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21 Summative Assessment Examples

Formative vs summative assessment

Summative assessment is a type of achievmeent assessment that occurs at the end of a unit of work. Its goal is to evaluate what students have learned or the skills they have developed. It is compared to a formative assessment that takes place in the middle of the unit of work for feedback to students and learners.

Performance is evaluated according to specific criteria, and usually result in a final grade or percentage achieved.

The scores of individual students are then compared to established benchmarks which can result in significant consequences for the student.

A traditional example of summative evaluation is a standardized test such as the SATs. The SATs help colleges determine which students should be admitted.

However, summative assessment doesn’t have to be in a paper-and-pencil format. Project-based learning, performance-based assessments, and authentic assessments can all be forms of summative assessment.

Real Life Summative Assessment Examples

  • Final Exams for a College Course: At the end of the semester at university, there is usually a final exam that will determine if you pass. There are also often formative tests mid-way through the course (known in England as ICAs and the USA as midterms).
  • SATs: The SATs are the primary United States college admissions tests. They are a summative assessment because they provide a final grade that can determine whether a student gets into college or not.
  • AP Exams: The AP Exams take place at the end of Advanced Placement courses to also determine college readiness.
  • Piano Exams: The ABRSM administers piano exams to test if a student can move up a grade (from grades 1 to 8), which demonstrates their achievements in piano proficiency.
  • Sporting Competitions: A sporting competition such as a swimming race is summative because it leads to a result or ranking that cannot be reneged. However, as there will always be future competitions, they could also be treated as summative – especially if it’s not the ultimate competition in any given sport.
  • Drivers License Test: A drivers license test is pass-fail, and represents the culmination of practice in driving skills.
  • IELTS: Language tests like IELTS are summative assessments of a person’s ability to speak a language (in the case of IELTS, it’s English).
  • Citizenship Test: Citizenship tests are pass-fail, and often high-stakes. There is no room for formative assessment here.
  • Dissertation Submission: A final dissertation submission for a postgraduate degree is often sent to an external reviewer who will give it a pass-fail grade.
  • CPR Course: Trainees in a 2-day first-aid and CPR course have to perform on a dummy while being observed by a licensed trainer.
  • PISA Tests: The PISA test is a standardized test commissioned by the OECD to provide a final score of students’ mathematic, science, and reading literacy across the world, which leads to a league table of nations.
  • The MCATs: The MCATs are tests that students conduct to see whether they can get into medical school. They require significant study and preparation before test day.
  • The Bar: The Bar exam is an exam prospective lawyers must sit in order to be accepted as lawyers in their jurisdiction.

Summative Test Ideas for Classroom Teachers

Whereas the above exams represent some of the most high-profile and high-stakes summative tests , summative assessment also takes place in everyday classrooms.

Below are some common ways teachers might create a summative test for their students:

  • A performance: At the end of reading a history chapter on the Spanish-American War, students write a script and perform a play that highlight the key milestones and issues involved. The teacher provides a grade that will go on their final report card.
  • An infographic: Students in a nutrition course are tasked with creating an infographic that details the issue of obesity in the United States.  
  • A diagram: After learning about ocean animals in a biology class, students construct Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting whales and fish.
  • A poster display: After one week of lessons about pollution, third graders work in pairs and make a poster display about Arctic animals and the effects of pollution.
  • A slide deck demonstration: Students in an architecture course have to choose 3 architectural styles and then make a slide deck that shows examples of each and explain the differences.  
  • Observational testing: Kindergarten kids have to demonstrate life skills by brushing their teeth, selecting the appropriate winter clothes, and tying their shoes independently. 
  • Identifying errors in a program: Computer science majors are given 5 pages of programming code for 5 different apps, and must find the one error in each.
  • Multiple choice exam: Students in a European history course are given a cumulative multiple-choice exam at the end of the term over all 7 chapters covered.   

Summative vs Formative Assessment

Summative assessments are one of two main types of assessment. The other is formative assessment.

Whereas summative assessment occurs at the end of a unit of work, a formative assessment takes place in the middle of the unit so teachers and students can get feedback on progress and make accommodations to stay on track.

Summative assessments tend to be much higher-stakes because they reflect a final judgment about a student’s learning, skills, and knowledge:

“Passing bestows important benefits, such as receiving a high school diploma, a scholarship, or entry into college, and failure can affect a child’s future employment prospects and earning potential as an adult” (States et al, 2018, p. 3).

Five Summative Test Scenarios

1. performance-based summative assessment.

A traditional form of summative assessment usually involves a lot of multiple-choice and short essay questions. But it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Performance-based tests that involve authentic assessment can also be summative.

For example, at the end of each unit in an advanced radiology course, the instructor might provide students with 10 X-rays that show various diseases. The students have to work in pairs to identify the disease and indicate its stage of progression.

Of course, to make things interesting, the instructor also includes X-rays that don’t contain any diseases and others that are most commonly misdiagnosed by highly experienced professionals.

2. Presentation-Based Final Evaluation

In a university course in developmental psychology, the chapter on attachment styles usually sparks a lot of interest among the students. Assessing student learning through traditional paper-and-pencil tests doesn’t seem to capture the dynamic nature of the subject.

So, the professor locates some old footage from Mary Ainsworth’s original studies on the strange situations test . The videos are a bit grainy, but there is a lot of footage that show great examples of each attachment style.

To assess their understanding of each style, the students are sent home with a set of videos. They can watch them as often as they want but must return the next week and make a presentation to the class.

The presentation must involve showing the video, identifying the attachment style, and pinpointing the exact infant behavior that typifies that attachment category.

3. Portfolio Presentations

A university course for future kindergarten teachers is called Props and Stuff. The course involves teachers learning about prop theory and how to make their own materials for classroom instruction.

At the end of each unit, students have to make a specific type of prop, such as a sock puppet, pop-up book, or animal habitat diorama.

By the end of the term, students have produced a lot of very interesting props. As part of the summative assessment the class holds an exhibition where each student displays a selection of their props as part of their portfolio.

Each portfolio is evaluated by the other students (peer assessment) in the class based on a set of pre-determined criteria. The average of those scores will be the basis for their grade in the course.

4. Real-Life Simulation as Final Exam

Students in a course on leadership styles have spent the last 3 months reading chapters, writing papers, and debating case studies. They have memorized the names and dates of key historical scholars and can name plenty of modern leaders that fit certain styles.

However, the final assessment of their learning will be performance-based. The professor has prepared a set of job simulations that portray various scenarios in a corporate setting.

First, each student selects a card from the stack of simulation scenarios. Then they draw a slip of folded paper from a hat which identifies one leadership style.

While they engage the simulation, they must act according to the leadership style selected. The professor takes notes on their performance and keeps track of statements that reflect that style.

The final score is based on the number of times the student demonstrated the appropriate leadership style, either through statements or non-verbal behavior.

5. Interviews as Final Assessment

At the end of a history unit on the U.S. constitution, the teacher has decided to create a unique summative assessment that involves a simulated talk show interview.

Students will need to study the details of any 3 key historical figures involved in the writing of the constitution. They can choose from the list provided by the teacher.

The summative assessment will occur in the form of a talk show interview. One student will interview the historical figure by asking them questions about their life and their role in writing the constitution. There are 6 questions that are central to the unit’s content.

Grades will be based on if the student knows key facts that were covered in the unit about that figure. The more complete and accurate their answers, the higher their score.

Summative assessment allows teachers to determine if their students have reached the defined behavioral objectives . It can occur at the end of a unit, an academic term, or academic year.

The assessment usually results in a grade or a percentage that is recorded in the student’s file. These scores are then used in a variety of ways and are meant to provide a snapshot of the student’s progress.

Although the SAT or ACT are common examples of summative assessment, it can actually take many forms. Teachers might ask their students to give an oral presentation, perform a short role-play, or complete a project-based assignment. 

Brookhart, S. M. (2004). Assessment theory for college classrooms. New Directions for Teaching and Learning , 100 , 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.165

Dixon, D. D., & Worrell, F. C. (2016). Formative and summative assessment in the classroom. Theory into Practice , 55 , 153-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1148989

Geiser, S., & Santelices, M. V. (2007). Validity of high-school grades in predicting student success beyond the freshman year: High-school record vs. standardized tests as indicators of four-year college outcomes. Research and Occasional Paper Series. Berkeley, CA: Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California.

Kibble J. D. (2017). Best practices in summative assessment. Advances in Physiology Education , 41 (1), 110–119. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00116.2016

Lungu, S., Matafwali, B., & Banja, M. K. (2021). Formative and summative assessment practices by teachers in early childhood education centres in Lusaka, Zambia. European Journal of Education Studies, 8 (2), 44-65.

