Introduction

Evaluation of students learning is an essential part of the teaching process. It

has been contended that the quality of learning and the evaluation systems used
in schools are conceptually related. The finding of this study has important
implications for understanding how students perceive the feedback they obtain
from teachers for their learning. The process, it seems, borders on students
developing a sense of efficacy and confidence about their ability to do well in
academic work. When students become confident in their ability to succeed, they
become more involved and learn more. On the other hand, students are not likely
to attempt educational tasks when the feedback from learning indicates that they
cannot succeed. The implication for practice is that the earlier schools and
teachers begin to build students confidence in their ability to do well, the better
off students will be.
Evaluation is the process of examining a program or process to determine what's
working, what's not, and why. It determines the value of learning and training
programs and acts as blueprints for judgment and improvement. (Rossett,
Sheldon, 2001)
Successful middle schools engage students in all aspects of their learning. There
are many strategies for accomplishing this. One such strategy is student-led
conferences. As a classroom teacher or administrator, how do you ensure that the
information shared in a student-led conference provides a balanced picture of
the student's strengths and weaknesses? The answer to this is to balance both
summative and formative classroom assessment practices and information
gathering about student learning.
Assessment is a huge topic that encompasses everything from statewide
accountability tests to district benchmark or interim tests to everyday classroom
tests. In order to grapple with what seems to be an over use of testing, educators
should frame their view of testing as assessment and that assessment is
information. The more information we have about students, the clearer the
picture we have about achievement or where gaps may occur.
A formative evaluation (sometimes referred to as internal) is a method for
judging the worth of a program while the program activities are forming (in
progress). This part of the evaluation focuses on the process.
Thus, formative evaluations are basically done on the fly. They permit the
designers, learners, instructors, and managers to monitor how well the
instructional goals and objectives are being met. Its main purpose is to catch

deficiencies ASAP so that the proper learning interventions can take place that
allows the learners to master the required skills and knowledge.
Formative evaluation is also useful in analyzing learning materials, student
learning and achievements, and teacher effectiveness . . . Formative evaluation
is primarily a building process which accumulates a series of components of new
materials, skills, and problems into an ultimate meaningful whole. - Wally Guyot
(1978)
A summative evaluation (sometimes referred to as external) is a method of
judging the worth of a program at the end of the program activities (summation).
The focus is on the outcome.
All assessments can be summative (i.e., have the potential to serve a summative
function), but only some have the additional capability of serving formative
functions. - Scriven (1967)
The various instruments used to collect the data are questionnaires, surveys,
interviews, observations, and testing. The model or methodology used to gather
the data should be a specified step-by-step procedure. It should be carefully
designed and executed to ensure the data is accurate and valid.

Issues in Current Assessment Practices in Pakistan

Assessment in Pakistan has been a thorny issue that has been debated in educational circles over
the last many decades (e.g. Bhatti, 1987; Warwick and Reimers, 1995; Greaney and Hasan 1998;
Mirza, 1999; Naqvi, 2002; Rehmani, 2003 and 2011). A wide range of research suggests that
assessment is a crucial determinant in driving teaching and learning in the classrooms
(Assessment Reform Group, 1999; Mirza, 1999; Kellaghan & Greaney, 2001; Rehmani, 2003;
Lamprianou and Christie, 2009). Teaching to test is generally believed to be a norm in many
schools in Pakistan. A sample of 16 students of grades 6 to 10 from four different schools of
Karachi (Rehmani, 2011) in their focus group interviews suggested that teachers mostly
encourage rote learning because they teach to test. Eight teachers and four head teachers from
these schools also confirmed that assessment is mostly of learning rather than for learning and
that the frequency of taking tests is quite high.
Some of the reasons, the research participants in the above study pointed out were, rushing
through the mandatory requirement of completing the syllabus on time; frontal teaching with
little emphasis on students learning and their active participation in the process of learning.
Learning through rote memorization and reproduction with little understanding and without
much assimilation of ideas and concepts is generally prevalent in schools in Pakistan (Rehmani,
2011; see also Siddiqui, 2007, 2010). Siddiqui depicts a typical classroom situation as:

A good student or learner in this paradigm is the one who sits in the class quietly, behaves
nicely, never disagrees with the teacher, hardly asks any question and has a sharp memory to
repeat what the teacher has taught ((2007 p.62).

