Summative Assessment

Assessment in the field of education focuses on the measurement of student learning. The gauge or yardstick used for measurement may take a variety of forms, and effective assessment often involves the use of multiple forms of assessment as a basis for educational decision making. This entry first discusses summative assessments and their relationship to formative and benchmark assessments, then explains the scoring and analysis of summative assessments. Common uses of summative assessments, such as their relationship to school accountability, their use in the Response to Intervention process, and the role they play in entrance to college also are considered.

Summative assessments are assessments of learning, which sum up what a student has learned at a particular point in time. An assessment that is given at the end of a course or grade level and is used for the purposes of determining that a student has mastered the skills and learning necessary to proceed to the next level as well as for the purposes of assigning a final grade is a summative assessment. Standardized achievement tests also are summative assessments, and schools frequently use the Iowa Test of Basic Skills or the California Achievement Test to measure students’ achievement in selected subjects, such as reading, math, and science. State-developed achievement tests based on state-developed standards or the Common Core State Standards also are summative assessments.

Summative assessments frequently are called “assessment of learning,” a phrase developed by Rick Stiggins, founder and executive director of the Assessment Training Institute. In writing about assessment, he makes the distinction between assessments of learning, which provide evidence of achievement for public reporting, and assessments for learning, which serve to help students learn more by informing students of their progress toward reaching standards or learning targets.

Data collected from summative assessments or assessments of learning report student achievement at a given period of time. Data from state tests, college entrance tests, and other summative assessments give educators, as well as state officials, community members, and parents, a picture of what a student or groups of students have learned; report whether or not students have exceeded, met, or are below standards; and are used to compare students or groups of students. A summative assessment may be a multiple-choice test, in which test items are aligned to specific standards or criteria, or a rubric-graded performance assessment, which uses a rubric that is aligned to specific standards or criteria to determine achievement.

Summative assessments frequently are normed, standardized, or standards-based assessments with scores reported as percentiles or stanines for specific subject areas. Norm-referenced summative assessments rank students according to how well they performed in relation to other students. The normed tests are developed by administering the test to a nationwide sample, or norm group. Students taking the test are then ranked in quartiles or stanines according to how well they did in relation to the norm group.

Summative assessments become standardized when they are administered to students under uniform conditions so that students’ performances may be compared and not influenced by differing conditions, such as the length of time used for completing the test. Standardization of protocols for the administration of a summative assessment is important in determining the [Page 686]assessment’s validity, or the concept that test questions measure what they are intended to measure, and the assessment’s reliability or consistency of test results. Depending upon the content, a standardized summative assessment may or may not be standards based.

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