States, J., Detrich, R., & Keyworth, R. (2018). Summative Assessment (Wing Institute Original Paper). https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16788.19844

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Summative Assessment and Feedback

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Summative assessments are given to students at the end of a course and should measure the skills and knowledge a student has gained over the entire instructional period. Summative feedback is aimed at helping students understand how well they have done in meeting the overall learning goals of the course.

Effective summative assessments

Effective summative assessments provide students a structured way to demonstrate that they have met a range of key learning objectives and to receive useful feedback on their overall learning. They should align with the course learning goals and build upon prior formative assessments. These assessments will address how well the student is able to synthesize and connect the elements of learning from the entirety of the course into a holistic understanding and provide an opportunity to provide rich summative feedback.

The value of summative feedback

Summative feedback is essential for students to understand how far they have come in meeting the learning goals of the course, what they need further work on, and what they should study next. This can affect later choices that students make, particularly in contemplating and pursuing their major fields of study. Summative feedback can also influence how students regard themselves and their academic disciplines after graduation.

Use rubrics to provide consistency and transparency

A rubric is a grading guide for evaluating how well students have met a learning outcome. A rubric consists of performance criteria, a rating scale, and indicators for the different rating levels. They are typically in a chart or table format. 

Instructors often use rubrics for both formative and summative feedback to ensure consistency of assessment across different students. Rubrics also can make grading faster and help to create consistency between multiple graders and across assignments.

Students might be given access to the rubric before working on an assignment. No criteria or metric within a summative assessment should come as a surprise to the students. Transparency with students on exactly what is being assessed can help them more effectively demonstrate how much they have learned.  

Types of  summative assessments

Different summative assessments are better suited to measuring different kinds of learning. 

Examinations

Examinations are useful for evaluating student learning in terms of remembering information, and understanding and applying concepts and ideas. However, exams may be less suited to evaluating how well students are able to analyze, evaluate, or create things related to what they've learned.

Presentation

A presentation tasks the student with teaching others what they have learned typically by speaking, presenting visual materials, and interacting with their audience. This can be useful for assessing a student's ability to critically analyze and evaluate a topic or content.

With projects, students will create something, such as a plan, document, artifact, or object, usually over a sustained period of time, that demonstrates skills or understanding of the topic of learning. They are useful for evaluating learning objectives that require high levels of critical thinking, creativity, and coordination. Projects are good opportunities to provide summative feedback because they often build on prior formative assessments and feedback. 

With a portfolio, students create and curate a collection of documents, objects, and artifacts that collectively demonstrate their learning over a wide range of learning goals. Portfolios usually include the student's reflections and metacognitive analysis of their own learning. Portfolios are typically completed over a sustained period of time and are usually done by individual students as opposed to groups. 

Portfolios are particularly useful for evaluating how students' learning, attitudes, beliefs, and creativity grow over the span of the course. The reflective component of portfolios can be a rich form of self-feedback for students. Generally, portfolios tend to be more holistic and are often now done using ePortfolios .

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Formative and summative assessments.

Assessment allows both instructor and student to monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives, and can be approached in a variety of ways. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). It can include students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more. In short, formative assessment occurs throughout a class or course, and seeks to improve student achievement of learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs (Theal and Franklin, 2010, p. 151). 

In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches. 

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013): 

  • Informal / formal
  • Immediate / delayed feedback
  • Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone
  • Spontaneous / planned
  • Individual / group
  • Verbal / nonverbal
  • Oral / written
  • Graded / ungraded
  • Open-ended response / closed/constrained response
  • Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled
  • Teacher and student(s) / peers
  • Process-oriented / product-oriented
  • Brief / extended
  • Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed 

Recommendations

Formative Assessment   Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

  • Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers ). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.
  • Encourage students’ self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer’s work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.
  • Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.
  • Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions , where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.
  • Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.
  • Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.  
  • Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition , as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles. 

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here ).

Summative Assessment   Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.  

  • Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and “summarize” expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion. 
  • Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions .
  • Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course’s content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course’s ideas and content. 
  • Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.
  • Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student’s term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques .

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these  recommendations .

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS: MEANING, EXAMPLES AND TYPES

As an educator, you must have heard of formative and summative evaluations. But, do you know what they are and…

Summative Assessment Definition

As an educator, you must have heard of formative and summative evaluations . But, do you know what they are and how they differ from one another?

Formative and summative evaluations are two overlapping ways of assessing pupils. Both formative and summative evaluations complement each other while examining a learner’ progress. The end goal of both is to establish the strengths, weaknesses and developmental patterns of students. Formative and summative evaluations are designed so that each type of evaluation gives actionable insights to educationists.

A holistic assessment practice would combine the best features of both formative and summative evaluations , depending on how they can contribute toward the end goal. A combination of the two can improve educational attainment levels and maximize efficacy.

The Meaning Of Summative Assessments

Definition of summative assessment, summative assessment meaning, summative assessment examples, types of summative assessments, benefits of summative assessment, how to use summative assessment, characteristics of summative assessment, assess and evaluate with harappa.

Which are the most effective summative evaluations ? Which formative evaluations are more creative? It appears that summative evaluation has a much greater online presence. Educators are liberally using online tools to track summative evaluations compared to formative evaluations.

Summative assessments are evaluative instead of diagnostic and help ascertain if the stated objectives of the course are being met. They help evaluate the performance of the learner against a predetermined benchmark. The stakes for such assessments are usually very high and have a high value point. These consist of clear instructions and grading rubric to see how much the student has understood and retained. Rubric is a tool that describes the instructor’s performance expectations from an assignment.

Summative assessments can be complemented with materials that help the teacher analyze results and take better actions for strategic learning. This strategy is also now also being incorporated in a number of e-learning modules.

Let’s dive deeper by examining the key differences between summative and formative evaluations , the different types of summative evaluations, the purpose of summative assessments and how summative evaluation is essential to learner development. We’ll gloss over the advantages and disadvantages of summative assessment , and finally review some examples.

A simple definition of summative assessment is that it helps evaluate student learning, knowledge gained and proficiency at the end of an instructional course or learning program. The definition of summative assessment is better understood if we also understand the meaning of formative assessments. When both approaches are combined, chances of success are maximized.

The meaning of summative assessment is that it judges a student’s level of learning and academic prowess at the end of the year or term of learning. This is done by comparing the evaluation against a set, universal standard or benchmark that’s been established in advance.

Now that we’ve outlined the meaning of summative assessment , let’s view some examples.

You can find many examples of summative assessment . Here we’ll list some summative assessment examples that are directly related to student performance. These are:

  • Half-yearly, mid-term and end-of-term exams
  •  Unit tests or chapter tests
  • Projects, assignments and creative portfolios
  • Tests that are standardized and demonstrate the proficiency of a school. These are often used in admissions. Some of these summative assessment examples are SAT, GCSEs and A-Levels

Summative assessments are indispensable within the learning framework and every individual should acknowledge their profound importance in learning and development of an individual.

There can be several types of summative assessment . Some of these are:

  • Teacher-designed quizzes and tests that include short essays, multiple-choice questions, short answers, matching activities and fill in the blanks
  • Writing and analytical skills are tested through research papers, media reviews, articles, blogs, pamphlets and brochures
  • Descriptive presentations for various audiences can include role play, drama, panel discussions, exhibitions, clay models, debates, musical pieces and dioramas
  • Technical creations such as machines, blueprints, spreadsheets, computer programs, podcasts, web pages, collages and channels
  • Kinesthetic practices such as aerobics and dance are a unique type of summative assessment

These different types of summative assessment should be designed to align with the goals and outcomes that are needed from these assessments.

There are a host of summative assessment benefits that can help students and teachers reap long-term rewards. These are:

1. Student Motivation

The importance of summative assessment is in its ability to keep students motivated to study throughout the year. Good grades can benefit students and encourage them to put in more effort. For example, SAT practice tests are usually associated with a higher-than-average point increase.

2. Applying Learning

Summative assessments and evaluations are not just about memorizing math multiplication tables. Well-designed assessments can help students apply these skills to the real world. Tests such as multiple-choice questions help students critically analyze what they have learnt and apply that knowledge.

3. Identifying Gaps In Learning

Another importance of summative assessments is that they identify any learning gaps and help bridge them. Most teachers conduct unit tests at the end of each chapter to understand how much students have retained and then progress to the next unit. The students who lag behind can be given extra coaching or encouragement to catch up with the rest of the class.

