Dylan Wiliam

Assessment and Classroom Learning

ABSTRACT This article is a review of the literature on classroom formative assessment. Several studies show firm evidence that innovations designed to strengthen the frequent feedback that students receive about their learning yield substantial learning gains. The perceptions of students and their role in self‐assessment are considered alongside analysis of the strategies used by teachers and the formative strategies incorporated in such systemic approaches as mastery learning. There follows a more detailed and theoretical analysis of the nature of feedback, which provides a basis for a discussion of the development of theoretical models for formative assessment and of the prospects for the improvement of practice.

Teachers developing assessment for learning: impact on student achievement

While it is generally acknowledged that increased use of formative assessment (or assessment for learning) leads to higher quality learning, it is often claimed that the pressure in schools to improve the results achieved by students in externally‐set tests and examinations precludes its use. This paper reports on the achievement of secondary school students who worked in classrooms where teachers made time to develop formative assessment strategies. A total of 24 teachers (2 science and 2 mathematics teachers, in each of six schools in two LEAs) were supported over a six‐month period in exploring and planning their approach to formative assessment, and then, beginning in September 1999, the teachers put these plans into action with selected classes. In order to compute effect sizes, a measure of prior attainment and at least one comparison group was established for each class (typically either an equivalent class taught in the previous year by the same teacher, or a parallel class taught by another teacher). The mean effect size in favour of the intervention was 0.32.

‘In praise of educational research’: formative assessment

The authors trace the development of the Kings Formative Assessment Programme from its origins in diagnostic testing in the 1970s, through the graded assessment movement in the 1980s, to the present day. In doing so, they discuss the practical issues involved in reviewing research and outline the strategies that were used to try to communicate the findings to as wide an audience as possible (including policy-makers and practitioners as well as academics). They describe how they worked with teachers to develop formative practice in classrooms, and discuss the impact that this work has had on practice and policy. Finally, they speculate about some of the reasons for this impact, and make suggestions for how the impact of educational research on policy and practice might be improved.

Meanings and Consequences: a basis for distinguishing formative and summative functions of assessment?

The assessment process is characterised as a cycle involving elicitation of evidence, which when interpreted appropriately may lead to action, which in turn, can yield further evidence and so on. An assessment is defined as serving a formative function when it elicits evidence that yields construct-referenced interpretations that form the basis for successful action in improving performance, whereas summative functions prioritise the consistency of meanings across contexts and individuals. Aspects of the interplay of meanings and consequences are explored for each of the three phases, and it is suggested that this interplay may be fruitful in distinguishing the two functions. Tensions between summative and formative functions of assessment are illustrated in the context of the National Curriculum, and although it is shown that such tensions will always exist, it is suggested that the separation of the elicitation of evidence from its interpretation can mitigate that tension.

’I’ ll be a nothing’: structure, agency and the construction of identity through assessment

Drawing on data from focus group and individual interviews with Year 6 pupils in the term leading up to Key Stage 2 National Curriculum tests, this article explores the extent to which childrens perceptions of the tests contribute to their understandings of themselves as learners. The tension between agency and structure becomes apparent in childrens differential dispositions to view the testing process as a definitive statement about the sort of learner they are. Although childrens responses are varied, what most share is a sense of an event which reveals something intrinsic about them as individuals. The article also explores the emotions, in particular the anxiety and fear, which permeate such understandings of the National Curriculum assessment process.

It’s not which school but which set you’re in that matters: the influence of ability-grouping practices on student progress in mathematics

The mathematics achievement of a cohort of 955 students in 42 classes in six schools in London was followed over a four-year period, until they took their GCSEs in the summer of 2000. All six schools were regarded by Ofsted as providing a good standard of education, and all were involved in teacher-training partnerships with universities. Matched data on key stage 3 test scores and GCSE grades were available for 709 students, and these data were analysed in terms of the progress from key stage 3 test scores to GCSE grades. Although there were wide differences between schools in terms of overall GCSE grades, the average progress made by students was similar in all six schools. However, within each school, the progress made during key stage 4 varied greatly from set to set. Comparing students with the same key stage 3 scores, students placed in top sets averaged nearly half a GCSE grade higher than those in the other upper sets, who in turn averaged a third of a grade higher than those in lower sets, who in turn averaged around a third of a grade higher than those students placed in bottom sets. In the four schools that used formal whole-class teaching, the difference in GCSE grades between top and bottom sets, taking key stage 3 scores into account, ranged from just over 1 grade at GCSE to nearly 3 grades. At the schools using small-group and individualised teaching, the differences in value-added between sets were not significant. In two of the schools, a significant proportion of working class students were placed into lower sets than would be indicated by their key stage 3 test scores.

Standardized Testing and School Accountability.

This article explores the use of standardized tests to hold schools accountable. The history of testing for accountability is reviewed, and it is shown that currently between-school differences account for less than 10% of the variance in student scores, in part because the progress of individuals is small compared to the spread of achievement within an age cohort, and, possibly, due to lack of alignment between instruction and assessment. A review of the literature on the effects of the introduction of such tests in high-stakes accountability regimes suggests that the effects can be positive and the size of the effects is substantial. Therefore, although the validity of such tests may be problematic in terms of the intended inferences, their introduction may nevertheless be justified by their impact. The article concludes with a number of suggestions on improving tests for high-stakes accountability.

Learning How to Learn, in Classrooms, Schools and Networks: aims, design and analysis

This article provides an introduction to the TLRP Learning How to Learn Project and a context for the articles that follow in this special issue. The origins of the research, in a concern to investigate the organizational and network conditions that support innovation in teaching and learning, and in a perceived need to align research on pedagogy and assessment with research on school improvement, are described. Details of the overall development and research design are given as well as an explanation of the ways in which different forms of quantitative and qualitative data analysis are being integrated to interrogate a ‘logic model’, both at whole sample level and in case studies.

Standards in examinations: a matter of trust?

ABSTRACT The notion of a ‘standard’ in an assessment system is defined as the attachment of specific meanings to specific test or examination scores. When these meanings are in terms of the performance of a group of individuals, the standard can be described as norm‐referenced (when the individual is not a member of the reference group) or cohort‐referenced (when the individual is a member of the reference group), and when the meanings are in terms of explicit criteria, the standard is described as criterion‐referenced. It is then argued that none of these approaches adequately describes the way that standards are set in high‐stakes assessment systems, which are best described as construct‐referenced. Building on Cresswells (1996) definition of examination comparability as being the extent to which the assessments are equivalently valued by users of test results, standard setting is regarded as neither objective nor subjective, but rather intersubjective, where maintenance of standards requires that thos...

Studying changes in the practice of two teachers developing assessment for learning

Abstract This article describes changes in the practice of two teachers, observed over an 18-month period, who were participating in a study intended to support teachers in developing their use of assessment in support of learning. The design of the intervention allowed each teacher to choose for themselves which aspects of their practice to develop. Analysis of lesson observations, journal entries and interviews indicates that both teachers were keen to change their practice, but were concerned about the disruption to their established routines, and in particular about the potential for loss of control of their classes. Both teachers did effect significant changes in their classrooms, but these tended to be developments of existing preferred ways of working, rather than radical innovations. In conclusion, it is suggested that to be most effective, teacher professional development needs to be structured strongly enough to afford teacher growth, but flexible enough to allow different teachers to take their practice in different ways.