Research Purpose
The purpose of this study was to document students perceptions about the
formative and summative aspects of classroom assessments. Student interviews
were examined to document students views of the purpose, usefulness,
relevance, and importance of spec classroom assessments and their performance
on those assessments. Interviews were structured around individual classroom
assessment events.

Literature Review
For our purposes, summative evaluation was defined as the evaluation of
assessment based data for the purposes of assessing academic progress at the
end of specified time period (i.e., a unit of material or an entire school year) for
the purposes of establishing a students academic standing relative to some
established criterion. Formative evaluation was defined as the evaluation of
assessment-based evidence for the purposes of providing feedback to and
informing teachers, students, and educational stakeholders about the teaching
and learning process. Formative evaluation also informs policy, which then
affects future evaluation practices, teachers, and students. The reciprocal
relationship between policy and formative assessment is graphically represented
by the Key Model for Academic Success. This model supports Shepards (2000)
assertion that it is not necessary to separate assessment from teaching; instead,
teaching practices can and should be informed by and coincide with assessment
practices and outcomes.
Formative assessment and its various manifestations (i.e. self-assessment, peerassessment, and interim assessment) were defined not only by inherent
characteristics, but also by the use of the assessment. Formative assessments
status as an ethereal construct has further been perpetuated in the literature due
to the lack of an agreed upon definition. The vagueness of the constitutive and
operational definitions directly contributes to the weaknesses found in the
related research and dearth of empirical evidence identifying best practices
related to formative assessment. Without a clear understanding of what is being
studied, empirical evidence supporting formative evidence will more than likely
remain in short supply.

Ruiz-Primo and Furtak (2006) found that students in classrooms where teachers
engaged in assessment discussions performed significantly higher on embedded
assessments and post-tests. Assessment discussions were defined as a four-stage
process in which the teacher asks
a question, the student responds, the teacher recognizes the response, and then
uses the information collected for student learning. While these explorative
results are promising, there are some issues that prevent generalizing the
findings beyond the participants of the study due to the limited sample size of
four.
Moreover, a great deal of assessment literature is aimed at delineating between
formative and summative assessment, yet summative assessment can be used for
formative purposes (Bell & Cowie, 2000). It is important to note that we
acknowledge that the purpose for which any assessment is developed and
validated is an important aspect of assessment. However, a test that was
designed to give formative feedback is only formative if the teacher uses it to
provide feedback for the student. If the teacher only uses the formative
assessment to provide a grade, is that assessment still formative? By most
definitions the mere assessment of performance into a grade category (i.e., A
or B) is formative because it provides information on the achievement of the
student and may be used for future instructional interventions. However, is this
what is intended by the various definitions? Although an assessment may be
designed and packaged as a formative or summative assessment, it is the actual
methodology, data analysis, and use of the results that determine whether an
assessment is formative or summative. For example, Wininger (2005) used a
summative assessment as a formative assessment by providing both quantitative
and qualitative feedback about the results of the exam. Wininger (2005) called
this formative summative assessment. This article exemplifies the complications
that arise when one defines an assessment by its usage. An assessment is an
assessment, and the manner in which an assessment is evaluated and used is a
related but separate issue.
Formative and summative purposes are different, and thus formative and
summative assessment are usually discussed as two different things (Gipps,
1994; Black, 1998).
These interviews suggest that successful students integrate the two, thinking of
how well they did and summing up their accomplishment to date, on the one
hand, while realising that they had information with which to approach future
learning, on the other. In the minds of these successful students, who had
experienced learning as an ongoing process, many summative judgements were
temporary stops along a learning path that some described as lifelong and others
as at least the length of a school career, including college. Theory about
classroom assessment and formative assessment may need to include some
references to summative assessment, and vice versa, in order to describe more