4. Identifying Teaching Gaps

Another important benefit of summative assessments is that they reveal teaching gaps. Teaching styles may not necessarily be perfect and sometimes teachers miss their mark. One purpose of summative assessment could be making the learning program more student-friendly. If all students are faring poorly, then the grading is probably not related to study time. Some ways by which gaps in teaching can be addressed are:

  • Including visual aids in the program
  • Excluding or including word problems
  • Incorporating interesting and innovative teaching styles that facilitate better student assessment

5. Giving Valuable Insights

Summative assessments benefits also include giving evaluators necessary insights and feedback on student progress and performance. It can highlight what worked and what didn’t. The management can make informed and calculated decisions on which part of the curriculum needs tweaking. This makes it easier on both students and evaluators.The importance of summative assessments can’t be overlooked. Some summative assessments are so well-structured that they give valuable data to academicians at the national and global levels. The entire curriculum can be overhauled if need be. The average test scores of a particular school impact its overall grading. This also determines whether the academic institution will continue to be eligible for further funding or attract the same caliber of student.

The purpose of summative assessment is to enhance learning. The structured and standardized exams that form a part of the curriculum leave little room for innovation or imagination. However, there are other ways by which summative assessments can be made extremely interesting.

We are entering the virtual era where online platforms for student learning abound.Digital literacy can help to re-engage students and divert their attention from the conventional classroom formats. Dragging and dropping answers, MCQs and podcasts are just a few of the tools that can foster learning through summative assessments. Students should be allowed to express themselves comfortably.

Multi-modal summative assessments test the learners’ prowess in different ways. Teachers can get an accurate picture of how much the student has grasped. Final exams can be set in a format that prepares students for job applications and increases their vocational proficiency.

Ideally, a combination of formative and summative assessments is needed to get the best results.

Summative assessments usually have a higher value or stakes compared to formative assessments. Here are some characteristics of summative assessments that you need to know:

  • One purpose of a summative assessment is using  rubric to lay out the expected criteria of performance for different grade ranges
  • Questions have a clear design and meaning, allowing students to creatively express themselves
  • Most summative assessments are structured in a way to assess comprehension. These give opportunities to students to consider courses as a holistic element, making broader connections and exhibiting specific skills
  • The parameters of summative assessments are usually extremely well-defined. Such parameters include response time, grading method, time and date. This allows students with disabilities to adapt and attempt tests with the right support
  • Blind grading techniques are also a part of summative assessments. These give unbiased feedback to students, eliminating the possibility of favoritism

While there are advantages and disadvantages of summative assessments , the pros outnumber the cons. Overall, a comprehensive summative assessment program gives the best insights into where someone stands compared to their peers. It’s a well established way of transforming the classroom environment.

For students and teachers, learning and evaluating is a continuous process. It can be liberating and empowering when you have the chance to build a new skill set. Harappa’s Inspiring faculty program teaches how to learn from experience, get critical insights, reflect on your performance and acquire a new edge.

These insights can be applied to your career and vocation. Assessment tools can open a whole new world of agile learning and adept performance. Our courses offer a strategic path to success. With resilience and diligence, you can take on newer assessment challenges that will prepare you well for the future. Push yourself to learn and grow. Enroll today and unlock expert advice from some of our leading faculty.

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

Elementary students taking a summative assessment in a classroom.

Written by Jordan Nisbet

Hey teachers! 👋

Turn math assessments into enjoyable experiences with Prodigy's game-based approach. Get ready for eager learners!

  • Teaching Strategies
  • A formative and summative assessment definition
  • Difference between formative and summative assessment
  • Pros and cons of summative assessment
  • 9 effective and engaging summative assessment examples
  • Helpful summative assessment strategies

When gauging student learning, two approaches likely come to mind: a formative or summative assessment.

Fortunately, feeling pressure to choose one or the other isn’t necessary. These two types of learning assessment actually serve different and necessary purposes. 

Definitions: What’s the difference between formative and summative assessment?

summative assessment examples pdf

Formative assessment occurs regularly throughout a unit, chapter, or term to help track not only how student learning is improving, but how your teaching can, too.

According to a WestEd article , teachers love using various formative assessments because they help meet students’ individual learning needs and foster an environment for ongoing feedback.

Take one-minute papers, for example. Giving your students a solo writing task about today’s lesson can help you see how well students understand new content.

Catching these struggles or learning gaps immediately is better than finding out during a summative assessment.

Such an assessment could include:

  • In-lesson polls
  • Partner quizzes
  • Self-evaluations
  • Ed-tech games
  • One-minute papers
  • Visuals (e.g., diagrams, charts or maps) to demonstrate learning
  • Exit tickets

So, what is a summative assessment?

summative assessment examples pdf

Credit: Alberto G.

It occurs at the end of a unit, chapter, or term and is most commonly associated with final projects, standardized tests, or district benchmarks.

Typically heavily weighted and graded, it evaluates what a student has learned and how much they understand.

There are various types of summative assessment. Here are some common examples of summative assessment in practice:

  • End-of-unit test
  • End-of-chapter test
  • Achievement tests
  • Standardized tests
  • Final projects or portfolios

Teachers and administrators use the final result to assess student progress, and to evaluate schools and districts. For teachers, this could mean changing how you teach a certain unit or chapter. For administrators, this data could help clarify which programs (if any) require tweaking or removal.

The differences between formative and summative assessment

While we just defined the two, there are five key differences between formative and summative assessments requiring a more in-depth explanation.

Formative assessment:

  • Occurs through a chapter or unit
  • Improves how students learn
  • Covers small content areas
  • Monitors how students are learning
  • Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

  • Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit
  • Evaluates what students learn
  • Covers complete content areas
  • Assigns a grade to students' understanding
  • Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

Teachers use formative assessment at many points during a unit or chapter to help guide student learning.

Summative assessment comes in after completing a content area to gauge student understanding.

Improving vs evaluating

If anyone knows how much the learning process is a constant work in progress, it’s you! This is why formative assessment is so helpful — it won’t always guarantee students understand concepts, but it will improve how they learn.

Summative assessment, on the other hand, simply evaluates what they’ve learned. In her book, Balanced Assessment: From Formative to Summative, renowned educator Kay Burke writes, “The only feedback comes in the form of a letter grade, percentage grade, pass/fail grade, or label such as ‘exceeds standards’ or ‘needs improvement.’”

summative assessment examples pdf

Little vs large

Let’s say chapter one in the math textbook has three subchapters (i.e., 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3). A teacher conducting formative assessments will assign mini tasks or assignments throughout each individual content area.

Whereas, if you’d like an idea of how your class understood the complete chapter, you’d give them a test covering a large content area including all three parts.

Monitoring vs grading

Formative assessment is extremely effective as a means to monitor individual students’ learning styles. It helps catch problems early, giving you more time to address and adapt to different problem areas.

Summative assessments are used to evaluate and grade students’ overall understanding of what you’ve taught. Think report card comments: did students achieve the learning goal(s) you set for them or not?

😮 😄 😂 #reportcard #funny #memes #comics #samecooke #schooldays #music #classic #letsgo #gooutmore #showlove pic.twitter.com/qQ2jen1Z8k — Goldstar Events (@goldstar) January 20, 2019

Process vs product

“It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey”? This age-old saying sums up formative and summative assessments fairly accurately.

The former focuses on the process of student learning. You’ll use it to identify areas of strength and weakness among your students — and to make necessary changes to accommodate their learning needs.

The latter emphasizes the product of student learning. To discover the product’s “value”, you can ask yourself questions, such as: At the end of an instructional unit, did the student’s grade exceed the class standard, or pass according to a district’s benchmark?

In other words, formative methods are an assessment for learning whereas summative ones are an assessment of learning .

Now that you’ve got a more thorough understanding of these evaluations, let’s dive into the love-hate relationship teachers like yourself may have with summative assessments.

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

The pros are plenty. However, before getting to that list, let’s outline some of its perceived cons. Summative assessment may:

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

Rigid and strict assignments or tests can lead to a regurgitation of information. Some students may be able to rewrite facts from one page to another, but others need to understand the “why” before giving an answer.

2) Not accurately reflect learning

“Teaching to the test” refers to educators who dedicate more time teaching lessons that will be emphasized on district-specific tests.

A survey conducted by Harvard’s Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism asked teachers whether or not “preparing students to pass mandated standardized tests” affects their teaching.

A significant 60% said it either “dictates most of” or “substantially affects” their teaching. While this can result in higher scores, curriculum distortion can prevent students from learning other foundational subject areas.

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

summative assessment examples pdf

Because summative assessment occurs at the end of units or terms, teachers can fail to identify and remedy students’ knowledge gaps or misconceptions as they arise.

Unfortunately, by this point, there’s often little or no time to rectify a student’s mark, which can affect them in subsequent units or grades.

4) Result in a lack of motivation

The University of London’s Evidence for Policy and Practice conducted a 19-study systematic review of the impact summative assessment and tests have on students’ motivation for learning.

Contrary to popular belief, researchers found a correlation between students who scored poorly on national curriculum tests and experienced lower self-esteem, and an unwillingness to put more effort into future test prep. Beforehand, interestingly, “there was no correlation between self-esteem and achievement.”

