Purpose of assessment
Outlines the purpose of assessment and identifies key considerations when planning assessment.
Effective assessment is embedded within the teaching and learning cycle.
It supports teachers’ responses to the following questions:
- What do I want my students to learn?
- How will my students get there?
- How do I know when my students get there?
- Where are my students now?
The fundamental purpose of assessment in education is to establish and understand where learners are in an aspect of their learning at the time of assessment. (Masters, 2014)
Learn more about the purpose of assessment in the Effective assessment practices guide.
Distinctions between types of assessments such as formative and summative are often used but can be unhelpful at times. What makes an assessment formative or summative is how the information collected is intended to be used.
Formative assessment is generally thought of as directly informing the next steps in student learning. Most assessment can be used this way.
Less formal assessment modes, such as teacher observation and questioning, are used frequently, often many times within each lesson. Students are provided with quick, actionable feedback either as an individual, group or class.
With more formal modes there is often a longer delay between when the student sits an assessment and when they receive feedback. This is where the term summative is sometimes used.
Summative assessment occurs at the end of an extended period of explicit teaching such as a unit of work or a stage of learning. They are used to evaluate student achievement of content knowledge and/or skills against expected curriculum standards or learning objectives.
Summative assessments can, and should, still be used formatively to provide actionable feedback and further learning opportunities to consolidate their understanding.
The Assessment modes page provides further detail on how different modes of assessment can be used to develop on-balanced judgements of student learning.
Key considerations
Assessment is a key part of developing learning sequences since it informs instructional choices and provides opportunities for reflection and evaluation. More structured approaches should be planned alongside the development of learning sequences. Less structured approaches can be considered at a lesson level and as the learning takes place at point of need.
Quality assessment:
- directly aligns with student learning outcomes and activities undertaken
- considers how students best demonstrate these learning outcomes
- is relevant to the students’ learning stage and life experiences
- allows for differentiation to show the depth of student understanding
- uses different approaches as part of the teaching and learning cycle
- provides feedback that promotes learning progress.