Summative assessments have traditionally played a key role in educators’ evaluation strategies, but they can be difficult to align across different classrooms and ability levels. As a result, teachers and administrators often struggle to manage software and make assessments accessible to all students.
However, with educators shifting towards a more personalized, formative approach to testing, many are now developing best practices for using digital tools to effectively measure student progress at the end of a unit, semester, or year. These include concrete steps that simplify software management, improve student engagement, and remove barriers to learning.
This article will explain what summative evaluation is, share best practices, and give some examples of new EdTech tools that teachers and administrators are using to automate grading and align with standards.
Key Takeaways
- Summative assessments are administered at the end of a learning period, while formative assessments are administered during a learning period.
- Summative evaluations are important markers of student achievement, but they can be difficult and costly to scale, score, and administer.
- By following best practices for accessibility and student engagement, educators and administrators can maximize the impact of their summative assessments.
- Advanced EdTech tools are being used to ensure that summative assessments measure higher-order thinking skills objectively.
What Is Summative Evaluation?
A summative evaluation or assessment is a test given at the end of a unit, semester, or program. Unlike formative assessments, which give educators insight into student progress during a course, summative evaluations measure outcomes at the end.
A summative assessment can come in many forms, such as a multiple-choice test, a computer adaptive test, a written essay, or an oral examination. And though they might be associated with schools, summative assessments are also relied upon by private businesses, professional development providers, and government agencies.
Purpose of summative evaluation
A well-implemented summative evaluation will measure student achievement in a consistent, standards-aligned, and accessible way. Educators and administrators can then use the results to fine-tune curricula and adapt lesson plans for future courses.
Summative evaluations are also frequently used to keep institutions accountable for student outcomes. Moreover, in the case of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), SAT, and ACT exams, summative assessments can prove crucial in determining college placement.
In addition to high-stakes summative assessments, educators use more frequent informal evaluations known as formative assessments to gauge student progress. By using testing software that automates grading and incorporates immersive experiences, teachers can gain real-time insight into their students’ needs. This is then used to adapt lessons to address common problem areas and set students up for success in their summative assessments.
Overall, the combination of robust formative and summative assessments equips educators, administrators, students, and parents with the information they need to support better learning outcomes.
Examples of Summative Evaluation
The following are examples of summative assessments widely administered today.
Standardized tests
The best-known summative evaluations are standardized tests, used from kindergarten up to college entrance exams such as the SAT or ACT. Standardized tests typically aim to deliver a comprehensive assessment of student knowledge at the end of a school year. Everyone takes exactly the same test, graded to the same standard, so these tests offer an objective measure of student performance.
Assessment choice boards
Teachers are using advanced learning tools to diversify the summative assessments they offer. For example, assessment choice boards encourage students to engage more deeply by letting them choose the format for their assessment. Some may choose to write an essay, while others might prefer to complete a multiple-choice test or participate in an immersive assessment.
Authentic assessments
Authentic assessments are dynamic tests that measure a student’s ability to both recall and apply knowledge. Typically, these tests simulate a real-world situation or present learners with a case study. By challenging students to think on their feet, authentic assessments are a great way to evaluate critical thinking skills.
Final projects
Final projects are another way for educators to test higher-order thinking skills. These may take the form of a presentation or a challenge to be completed in a multi-user virtual learning environment (MUVE). Projects can be an engaging alternative to pen-and-paper tests in both physical and online settings.
Best Practices for Implementing Summative Evaluations
Through the use of innovative EdTech solutions, educators and administrators have developed a number of best practices for implementing summative evaluations. Here are some examples:
Automate scoring
Test scoring can be a time-consuming and error-prone process, especially when teachers have over 100 students in their classes. By automating grading, EdTech tools save teachers time while eliminating human error. And when automated scoring is linked with advanced analytics, educators get immediate insight into where students need targeted interventions.