adequately the cyclical process successful students apparently construct for

themselves (Sebatane, 1998).
Irrespective of the form of evaluation envisaged, it is relevant to allow students
express their views on the teaching strategies used. These views should be
analyzed by the experienced teachers of the school who will make appropriate
recommendations to the teachers concerned to help improve upon their teaching
skills. Teachers need expansion repertoires to meet identified student needs.
They need a healthy repertoire of approaches to setting up learning situations
and responding to students learning needs. Teachers and researchers may form a
healthy partnership for research in this area. Formative evaluation requires
greater transparency in teaching and learning. The approach is ideal for
researchers who may wish to investigate the practice of teaching and learning in
normal classroom settings.
In order to improve the quality of social studies learning, students
should be given useful feedback on their work through discussion with
their teachers and their peers. This will enable learners to receive
constructive guidan ce about how to imp rove their learning. The fi nding
of this study makes a case that formative evaluation practices
have a signifi cant impact on student learning there is a need therefore
for further studies which may add ress connections between students
emotions and learning.

Summative Assessments are given periodically to determine at a particular point

in time what students know and do not know.
Summative assessment at the district/classroom level is an accountability
measure that is generally used as part of the grading process. The list is long,
but here are some examples of summative assessments:

State assessments

District benchmark or interim assessments

End-of-unit or chapter tests

End-of-term or semester exams

The key is to think of summative assessment as a means to gauge, at a

particular point in time, student learning relative to content standards.

Although the information that is gleaned from this type of assessment is

important, it can only help in evaluating certain aspects of the learning
process. Because they are spread out and occur after instruction every few
weeks, months, or once a year, summative assessments are tools to help
evaluate the effectiveness of programs, school improvement goals,
alignment of curriculum, or student placement in specific programs.
Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide
information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments
and interventions during the learning process. It takes formative
assessment to accomplish this.
According to the North Carolina Public Schools, summative assessments are

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often created in the following formats:

Selected response items
Multiple choice
True/false
Matching
Short answer
Fill in the blank
One or two sentence response
Extended written response
Performance assessment

Formative Assessment is part of the instructional process. When incorporated

into classroom practice, it provides the information needed to adjust teaching
and learning while they are happening. In this sense, formative assessment
informs both teachers and students about student understanding at a point when
timely adjustments can be made. These adjustments help to ensure students
achieve, targeted standards-based learning goals within a set time frame.
Although formative assessment strategies appear in a variety of formats, there
are some distinct ways to distinguish them from summative assessments.
Formative assessment helps teachers determine next steps during the learning
process as the instruction approaches the summative assessment of student
learning. A good analogy for this is the road test that is required to receive a
driver's license. What if, before getting your driver's license, you received a
grade every time you sat behind the wheel to practice driving? What if your
final grade for the driving test was the average of all of the grades you received
while practicing? Because of the initial low grades you received during the
process of learning to drive, your final grade would not accurately reflect your

ability to drive a car. In the beginning of learning to drive, how confident or

motivated to learn would you feel? Would any of the grades you received
provide you with guidance on what you needed to do next to improve your
driving skills? Your final driving test, or summative assessment, would be the
accountability measure that establishes whether or not you have the driving
skills necessary for a driver's license not a reflection of all the driving practice
that leads to it. The same holds true for classroom instruction, learning, and
assessment.
The most common procedures of formative assessment include the following.

Feedback. A teacher provides oral or written feedback to student

discussion or work. For example, a teacher responds orally to a question
asked in class; provides a written comment in a response or reflective
journal; or provides feedback on student work.
Curriculum-based measurement (CBM). This set of standardized measures
is used to determine student progress and performance (Deno, 2001). An
example is the use of oral reading fluency (the number of words a student
can read correctly during a timed reading of a passage) as an indicator of
a student's overall reading ability (Fuchs et al., 2001).
Self-assessment. Students reflect on and monitor their progress. This
activity may be performed in conjunction with a CBM, in relation to
predetermined academic and behavioral goals, or with learning contracts.

