assessment information? How can students use the assessment information? FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES FOR TEACHERS

  2. PDF 4 Formative Assessment Practices that Make a Difference in Classrooms

    Spotlight on: formative assessment strategies and techniques • What highly successful teachers do • Specific techniques to try • Implementation tools and tips To teachers, it's a familiar challenge: every class period, accomplish a significant amount while facilitating learning for 25-plus students with varied instructional needs.

  3. PDF Formative and Summative Assessment Handout

    Formative assessment refers to tools used throughout a class or course that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps, while assessing ways to close such gaps.

  4. PDF Developing Formative Assessment: Action Planning Guide

    Step 1: Prepare for and identify professional learning Step 2: Select, undertake and reflect on professional learning Step 3: Apply professional learning Step 4: Evaluate overall impact and determine next steps. Key: There are many ways to engage with and apply the information presented within this guide.

  5. PDF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

    The information that formative assessment yields can be used in many different ways: to define learning intentions, to design a unit of work based on the Victorian Curriculum, to identify gaps or misconceptions in individual understanding, to identify a student's zone of proximal development, or to

  6. PDF Formative Assessment and Feedback Strategies

    the conditions and effects of formative assessment and feedback in (higher) education. Furthermore, it discusses challenges and implications for applying the current insights and strategies for effective formative assessment and feed-back in higher education. Finally, suggestions on helpful resources are provided. Keywords

  7. PDF Formative Assessment Strategies

    Formative assessment is an active and intentional learning process that partners the teacher and the students to. continuously and systematically gather evidence of learning with the express goal of improving student achievement. Moss & Brookhart, 2009, p. 6. Formative Assessment. Sadler's paradigm.

  8. Formative Assessment and Feedback Strategies

    Formative assessment, as a superordinate term, refers to all activities that instructors and/or learners undertake to get information about teaching and learning that are used in a diagnostic manner. Formative feedback is a core component of formative assessment.

  9. PDF Five Formative Assessment Strategies to Improve Distance Learning

    Formative assessment is a process that may help improve the distance learning experience. Formative assessment is important for all kinds of learning. It may be especially important for distance learning, which can easily turn into a "list of things to do" in the minds of students. Five Formative Assessment Strategies to Improve Distance

  10. PDF How Teachers use Formative Assessment Strategies during Teaching ...

    Article 1 2021 How Teachers use Formative Assessment Strategies during Teaching: Evidence from the Classroom Hem Chand Dayal The University of the South Pacific Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons,

  11. PDF Formative Assessment Strategies

    Walk around the classroom and observe students as they work to check for learning. Strategies include: 10. Self-Assessment. A process in which students collect information about their own learning, analyze what it reveals about their progress toward the intended learning goals and plan the next steps in their learning.

  12. (PDF) Formative Assessment Classroom Techniques

    Formative assessment can be defined as an assessment designed to monitor the learners' progress in order to adapt the teaching and learning and to decide on the subsequent steps (Black &...

  13. PDF Formative Assessment

    Formative assessment helps teachers identify the current state of learners' knowledge and skills; make changes in instruction so that students meet with success; create appropriate lessons, activities, and groupings; and inform students about their progress to help them set goals (Ainsworth and Viegut, 2006, p. 23).

  14. PDF Formative Assessment and Science

    Formative assessments capture evidence of student thinking and learning related to important concepts, skills, and habits of mind. Data and infor-mation gathered through formative assessments also inform curricular change and professional development needs. A comprehensive definition of formative assessment is offered in Figure 1.1.

  15. Formative Assessment Strategies

    The following resources provide an introduction to formative assessment techniques that can be used in your teaching: Regier, N. (2012). 60 formative assessment strategies. Resource Centre for CareerTech Advancement. https://edusites.uregina.ca/danicafinlay/wp-content/uploads/sites/618/2021/11/Formative-assessment-strategies.pdf Lambert, K. (2012).

  16. PDF formative assessment strategies

    Formative (Informal) Assessment Strategies Most of these actives can also be thought of as engagement strategies in addition to assessing what students know and can do. Formative Assessment Strategies AFRE - Keys to Instructional Excellence, 2008 AFRE - Standards-Based Instructional Planning and Designing, 2008

  17. PDF Module 2. Formative Assessment Strategies

    • understand what formative assessment involves in practical teaching and learning strategies • understand that 'Formative assessment is not a test but a process that produces not a score but a qualitative insight into the learner's understanding' [Popham W.J.2008] • become familiar with a research-based set of formative assessment techniques...

  18. (PDF) Assessing Teachers' Strategies in Formative Assessment: The

    This paper reports the development of the Teacher Formative Assessment Practice Scale (TFAPS) and its psychometric properties based on two samples of primary and secondary school teachers: one...

  19. PDF 60 formative assessment strategies

    Formative assessment is a process that uses informal assessment strategies to gather information on student learning. Teachers determine what students are understanding and what they still need to learn to master a goal or outcome.

  20. PDF Ae Assessment for Learning

    AE ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING.pdf OECD/CERI International Conference "Learning in the 21st Century: ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING - THE CASE FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT This paper provides findings on assessment for learning, drawn from recent analyses undertaken by CERI.

  21. PDF Five "Key Strategies" for Effective Formative Assessment

    formative assessment could be built up from five "key strategies." 1. Clarifying, sharing, and understanding goals for learning and criteria for success with learners There are a number of ways teachers can begin the process of clarifying and sharing learning goals and success criteria.

  22. Downloadable ASCD Book Content

    Formative Assessment Strategies for Every Classroom, 2nd edition: An ASCD Action Tool by Susan M. Brookhart (2010) Download file (PDF) Implementing the Framework for Teaching in Enhancing Professional Practice: An ASCD Action Tool by Charlotte Danielson, Darlene Axtell, Paula Bevan, Bernadette Cleland, and Candi McKay (2009)

  23. PDF 60 + Formative Assessment Strategies: Assessment FOR Learning

    70 + Formative Assessment Strategies: Assessment FOR Learning. Students are given short prompts to write about upon entering the room. These are generally about the previous day's lesson or they are given 2 or 3 minutes at the end of class to summarize what they learned in that day's lesson.

  24. Full article: Using Formative Assessment and Feedback from Student

    To systematically use the SRS to collect formative assessment data, and to then reflect on that student data to guide instructional revisions, I implemented a reciprocal formative assessment and feedback cycle (see Figure 1) comprised of five stages: 1) first teaching a lesson that incorporates active learning strategies like Think-Pair-Shares ...

  25. Student Self-Assessment

    Student self-assessment can take many forms, from low-stakes check-ins on their understanding of the day's lecture content to self-assessment and self-evaluation of their performance on major projects. Student self-assessment is also an important practice in courses that use alternative grading approaches. While the foci and mechanisms of ...