For some students, summative assessment can sometimes be seen as 'high stakes' testing due to the pressure on them to perform well. That said, 'low-stakes' assessments can also be used in the form of quizzes or practice tests.

Repeated practice tests reinforce the low self-image of the lower-achieving students… When test scores are a source or pride and the community, pressure is brought to bear on the school for high scores.

Similarly, parents bring pressure on their children when the result has consequences for attendance at high social status schools. For many students, this increases their anxiety, even though they recognize their parents as being supportive.

5) Be inauthentic

Summative assessment has received criticism for its perceived inaccuracy in providing a full and balanced measure of student learning.

Consider this, for example: Your student, who’s a hands-on, auditory learner, has a math test today. It comes in a traditional paper format as well as a computer program format, which reads the questions aloud for students.

Chances are the student will opt for the latter test format. What’s more, this student’s test results will likely be higher and more accurate.

The reality is that curricula — let alone standardized tests — typically don’t allow for this kind of accommodation. This is the exact reason educators and advocates such as Chuck Hitchcock, Anne Meyer, David Rose, and Richard Jackson believe:

Curriculum matters and ‘fixing’ the one-size-fits-all, inflexible curriculum will occupy both special and general educators well into the future… Students with diverse learning needs are not ‘the problem’; barriers in the curriculum itself are the root of the difficulty.

6) Be biased

Depending on a school district’s demographic, summative assessment — including standardized tests — can present biases if a group of students is unfairly graded based on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or social class.

In his presentation at Kansas State University, emeritus professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Dr. W. James Popham, explained summative assessment bias:

This doesn’t necessarily mean that if minority students are outperformed on a summative test by majority students that the test is biased against that minority. It may instead indicate that the minority students have not been provided with the appropriate instruction…

An example of content bias against girls would be one in which students are asked to compare the weights of several objects, including a football. Since girls are less likely to have handled a football, they might find the item more difficult than boys, even though they have mastered the concept measured by the item.

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

summative assessment examples pdf

Overall, these are valid points raised against summative assessment. However, it does offer fantastic benefits for teachers and students alike!

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

Although we mentioned lack of motivation above, this isn’t true for every student. In fact, you’ve probably encountered numerous students for whom summative assessments are an incredible source of motivation to put more effort into their studies.

For example, final exams are a common type of summative assessment that students may encounter at the end of a semester or school year. This pivotal moment gives students a milestone to achieve and a chance to demonstrate their knowledge.

In May 2017, the College Board released a statement about whether coaching truly boosts test scores:

Data shows studying for the SAT for 20 hours on free Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy is associated with an average score gain of 115 points, nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don’t use Khan Academy. Out of nearly 250,000 test-takers studied, more than 16,000 gained 200 points or more between the PSAT/NMSQT and SAT…

In addition to the 115-point average score increase associated with 20 hours of practice, shorter practice periods also correlate with meaningful score gains. For example, 6 to 8 hours of practice on Official SAT Practice is associated with an average 90-point increase.

2) Allow students to apply what they’ve learned

summative assessment examples pdf

It’s one thing to memorize multiplication tables (which is a good skill), but another to apply those skills in math word problems or real-world examples.

Summative assessments — excluding, for example, multiple choice tests — help you see which students can retain and apply what they’ve learned.

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

Before moving on to a new unit, it’s vital to make sure students are keeping up. Naturally, some will be ahead while others will lag behind. In either case, giving them a summative assessment will provide you with a general overview of where your class stands as a whole.

Let’s say your class just wrote a test on multiplication and division. If all students scored high on multiplication but one quarter of students scored low on division, you’ll know to focus more on teaching division to those students moving forward.

4) Help identify possible teaching gaps

summative assessment examples pdf

Credit: woodleywonderworks

In addition to identifying student learning gaps , summative assessment can help target where your teaching style or lesson plans may have missed the mark.

Have you ever been grading tests before, to your horror, realizing almost none of your students hit the benchmark you hoped for? When this happens, the low grades are not necessarily related to study time.

For example, you may need to adjust your teaching methods by:

  • Including/excluding word problems
  • Incorporating more visual components
  • Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

5) Give teachers valuable insights

summative assessment examples pdf

Credit: Kevin Jarrett

Summative assessments can highlight what worked and what didn’t throughout the school year. Once you pinpoint how, where and what lessons need tweaking, making informed adjustments for next year becomes easier.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes… and, for teachers, new students year after year. So although old students may miss out on changes you’ve made to your lessons, new ones get to reap the benefits.

This not only improves your skills as an educator, but will ensure a more enriching educational experience for generations of students to come.

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

Certain summative assessments also provide valuable data at district, national, and global levels. Depending on average test scores, this can determine whether or not certain schools receive funding, programs stay or go, curriculum changes occur, and more. Burke writes:

Summative assessments also provide the public and policymakers with a sense of the results of their investment in education and give educators a forum for proving whether instruction works – or does not work.

The seven aims of summative assessment

summative assessment examples pdf

Dr. Nancy P. Gallavan, a professor of teacher education at the University of Central Arkansas, believes teachers can use performance-based summative assessments at any grade level.

However, in an article for Corwin , she suggests crafting yours with seven aims in mind:

  • Accompanied  with appropriate time and task management
  • Achievable  as in-class activities and out-of-class assignments
  • Active  involvement in planning, preparation, and performance
  • Applicable  to academic standards and expectations
  • Appropriate  to your students’ learning styles, needs, and interests
  • Attractive  to your students on an individual and group level
  • Authentic  to curricular content and context

Ideally, the assessment method should also measure a student’s performance accurately against the learning objectives set at the beginning of the course.

Keeping these goals in mind, here’s a list of innovative ways to conduct summative assessments in your classroom!

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

summative assessment examples pdf

If you want to switch things up this summative assessment season, keep reading. While you can’t change what’s on standardized tests, you can create activities to ensure your students are exhibiting and applying their understanding and skills to end-of-chapter or -unit assessments. In a refreshing way.

Why not give them the opportunity to express their understanding in ways that apply to different learning styles?

Note : As a general guideline, students should incorporate recognition and recall, logic and reasoning, as well as skills and application that cover major concepts and practices (including content areas you emphasized in your lessons).

1) One, two, three… action!

Write a script and create a short play, movie, or song about a concept or strategy of your choosing.

This video from Science Rap Academy is a great — and advanced — example of students who created a song about how blue-eyed children can come from two brown-eyed parents:

Using a tool such as iPhone Fake Text Generator , have students craft a mock text message conversation conveying a complex concept from the unit, or each chapter of that unit.

Students could create a back-and-forth conversation between two historical figures about a world event, or two friends helping each other with complex math concepts.

Have your students create a five to 10-minute podcast episode about core concepts from each unit. This is an exciting option because it can become an ongoing project.

Individually or in groups, specific students can be in charge of each end-of-chapter or -unit podcast. If your students have a cumulative test towards the end of the year or term, the podcast can even function as a study tool they created together.

summative assessment examples pdf

Credit : Brad Flickinger

You can use online tools such as Record MP3 Online or Vocaroo to get your class started!

4) Infographic

Creating a detailed infographic for a final project is an effective way for students to reinforce what they’ve learned. They can cover definitions, key facts, statistics, research, how-to info, graphics, etc.

You can even put up the most impressive infographics in your classroom. Over time, you’ll have an arsenal of in-depth, visually-appealing infographics students can use when studying for chapter or unit tests.

5) Compare and contrast

summative assessment examples pdf

Venn diagrams are an old — yet effective — tool perfect for visualizing just about anything! Whether you teach history or social studies, English or math, or something in between, Venn diagrams can help certain learners visualize the relationship between different things.

For example, they can compare book characters, locations around the world, scientific concepts, and more just like the examples below:

6) Living museum

This creative summative assessment is similar to one, two, three… action! Individuals will plan and prepare an exhibit (concept) in the Living Museum (classroom). Let’s say the unit your class just completed covered five core concepts.

Five students will set up around the classroom while the teacher walks from exhibit to exhibit. Upon reaching the first student, the teacher will push an imaginary button, bringing the exhibit “to life.” The student will do a two to three-minute presentation; afterwards, the teacher will move on to the next one.

7) Ed-Tech games

Now more than ever, students are growing up saturated with smartphones, tablets, and video games. That’s why educators should show students how to use technology in the classroom effectively and productively.

More and more educators are bringing digital tools into the learning process. Pew Research Center surveyed 2,462 teachers and reported that digital technologies have helped in teaching their middle and high school students.

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

  • 80% report using the internet at least weekly to help them create lesson plans
  • 84% report using the internet at least weekly to find content that will engage students
  • 69% say the internet has a “major impact on their ability to share ideas with other teachers
  • 80% report getting email alerts or updates at least weekly that allow them to follow developments in their field
  • 92% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching
  • 67% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to interact with parents and 57% say it has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students

To make the most of EdTech, find a tool that actually engages your students in learning and gives you the insightful data and reports you need to adjust your instruction

Tip: Teaching math from 1st to 8th grade? Use Prodigy!