The Relationship Between Summative and Formative Assessment

There is a counter-argument to this point of view, namely that Sensible
educational models make effective use of both FA [formative assessment] and
SA [summative assessment] (Biggs, 1998, p. 105). Formative and summative
assessment need not be mutually exclusive if ones model of assessment is
inclusive: Instead of seeing FA and SA up close as two different trees, I would
zoom to a wider angle conceptually. Then, in the broad picture of the whole
teaching contextincorporating curriculum, teaching itself and summative
assessmentinstead of two tree-trunks, the backside of an elephant appears.
(Biggs, 1998, p. 108) Summative assessment is often assumed to have entirely
negative consequences, but if it is aligned to instruction and deeply criterionreferenced, incorporating the intended curriculum, which should be clearly
salient in the perceived assessment demands (Biggs, 1998, p. 107), then
classroom summative assessment, such as a test at the end of a teaching episode
or unit, can have positive effects.
Black (1998) argued that teachers have to be involved in both formative and
summative assessment, and must keep the two in tension. Formative assessment
is private and focused on the needs of the learner. Summative assessment is a

response to external pressures and constraints, and the need for accountability.
Teachers Downloaded by [Northeastern University] at 20:17 20 November 2014
ultimately are responsible for both guiding their students and judging how
successful their guidance has been.

Methodology
Sample Size
The sample in this study consisted of 300 (150 male and 150 female) students
studying at different public higher secondary schools in Multan district.

Sampling Technique
Stratified random sampling technique was used to obtain the sample for the
study. All the 300 participants completed the 5-item Likert-type rating scale
designed by the researchers to provoke information on students awareness of
teachers evaluation practices.

Measurement Tools:
The possible responses to the rating scale items ranged from 5 (strongly agree)
to 1 (strongly disagree).

Hypothesis
The study tested null hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance which reads:
H1:
There is no significant difference in students academic performance in
the subject of Physics based on their perception of teachers formative and
summative evaluation practices.

H 1 a : There is no significant difference in students academic performance in the

subject of Physics based on their perception of teachers formative evaluation
practices.
H 2 a : There is no significant difference in students academic performance in the
subject of Physics based on their perception of teachers ummative evaluation
practices.

Instrumentation

The research instruments consisted of Formative Evaluation Rating Scale and

the Social Studies Summative Evaluation Scores.

Formative Evaluation Rating Scale

The rating scale contained 15 items of a 5-point Likert scale with declarative
statements on teachers formative evaluation practices. Five options were
available for rating ranging from strongly agree (5 points) to strongly
disagree (1 point). Pilot testing for suitability and reliability was carried out
with students in schools included in the sample. Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient for the formative evaluation rating scale was 0.75.

2.3.2 Social Studies Summative Evaluation Scores

The Physics studies end-of-programme examination scores of the sample in the
Examination of 2014/15 academic session which was set and marked by the
Examiners provided the summative evaluation data for the study.
2.4 Data Collection
Data were collected with the assistance of subject masters in the schools
involved in the study. A duration of 15 minutes was allowed for the completion
of the formative evaluation rating scale. Participants summative evaluation
scores in Physics studies were collected from the Board of Intermediated and
Secondary education Multan records.
2.5 Data Analysis
Data were described using means and standard deviation. The independent t-test
was used to establish the significant difference in students academic
performance in Physics based on their perception of teachers evaluation
practices of either enhancing to learning (Positive) or not enhancing to
learning (Negative).
5.0 Discussion of Results
The result
formative
academic
predicated

of the data analysis indicated that students perception of teachers

evaluation practices has a role to play in differentiating their
performance in summative evaluation as typified in this study
on the Examination result in Physics studies.