Enable manual scoring
Because summative assessments can take many forms, it’s vital that educators can enter manual scores alongside automated scoring. EdTech platforms such as TAO allow teachers to manually input scores for free responses without the need for additional software.
Eliminate bias with team-based scoring
Assessment software that enables asynchronous team grading—where different teachers grade different exams or parts of exams on their own time—makes it simple for administrators to reduce the impact of any educator-to-student biases. By randomly assigning responses to a team of scorers, administrators can blind scorers to student names, ensuring that final grades are an honest reflection of student achievement.
Unlock assessment scaling
It can be difficult to scale summative assessments while preserving test consistency and fairness. To resolve this challenge, school systems are using EdTech tools as out-of-the-box solutions for large-scale test administration. And since advanced testing platforms are cloud-based, they come with modern security protections that ensure academic integrity while preserving student privacy.
Apply rubric scoring
If an assessment activity defies automated scoring, teachers can use rubrics to lay out objective criteria by which to judge student performance. They can also significantly speed up grading timelines by giving scorers detailed guidance on how to grade assessments. TAO’s interface puts scoring rubrics at educators’ fingertips to make it easier to evaluate performance.
Rate the raters
In addition to scoring student performance, a good summative assessment strategy should include a method for rating the raters. Often, some scorers will consistently give higher or lower scores than their colleagues. A good EdTech platform will give administrators insight into scorer behavior and allow scorers to self-correct and improve their work.
Ensure interoperability
Educators use an increasing number of digital tools in their classrooms, but this can cause both technical and operational challenges for school systems. If technology sits in silos, school administrators need to devote precious resources to developing custom integrations. Otherwise, educators have to switch between different software systems as they assess different capabilities.
Interoperability is a best practice for summative assessment tools so that school systems can provide educators and students with an all-in-one digital assessment solution. For instance, TAO uses open standards like Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) to enable seamless integration with learning management systems and the streamlining of data.
Engage students
Summative assessments can now include engaging digital experiences known as technology-enhanced items (TEIs). For instance, a TEI might challenge students to interact with a virtual ecosystem and perform science experiments that measure their ability to apply theoretical knowledge in a real-world situation.
By engaging students with TEIs, teachers can help assuage test anxiety, leading to more accurate measurements of student achievement. Moreover, TEIs make it simple to measure higher-order thinking skills because they challenge students to apply their knowledge in a virtual environment.
Deliver accessible tests
Because so much of every student’s future is tied to their performance on summative assessments, accessibility is key. For example, students who are blind or have low vision should have the option to have questions read to them or presented in Braille.
By choosing EdTech tools that align with accessibility standards like the WCAG 2.1 AAA criteria and Section 508 guidelines, educators can ensure that their students don’t face barriers to their learning.
Conclusion
Summative assessments are likely to play an essential role in measuring student achievement for decades to come. When complemented by a robust formative assessment strategy, they equip teachers, administrators, students, and parents with detailed insight into student progress, achievement, and problem areas. However, to get the most out of summative evaluations, educators need to avoid pitfalls such as time-consuming grading processes and the potential for bias.
To win student and parent trust, educators should establish an objective and fair assessment regimen. By following best practices, educators and administrators can ensure that the assessments they administer are consistent, simple to grade, and scalable across diverse student populations.
To learn more about the possibilities for summative assessments, check out these articles on the TAO blog:
- Adaptive Assessment: What Possibilities Do You Have?
- Diagnostic Assessment in Education: 3 Examples from a Teacher
- Implementing Digital Assessment in the Classroom: 3 Key Strategies
FAQs
What is the difference between formative assessments and summative assessments?
While formative assessments are administered during a learning period to deliver insight into student progress, summative assessments are administered at the end of a learning period to measure student achievement.
What are some examples of summative evaluation?
The most well-known kind of summative evaluation is the standardized test. Other types include authentic assessments and essays.
What are some best practices for summative assessments?
Best practices for summative assessment include the elimination of bias through random scorer-student matching, alignment with accessibility standards, and automated grading.