With Prodigy Math, you can:

  • Deliver engaging assessments: Prodigy's game-based approach makes assessments fun for students.
  • Spot and solve learning gaps: See which students need more support at the touch of a button.
  • Reduce test anxiety: Prodigy has been shown to build math confidence.

Plus, it's all available to educators at no cost. See how it works below! 👇

8) Shark Tank/Dragon’s Den

Yes, just like the reality TV show! You can show an episode or two to your class or get them to watch the show at home. Next, have students pitch a product or invention that can help change the world outside of school for the better.

This innovative summative assessment is one that’ll definitely require some more thought and creativity. But it’s important that, as educators, we help students realize they can have a huge positive impact on the world in which they live.

9) Free choice

If a student chooses to come up with their own summative assessment, you’ll need to vet it first. It’ll likely take some collaboration to arrive at something sufficient.

However, giving students the freedom to explore content areas that interest them most could surprise you. Sometimes, it’s during those projects they form a newfound passion and are wildly successful in completing the task.

summative assessment examples pdf

We’re sure there are countless other innovative summative assessment ideas out there, but we hope this list gets your creative juices flowing.

With the exclusion of standardized state and national tests, one of the greatest misconceptions about summative assessments is that they’re all about paper and pencil. Our hope in creating this list was to help you see how fun and engaging summative assessments can truly be.

10) Group projects

Group projects aren't just a fun way to break the monotony, but a dynamic and interactive form of summative assessment. Here's why:

  • Collaborative learning: Group projects encourage students to work as a team, fostering their communication and collaboration skills. They learn to listen, negotiate, and empathize, which are crucial skills in and beyond the classroom.
  • Promotes critical thinking: When students interact with each other, they get to explore different perspectives. They challenge each other's understanding, leading to stimulating debates and problem-solving sessions that boost critical thinking.
  • In-depth assessment: Group projects offer teachers a unique lens to evaluate both individual performances and group dynamics. It's like getting a sneak peek into their world - you get to see how they perform under different circumstances and how they interact with each other.
  • Catering to different learning styles: Given the interactive nature of group projects, they can cater to different learning styles - auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Every student gets a chance to shine!

However, it's important to set clear instructions and criteria to ensure fairness. Remember, it's not just about the final product - it's about the process too.

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

  • Create a Mini Documentary: Students could work together to research a historical event and create a mini documentary presenting their findings.
  • Plan a Community Service Project: This could involve identifying a problem in the local community and creating a detailed plan to address it.
  • Design a Mobile App: For a more tech-focused project, students could identify a problem and design an app that solves it.

Summative assessment strategies for keeping tests clear and fair

summative assessment examples pdf

In addition to using the summative assessment examples above to accommodate your students’ learning styles, these tips and strategies should also help:

  • Use a rubric  — Rubrics help set a standard for how your class should perform on a test or assignment. They outline test length, how in-depth it will be, and what you require of them to achieve the highest possible grades.
  • Design clear, effective questions  — When designing tests, do your best to use language, phrases, and examples similar to those used during lessons. This’ll help keep your tests aligned with the material you’ve covered.
  • Try blind grading  — Most teachers prefer knowing whose tests they’re grading. But if you want to provide wholly unbiased grades and feedback, try blind grading. You can request your students write their names on the bottom of the last test page or the back.
  • Assess comprehensiveness  — Make sure the broad, overarching connections you’re hoping students can make are reasonable and fluid. For example, if the test covers measurement, geometry and spatial sense, you should avoid including questions about patterning and algebra.
  • Create a final test after, not before, teaching the lessons  — Don’t put the horse before the carriage. Plans can change and student learning can demand different emphases from year to year. If you have a test outline, perfect! But expect to embrace and make some changes from time to time.
  • Make it real-world relevant  — How many times have you heard students ask, “When am I going to use this in real life?” Far too often students assume math, for example, is irrelevant to their lives and write it off as a subject they don’t need. When crafting test questions, use  culturally-relevant word problems  to illustrate a subject’s true relevance.

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

Throughout your teaching career, you’ll spend a lot of time with formative and summative assessments. While some teachers emphasize one over the other, it’s vital to recognize the extent to which they’re interconnected.

In the book Classroom Assessment for Student Learning , Richard Stiggins, one of the first educators to advocate for the concept of assessment for learning, proposes something called “a balanced assessment system that takes advantage of assessment of learning and assessment for learning.”

If you use both effectively, they inform one another and “assessment becomes more than just an index of school success. It also serves as the cause of that success.”

In fact, Stiggins argues teachers should view these two types of assessment as “in sync.”

They can even be the  exact same thing — only the purpose and the timing of the assessment determine its label. Formative assessments provide the training wheels that allow students to practice and gain confidence while riding their bikes around the enclosed school parking lot.

Once the training wheels come off, the students face their summative assessment as they ride off into the sunset on only two wheels, prepared to navigate the twists and turns of the road to arrive safely at their final destination.

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

Implementing these innovative summative assessment examples should engage your students in new and exciting ways.

What’s more, they’ll have the opportunity to express and apply what they’ve learned in creative ways that solidify student learning.

So, what do you think — are you ready to try out these summative assessment ideas? Prodigy is a game-based learning platform teachers use to keep their students engaged.

Sign up for a free teacher account  and set an  Assessment  today!

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Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence

Summative assessments.

Nicole Messier, CATE Instructional Designer February 7th, 2022

WHAT? Heading link Copy link

Summative assessments are used to measure learning when instruction is over and thus may occur at the end of a learning unit, module, or the entire course.

Summative assessments are usually graded, are weighted more heavily than other course assignments or comprise a substantial percentage of a students’ overall grade (and are often considered “high stakes” assessments relative to other, “lower stakes” assessments in a course), and are required assessments for the completion of a course.

Summative assessments can be viewed through two broad assessment strategies: assessments of learning and assessments as learning.

  • Assessment of learning (AoL) provides data to confirm course outcomes and students the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in the learning objectives.
  • Assessment as learning (AaL) provides student ownership of learning by utilizing evidence-based learning strategies, promoting self-regulation, and providing reflective learning.

A summative assessment can be designed to provide both assessment of learning (AoL) and assessment as learning (AaL). The goal of designing for AaL and AoL is to create a summative assessment as a learning experience while ensuring that the data collected is valid and reliable.

Summative Assessment includes test taking

Want to learn more about these assessment strategies? Please visit the  Resources Section – CATE website to review resources, teaching guides, and more.

Summative Assessments Heading link Copy link

Summative assessments (aol).

  • Written assignments – such as papers or authentic assessments like projects or portfolios of creative work
  • Mid-term exam
  • Performances

Although exams are typically used to measure student knowledge and skills at the end of a learning unit, module, or an entire course, they can also be incorporated into learning opportunities for students.

Example 1 - Exam Heading link Copy link

Example 1 - exam.

An instructor decides to analyze their current multiple-choice and short-answer final exam for alignment to the learning objectives. The instructor discovers that the questions cover the content in the learning objectives; however, some questions are not at the same cognitive levels as the learning objectives . The instructor determines that they need to create some scenario questions where students are asked to analyze a situation and apply knowledge to be aligned with a particular learning objective.

The instructor also realizes that this new type of question format will be challenging for students if the exam is the only opportunity provided to students. The instructor decides to create a study guide for students on scenarios (not used in the exam) for students to practice and self-assess their learning. The instructor plans to make future changes to the quizzes and non-graded formative questions to include higher-level cognitive questions to ensure that learning objectives are being assessed as well as to support student success in the summative assessment.

This example demonstrates assessment of learning with an emphasis on improving the validity of the results, as well as assessment as learning by providing students with opportunities to self-assess and reflect on their learning.

Written assignments in any form (authentic, project, or problem-based) can also be designed to collect data and measure student learning, as well as provide opportunities for self-regulation and reflective learning. Instructors should consider using a type of grading rubric (analytic, holistic, or single point) for written assignments to ensure that the data collected is valid and reliable.

Summative Assessments (AaL) Heading link Copy link

Summative assessments (aal).

  • Authentic assessments – an assessment that involves a real-world task or application of knowledge instead of a traditional paper; could involve a situation or scenario specific to a future career.
  • Project-based learning – an assessment that involves student choice in designing and addressing a problem, need, or question.
  • Problem-based learning – similar to project-based learning but focused on solutions to problems.
  • Self-critique or peer assessment

Example 2 - Authentic Assessment Heading link Copy link

Example 2 - authentic assessment.

An instructor has traditionally used a research paper as the final summative assessment in their course. After attending a conference session on authentic assessments, the instructor decides to change this summative assessment to an authentic assessment that allows for student choice and increased interaction, feedback, and ownership.

