I am not sure if your question refers to assessment as a task type, Ferenc, or rather it points to an alternative direction. Conventionally, in British academia formative assessment is a lead-in task, by means of which a lecturer helps students to prepare for the summative assessment(s).

This may vary across institutions, but generally speaking formative precedes summative and it is unmarked.

Sorry if I misunderstood your question.

Dear Daniel,

thanks for your answer. I read it out from the discourse and your answer convinced me that I read it right. My inquiry is leading to two issues:

• formative assessment could be misunderstood if we understand that simply as a preceding of summative assessment (preparing learners for PISA test for example)
• summative can also refer to summation of formative aspects of learning (teachers can provide a summative assessment on the formative elements of learning)

That is the reason why I argue that summative refers more to a function and not a dimension of assessment.

My suggestion is to use assessment of learning instead of summative assessment to make it clear that which dimension of learning teachers provide assessment. As well as formative assessment refers to assessment for learning (and not for summative tests).

Dear Ferenc,

I think these are valid points - thanks for sharing.

I do not see any reason why one could not follow your suggestion(s) in assessment. The question is really whether the regs of a particular university allow this assessment type, but of course this is a non-academic question already...

So sure, I agree with your points.

Best,

Daniel

I am working on this issue for the purpose of helping both teachers and researchers to clarify the concepts of assessment. Probably that would be a great help how to implent different dimensions of assessment and how to investigate the same dimensions of assessment practice.

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

Of course summative assessments are part of formative assessment, even when a set course is closed. You never stop learning! Think of the iterative processes of project management (actually a good comparison) whereby the knowledge and practices obtained by reaching one objective are used to supply information and knowledge for the following objective, which is part of the same project. When an academic course is completed (summative), marks and answers are gathered together and learned from to improve the exam and the teaching for the next cohort, changing the process into formative.

Stanly Wilkin thanks for sharing your ideas.

This is the original understanding of formative evaluation when you use summative test for formativa purpose (Scriven, 1967, Bloom, 1969), improving the curricula, and as an aid for teaching.

In my interpretation the formative assessment discourse goes beyond this, exploring the differences between achievement evaluation, teaching or curriculum focused formative evaluation and assessment for learning, assessment for learning how to learn.

Bloom's concpetual shift from evaluation to assessment refers also to the first meaning, wihc means that there is a need for feedback-like assessment for curricular and teaching purpose, and also a feedback-like assessment on the standards, criteria of the curriculum for the learners. For me it is the dimension of learning achievement. The dimension of what to learn.

The shift within the formative discourse ( Sadler, 1989, 2010; Black, McCormick, James, &Pedder, 2006; James&McCormick2007 ) concentrates on another dimension of learning. The dimension of how to learn.