Formative assessment: a student perspective

Abstract

An educator's view would be that formative assessment has an important role in the learning process. This study was carried out to obtain a student perspective of the place of formative assessment in the curriculum. Final-year medical students at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital took part in four teaching sessions, each structured to integrate teaching with assessment. Three assessment methods were used; the group objective structured clinical examination (G-OSCE), structured short answer (SSA) questions and a pre/post-test multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ). Teaching sessions were conducted on the subject areas of traumatology, the 'acute abdomen', arterial disorders and cancer. Fifty-five students, representing 83% of those who took part in the programme, responded to a questionnaire where they were asked to rate (on a 5-point Likert scale) their response to general questions about formative assessment and 13 specific questions concerning the comparative value of the three assessment modalities. Eighty-nine per cent of respondents felt that formative assessment should be incorporated into the teaching process. The SSA assessment was regarded as the preferred modality to reinforce previous teaching and test problem-solving skills. The MCQ was the least favoured assessment method. The effect size variable between the total scores for the SSA and MCQ was 0.64. The variable between G-OSCE and SSA/MCQ was 0.26 and 0.33 respectively. Formative assessment is a potentially powerful method to direct learning behaviour. Students should have input into the methods used.

Nursing students’ and lecturers’ perspectives of objective structured clinical examination incorporating simulation

“…A similar positive feedback was reported by Khattab & Rawlings (2001) concerning the perception of students and examiners of the educational benefits of OSCE as a formative and summative assessment. In agreement with a study by Hill et al (1994) which showed that formative assessment should be incorporated into the teaching process, in the present study 96.5% of the students and 94.9% of the examiners also think that those sessions should be incorporated in the nursing curriculum. Students think that the OSCE sessions should take place 3 to 4 times per year (Mean= 3.…”

Using a Novel Student-centered Teaching Method to Improve Pharmacy Student Learning

“…The Test session as a part of formative assessment in STQD had indirect and direct benefits to students learning, which provided a great boost to knowledge retention after self-study and helped students self-assess and find deficiencies to improve their learning strategies. [36][37][38] Believing in student ability to learn, emphasizing progress toward learning goals rather than score, and assessing the development of learning ability were all manners in which motivation was enhanced through an effective use of formative assessment in STQD. 39 Inductive teaching in STQD could be characterized as a constructivist method, that students constructed their own knowledge rather than had it imparted by the teacher.…”

Differential Effects of Two Types of Formative Assessment in Predicting Performance of First-year Medical Students

“…Formative assessments are systematically designed interventions administered during the assigned period of instruction to enhance cognitive and motivational support for learning and achievement in multiple ways: by informing students of the gap between their existing and expected knowledge states, by familiarizing students with what will be expected on summative assessments, by providing feedback on students' thinking, and by guiding the direction of their learning. Because they are not part of summative assessment, these instructional interventions occur within a nonthreatening environment (Rolfe and McPherson, 1995;Sadler, 1989;Wass et al, 2001), which may account for the positive response such assessments elicit among students across all types of formats and domains (Henly, 2003;Hill et al, 1994;Houghton and Wall, 2000;Paschal, 2002;Peat and Franklin, 2002;Ritter, 2000;Vaz et al, 1996;Velan et al, 2003). A recent report published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (2004) proposing curricular reform guidelines towards an ideal medical education system states that such a system will, ''conduct a rigorous assessment of learners' abilities throughout the course of their careers, to assist them in improving their performance (formative assessment) and to ensure that they have achieved the level of performance required to advance professionally (summative assessment).''…”