First, the instructor introduced the summative project during the first week of class. The summative project instructions asked students to select a problem that could be addressed by one of the themes from the course. Students were provided with a list of authentic products that they could choose from, or they could request permission to submit a different product. Students were also provided with a rubric aligned to the learning objectives.

Next, the instructor created small groups (three to four students) with discussion forums for students to begin brainstorming problems, themes, and ideas for their summative project. These groups were also required to use the rubric to provide feedback to their peers at two separate time points in the course. Students were required to submit their final product, references, self-assessment using the rubric, and a reflection on the peer interaction and review.

This example demonstrates an authentic assessment as well as an assessment of learning (AoL) and assessment as learning (AaL). The validity and reliability of this summative assessment are ensured using a rubric that is focused on the learning objectives of the course and consistently utilized for the grading and feedback of the summative project. Data collected from the use of grading criteria in a rubric can be used to improve the summative project as well as the instruction and materials in the course. This summative project allows for reflective learning and provides opportunities for students to develop self-regulation skills as well as apply knowledge gained in an authentic and meaningful product.

Another way to create a summative assessment as a learning opportunity is to break it down into smaller manageable parts. These smaller parts will guide students’ understanding of expectations, provide them with opportunities to receive and apply feedback, as well as support their executive functioning and self-regulation skills.

WHY? Heading link Copy link

We know that summative assessments are vital to the curriculum planning cycle to measure student outcomes and implement continuous improvements. But how do we ensure our summative assessments are effective and equitable? Well, the answer is in the research.

Validity, Reliability, and Manageability

Critical components for the effectiveness of summative assessments are the validity, reliability, and manageability of the assessment (Khaled, 2020).

  • Validity of the assessment refers to the alignment to course learning objectives. In other words, are the assessments in your course measuring the learning objectives?
  • Reliability of the assessment refers to the consistency or accuracy of the assessment used. Are the assessment practices consistent from student to student and semester to semester?
  • Manageability of the assessment refers to the workload for both faculty and students. For faculty, is the type of summative assessment causing a delay in timely grading and feedback to the learner? For students, is the summative assessment attainable and are the expectations realistic?

As you begin to design a summative assessment, determine how you will ensure the assessment is valid, reliable, and manageable.

Feedback & Summative Assessments

Attributes of academic feedback that improve the impact of the summative assessment on student learning (Daka, 2021; Harrison 2017) include:

  • Provide feedback without or before grades.
  • Once the grade is given, then explain the grading criteria and score (e.g., using a rubric to explain grading criteria and scoring).
  •  Identify specific qualities in students’ work.
  • Describe actionable steps on what and how to improve.
  • Motivate and encourage students by providing opportunities to submit revisions or earn partial credit for submitting revised responses to incorrect answers on exams.
  • Allow students to monitor, evaluate, and regulate their learning.

Additional recommendations for feedback include that feedback should be timely, frequent, constructive (what and how), and should help infuse a sense of professional identity for students (why). The alignment of learning objectives, learning activities, and summative assessments is critical to student success and will ensure that assessments are valid. And lastly, the tasks in assessments should match the cognitive levels of the course learning objectives to challenge the highest performing students while elevating lower-achieving students (Daka, 2021).

HOW? Heading link Copy link

How do you start designing summative assessments?

Summative assessments can help measure student achievement of course learning objectives as well as provide the instructor with data to make pedagogical decisions on future teaching and instruction. Summative assessments can also provide learning opportunities as students reflect and take ownership of their learning.

So how do you determine what type of summative assessment to design? And how do you ensure that summative assessment will be valid, reliable, and manageable? Let’s dive into some of the elements that might impact your design decisions, including class size, discipline, modality, and EdTech tools .

Class Size and Modality

The manageability of summative assessments can be impacted by the class size and modality of the course. Depending on the class size of the course, instructors might be able to implement more opportunities for authentic summative assessments that provide student ownership and allow for more reflective learning (students think about their learning and make connections to their experiences). Larger class sizes might require instructors to consider implementing an EdTech tool to improve the manageability of summative assessments.

The course modality can also influence the design decisions of summative assessments. Courses with synchronous class sessions can require students to take summative assessments simultaneously through an in-person paper exam or an online exam using an EdTech tool, like Gradescope or Blackboard Tests, Pools, and Surveys . Courses can also create opportunities for students to share their authentic assessments asynchronously using an EdTech tool like VoiceThread .

Major Coursework

When designing a summative assessment as a learning opportunity for major coursework, instructors should reflect on the learning objectives to be assessed and the possible real-world application of the learning objectives. In replacement of multiple-choice or short answer questions that focus on content memorization, instructors might consider creating scenarios or situational questions that provide students with opportunities to analyze and apply knowledge gained. In major coursework, instructors should consider authentic assessments that allow for student choice, transfer of knowledge, and the development of professional skills in place of a traditional paper or essay.

Undergraduate General Education Coursework

In undergraduate general education coursework, instructors should consider the use of authentic assessments to make connections to students’ experiences, goals, and future careers. Simple adjustments to assignment instructions to allow for student choice can help increase student engagement and motivation. Designing authentic summative assessments can help connect students to the real-world application of the content and create buy-in on the importance of the summative assessment.

Summative Assessment Tools

EdTech tools can help to reduce faculty workload by providing a delivery system for students to submit work as well as tools to support academic integrity.

Below are EdTech tools that are available to UIC faculty to create and/or grade summative assessments as and of learning.

Assessment Creation and Grading Tools Heading link Copy link

Assessment creation and grading tools.

  • Blackboard assignments drop box and rubrics
  • Blackboard quizzes and exams

Assessment creation and grading tools can help support instructors in designing valid and reliable summative assessments. Gradescope can be utilized as a grading tool for in-person paper and pencil midterm and final exams, as well as a tool to create digital summative assessments. Instructors can use AI to improve the manageability of summative assessments as well as the reliability through the use of rubrics for grading with Gradescope.

In the Blackboard learning management system, instructors can create pools of questions for both formative and summative assessments as well as create authentic assessment drop boxes and rubrics aligned to learning objectives for valid and reliable data collection.

Academic Integrity Tools

  • SafeAssign (undergraduate)
  •   iThenticate (graduate)
  • Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitoring

Academic integrity tools can help ensure that students are meeting academic expectations concerning research through the use of SafeAssign and iThenticate as well as academic integrity during online tests and exams using Respondus Lockdown Browser and Monitoring.

Want to learn more about these summative assessment tools? Visit the EdTech section on the CATE website to learn more.

Exam Guidance

Additional guidance on online exams is available in Section III: Best Practices for Online (Remote Proctored, Synchronous) Exams in the Guidelines for Assessment in Online Environments Report , which outlines steps for equitable exam design, accessible exam technology, and effective communication for student success. The framing questions in the report are designed to guide instructors with suggestions, examples, and best practices (Academic Planning Task Force, 2020), which include:

  • “What steps should be taken to ensure that all students have the necessary hardware, software, and internet capabilities to complete a remote, proctored exam?
  • What practices should be implemented to make remote proctored exams accessible to all students, and in particular, for students with disabilities?
  • How can creating an ethos of academic integrity be leveraged to curb cheating in remote proctored exams?
  • What are exam design strategies to minimize cheating in an online environment?
  • What tools can help to disincentive cheating during a remote proctored exam?
  • How might feedback and grading strategies be adjusted to deter academic misconduct on exams?”

GETTING STARTED Heading link Copy link

Getting started.

The following steps will support you as you examine current summative assessment practices through the lens of assessment of learning (AoL) and assessment as learning (AaL) and develop new or adapt existing summative assessments.

  • The first step is to utilize backward design principles by aligning the summative assessments to the learning objectives.
  • To collect valid and reliable data to confirm student outcomes (AoL).
  • To promote self-regulation and reflective learning by students (AaL).
  • Format: exam, written assignment, portfolio, performance, project, etc.
  • Delivery: paper and pencil, Blackboard, EdTech tool, etc.
  • Feedback: general (how to improve performance), personalized (student-specific), etc.
  • Scoring: automatically graded by Blackboard and/or EdTech tool or manual through the use of a rubric in Blackboard.
  • The fourth step is to review data collected from summative assessment(s) and reflect on the implementation of the summative assessment(s) through the lens of validity, reliability, and manageability to inform continuous improvements for equitable student outcomes.

CITING THIS GUIDE Heading link Copy link

Citing this guide.

Messier, N. (2022). “Summative assessments.” Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence at the University of Illinois Chicago. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://teaching.uic.edu/resources/teaching-guides/assessment-grading-practices/summative-assessments/

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Heading link Copy link

Academic Planning Task Force. (2020). Guidelines for Assessment in Online Learning Environments .

McLaughlin, L., Ricevuto, J. (2021). Assessments in a Virtual Environment: You Won’t Need that Lockdown Browser! Faculty Focus.

Moore, E. (2020). Assessments by Design: Rethinking Assessment for Learner Variability. Faculty Focus.

Websites and Journals

Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education website 

Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Taylor & Francis Online Journals

Journal of Assessment in Higher Education

REFERENCES Heading link Copy link

Daka, H., & Mulenga-Hagane, M., Mukalula-Kalumbi, M., Lisulo, S. (2021). Making summative assessment effective. 5. 224 – 237.

Earl, L.M., Katz, S. (2006). Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind — Assessment for learning, assessment as learning, assessment of learning. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Crown in Right of Manitoba.

Galletly, R., Carciofo, R. (2020). Using an online discussion forum in a summative coursework assignment. Journal of Educators Online . Volume 17, Issue 2.

Harrison, C., Könings, K., Schuwirth, L. & Wass, V., Van der Vleuten, C. (2017). Changing the culture of assessment: the dominance of the summative assessment paradigm. BMC Medical Education. 17. 10.1186/s12909-017-0912-5.

Khaled, S., El Khatib, S. (2020). Summative assessment in higher education: Feedback for better learning outcomes

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Table of Contents

11+ summative assessment templates in pdf | doc, 1. summative assessment template, 2. sample summative assessment in pdf, 3. classroom summative assessment, 4. basic summative assessment, 5. formal summative assessment, 6. summative assessment design, 7. summative assessment lesson plan, 8. math summative assessment, 9. physical education summative assessment, 10. student summative assessment template, 11. rubric summative assessment, 12. summative evaluation assessment form, how to prepare a summative assessment document, what are the types of summative assessment, why is summative assessment important for students, summative assessment vs formative assessment, school templates.

Summative assessment is the assessment of the students or the participants on their learning experience from the educational program , units, curriculum, course, module, etc. This is the assessment that judges the knowledge that is gathered by the participants after the completion of the same. Here are some assessment templates that can help you with more information.

summative assessment examples pdf

Step 1: Prepare a Word File

Step 2: prepare the format, step 3: develop the form, step 4: collect the data, step 5: the final evaluation, performance task, written product, oral product, standardized test, more in school templates.

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Summative Assessment – Examples, PDF

Summative Assessment

Summative assessments are essential for assessing learning objectives . Learning outcomes describe what students should learn and be able to do after taking a course or program. The summative assessment determines a course’s final grade. Summative assessment helps instructors determine whether students have learned enough to pass a course or program. statistics reports  like this are essential for determining effective classroom management plan  success and planning.

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

examples of formative and summative assessments

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Research on Classroom Summative Assessment

research on classroom summative assessment

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Authentic Summative Assessment

authentic summative assessment

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Reading Comprehension Summative Assessment

reading comprehension summative assessment

File Format

Size: 62 KB

Summative Assessment Workshop Outcomes

summative assessment workshop outcomes

Size: 29 KB

Summative Assessment Training Package

summative assessment training package

Size: 58 KB

Summative Assessment Design Guide

summative assessment design guide

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Summative Assessment Video Supplement

summative assessment video supplement

Size: 87 KB

Definitions of Summative Assessment Types

definitions of summative assessment types

Size: 65 KB

Maximum Summative Assessment

maximum summative assessment

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Summative Assessment Second-Chance Learning

summative assessment video supplement1

Best Practices in Summative Assessment

best practices in summative assessment

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Guidance on Summative Assessment in Groupwork

guidance on summative assessment in groupwork

Size: 25 KB

What is a Summative Assessment

A summative assessment is a type of evaluation that is used to measure learning outcomes at the end of a learning period or course. It aims to summarize the knowledge and skills that a student has acquired over the course of their learning and provide an overall grade or score for their performance. Summative assessments can take the form of formal tests, projects, essays, or other types of evaluations. They are usually administered at the end of a course or unit and are designed to assess the extent to which students have achieved the predetermined learning objectives. Summative assessment is an essential component of the assessment process and provides valuable feedback to teachers, students, and administrators about the effectiveness of their instructional practices.

How to do a Summative Assessment

Here are some steps on how to do a summative assessment:

Step 1: Define the learning outcomes

The first step is to identify the learning outcomes that you want to assess. Learning outcomes should be specific, measurable, and aligned with the goals of the course or program.

Step 2: Select the assessment methods

Choose assessment methods that are appropriate for the learning outcomes and the level of knowledge and skills that you want to assess. Common assessment methods include written tests, projects, portfolios, and presentations.

Step 3: Create the assessment

Design the assessment by creating clear instructions and criteria for evaluation. Ensure that the assessment aligns with the learning outcomes and the assessment methods selected.

Step 4: Administer the assessment

Administer the assessment to students, making sure that they understand the instructions and requirements. Provide any necessary support or accommodations to students with special needs.

Step 5: Evaluate the assessment

Evaluate student performance using the established criteria and assess the extent to which they have achieved the learning outcomes. Use grading rubrics to ensure consistency and fairness in the evaluation process.

Step 6: Provide feedback

Provide feedback to students on their performance and offer suggestions for improvement. Use the assessment results to identify areas of strength and weakness in the course or program and make informed decisions about future instructional practices.

Step 7: Use the assessment results

Use the assessment results to make decisions about student grades, program effectiveness, and future curriculum development. Communicate the results to students, parents, and other stakeholders as appropriate.

What are the types of summative assessments?

The types of summative assessments include written written safety plan tests , group project reports , project portfolios , characteristics of your presentations, and exams.

How is summative assessment different from formative assessment?

Formative assessment is an ongoing evaluation method that is used to provide positive feedback  and support to students throughout a course or program. Summative assessment, on the other hand, is a final evaluation that is given at the end of a course or program.

Can summative assessment be used for all subjects?

Yes, summative assessment can be used for all subjects, including math, science, language arts, social studies, and the arts. The assessment method and criteria may vary depending on the subject and level of education.

In conclusion, summative assessment plays a critical role in evaluating student learning and measuring the achievement of learning outcomes at the end of a course or program. By providing a comprehensive evaluation of a student’s knowledge and skills, summative assessment enables educators to make informed decisions about future instructional practices and identify areas for improvement. Effective summative assessment requires careful planning and the selection of appropriate assessment methods that align with learning outcomes. Overall, summative assessment is an essential component of the assessment process and contributes significantly to the quality of education.

summative assessment examples pdf

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Summative Assessments In Early Childhood

  • Written by  Lorina
  • April 13, 2020

Summative Assessments In Early Childhood

Summative Assessment brings together information on what the child knows, understands and can do. You analyse this information, you tell a story and give an overview of a child's progress so far. This is the basis of summative assessment.

What is a Summative Assessment

The documentation you collect such as photos, jottings, observations, learning stories, work samples, parent input and more are used as evidence. You sum up all the documentation you have gathered through a variety of different sources, by asking how does it all fit together and how does it link to the learning outcomes. Basically you are providing an overview of all the documentation you have collected to show a cycle of planning, reflecting and evaluating and how the child's progresses over time.

When developing a summative assessment, you have a few options:

  • you can use a template and write details under each learning outcome
  • write a story to the child and their family which explains their achievements and what they have demonstrated develop time.
  • create individual portfolios
  • write a summary of learning in a learning journal for each child that they can share with their families

When writing a summative assessment it should:

  • emphasise children’s strengths and make their learning visible
  • draw on the family’s knowledge about their child so that the documentation
  • reflects the child’s life at home as we as at the service
  • be free from bias
  • be written in clear, easy-to-understand
  • language that makes sense to families
  • reflect knowledge of the child’s social or cultural background
  • occur systematically and regularly so that, over time, educators gain a complete picture of each child’s
  • progress in relation to the Learning Outcomes

To complete a summative assessment, you need to plan to support further learning. This can be identified when there are gaps of information in relation to a particular learning outcome. This enables you to look for further examples and which learning outcomes to highlight and focus on during planning in the future.

Examples Of Summative Assessment

The following provides a summary of learning under each of the EYLF Learning Outcomes, that forms the Summative Assessment:

summative assessment examples pdf

A summative assessment builds a picture of the child progress over time, through the evidence you have collected. The Learning Outcomes provides key reference points in which a child's progress can be identified and documented and shows an overall picture of a child's learning journey.  For more template ideas for Summative Assessment: EYLF Templates You can also use our digital documentation app - Appsessment to create your own Summative Assessment. You can generate a report which will show the analysis of learning you have added for all the documentation you have created and you can use this to form your Summative Assessment.  References: Summative Assessment, NQS Professional Learning Program E-Newsletter, 2012 ACEQA Guide To The National Quality Standards, 2011

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Synergizing Formative & Summative Assessment of Presentation Slideshows

Profile image of Eddy White, Ph.D.

This report describes research carried out at in an EFL public speaking course at a Japanese university. While student presentations typically involve both delivery and student slideshows being assessed at the same time, this investigation looks at separating the two components and assessing presentation slideshows separately. Using a summative assessment instrument, a slideshow rubric, a series of related formative assessments were also developed and administered with the goal of creating an synergy of assessments whereby the combined effect of interweaving these assessments together would promote greater student learning. The 22 university students in this class engaged in trio of related assessments (two formative, one summative) in developing a slideshow for a persuasive speech. Students produced a first draft of their presentation slideshows, and these were used for a self-assessment, and also for a formative teacher assessment (ungraded) prior to the final graded summative assessment. The report into the formative use of summative assessment describes the processes and instruments used in this experiment in assessment synergy. Assessment information and data from five students in the class provide actual assessment examples to help delineate the processes described. These student examples, and the teacher feedback included, help demonstrate that the formative use of summative assessment had positive effects on student learning related to the effective construction of presentation slideshows. The report concludes with a call for more classroom based research and publications in EFL/ESL contexts related to the synergy of formative and summative assessment processes, practices and instruments.

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Arab World English Journal (AWEJ)

Synergizing Formative and Summative Assessment of Presentation Slideshows Eddy White Center for English as a Second Language (CESL) College of Humanities University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Abstract This report describes research carried out at in an EFL public speaking course at a Japanese university. While student presentations typically involve both delivery and student slideshows being assessed at the same time, this investigation looks at separating the two components and assessing presentation slideshows separately. Using a summative assessment instrument, a slideshow rubric, a series of related formative assessments were also developed and administered with the goal of creating an synergy of assessments whereby the combined effect of interweaving these assessments together would promote greater student learning. The 22 university students in this class engaged in trio of related assessments (two formative, one summative) in developing a slideshow for a persuasive speech. Students produced a first draft of their presentation slideshows, and these were used for a self-assessment, and also for a formative teacher assessment (ungraded) prior to the final graded summative assessment. The report into the formative use of summative assessment describes the processes and instruments used in this experiment in assessment synergy. Assessment information and data from five students in the class provide actual assessment examples to help delineate the processes described. These student examples, and the teacher feedback included, help demonstrate that the formative use of summative assessment had positive effects on student learning related to the effective construction of presentation slideshows. The report concludes with a call for more classroom based research and publications in EFL/ESL contexts related to the synergy of formative and summative assessment processes, practices and instruments. Key words: assessment for learning, formative and summative assessment, presentations

summative assessment examples pdf

International Journal of Instruction

Omer Mahfoodh

Abstract: The pervasiveness of digital media technologies has significantly shifted the notion of teaching and language learning. This also affects how teachers design particular assessment for students’ learning process in a multimodal environment of the contemporary classroom. However, the construction of multimodal assessment and its effects on students’ learning outcomes particularly on their oral performance is still inconclusive. Taking into account Wiliam’s (2011) strategies for successful formative assessment practice and the advancement of Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) use in learning, this paper illustrates the emergence of students’ oral presentation as multimodal assessment in language classrooms particularly at tertiary level, and provides insights for teachers to design and develop a rubric for assessment. Specifically, this paper argues that despite its challenges in classroom practice, this alternative assessment can be used to assess students’ multimodality ...

Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

stephen dobson

ETS Research Report Series

Jilliam Joe

Mohammad Salehi

Ileana Oana Macari

The paper describes a constructivist-inspired framework used for the assessment of the oral presentations that English minor 2nd year students complete in groups as the end-of-term TPL course assignment in the first semester. This kind of integrated evaluation using peer, self, and instructor assessment has great pedagogical value, because it engages students and teachers as responsible partners in learning and assessment. Keywords: constructivism, oral presentation, portfolio, authentic assessment

THAITESOL Journal

Supornphan Konchiab

Vikram Koundinya

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education

Asko Mononen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to design a rubric instrument for assessing oral presentation performance in higher education and to test its validity with an expert group. Design/methodology/approach This study, using mixed methods, focusses on: designing a rubric by identifying assessment instruments in previous presentation research and implementing essential design characteristics in a preliminary developed rubric; and testing the validity of the constructed instrument with an expert group of higher educational professionals (n=38). Findings The result of this study is a validated rubric instrument consisting of 11 presentation criteria, their related levels in performance, and a five-point scoring scale. These adopted criteria correspond to the widely accepted main criteria for presentations, in both literature and educational practice, regarding aspects as content of the presentation, structure of the presentation, interaction with the audience and presentation delivery. ...

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  1. 11+ Summative Assessment Templates in PDF

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  2. (PDF) Summative Assessment (Wing Institute Original Paper)

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  3. 11+ Summative Assessment Templates in PDF

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  4. FREE 10+ Summative Evaluation Form Samples & Templates in MS Word

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  5. Summative Assessment

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  6. 21 Summative Assessment Examples (2024)

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COMMENTS

  1. PDF Formative and Summative Assessment Handout

    Summative assessment evaluates student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be).

  2. 21 Summative Assessment Examples (2024)

    Its goal is to evaluate what students have learned or the skills they have developed. It is compared to a formative assessment that takes place in the middle of the unit of work for feedback to students and learners. Performance is evaluated according to specific criteria, and usually result in a final grade or percentage achieved.

  3. PDF What is summative assessment and how can it be used in the classroom?

    Some examples of classroom assessments and their uses are described in Table 1. March 2021 | This information is aligned with the Assessment Literacy Standards at michiganassessmentconsortium.org To learn more Learning Point: What constitutes a high-quality, comprehensive, balanced assessment system? (MAC 2016) https://tinyurl.com/yap8f3x4

  4. (PDF) Summative Assessment (Wing Institute Original Paper)

    The example of the task was showed on Figure 5 below. States et al., (2018) stated that Summative assessment includes midterms, final assignments, papers, teacher-designed tests, standardized...

  5. Summative Assessment and Feedback

    Learn how to design effective summative assessments and provide useful feedback to students at the end of a course. Find out the types, value, and use of rubrics, and the benefits of summative feedback for students' learning and self-regulation.

  6. PDF Research on Classroom Summative Assessment

    Unlike assessments that are formative or diagnostic, the purpose of summative assessment is to determine the student's overall achievement in a specific area of learning at a particular time—a purpose that distinguishes it from all other forms of assessment (Harlen, 2004).

  7. PDF Formative and Summative Assessment

    Summative assessment evaluates students' abilities as they are about to complete a course (or at the end of a unit). We expect summative results to indicate more complete mastery of learning outcomes than formative assessment. Why should I use both formative and summative assessment in my classroom?

  8. (PDF) Formative and Summative Evaluation Techniques for Improvement of

    ... Formative assessment is a preplanned and systematic process that is carried out by taking into account a set of predetermined goals. Moreover, formative and summative assessment depends...

  9. PDF Formative and Summative Assessment

    What to do next—the decision making step, is based on the evaluation. Assessment Evaluation Decision-Making Types of Assessment There are three types of assessment: diagnostic, formative, and summative. Although are three are generally referred to simply as assessment, there are distinct differences between the three.

  10. Best practices in summative assessment

    As an example, a few years ago, I wrote a review textbook for medical physiology (27) and, looking back, I did not think much about learning outcomes, relying instead on what seemed implicitly clear content the book would need to include.

  11. Formative and Summative Assessments

    Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013): Informal / formal Immediate / delayed feedback Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone Spontaneous / planned Individual / group Verbal / nonverbal Oral / written Graded / ungraded

  12. PDF SUMMATIVEASSESSMENTSAND)ALIGNING)ACTIVITIES

    Here is an example that incorporates arguments and the future tense. Students read articles that argue a position or state opinions and have mock debates as part of the unit.

  13. PDF Diagnostic, Formative, & Summative Assessments

    Formative Assessment Monitoring student progress Includes feedback Includes opportunities for students to use feedback and make improvements Student performance on formative assessments should not be used for grading purposes Examples: homework, ungraded quizzes, ungraded classroom assignments Completed DURING instruction

  14. PDF Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom

    Summative assessment at the district and 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

  15. SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS: MEANING, EXAMPLES AND TYPES

    Assess And Evaluate With Harappa The Meaning Of Summative Assessments Which are the most effective summative evaluations? Which formative evaluations are more creative? It appears that summative evaluation has a much greater online presence. Educators are liberally using online tools to track summative evaluations compared to formative evaluations.

  16. Full article: Implementing summative assessment with a formative

    Introduction. The type of assessment practices used in the classroom have a major impact on students' learning and academic achievement (e.g. Black and Wiliam Citation 1998).For example, summative assessments are used for grading purposes to enable comparisons between learners, and to ensure standards are met (Shute and Kim Citation 2014).On the other hand, formative assessments, also known ...

  17. 10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

    Here are some common examples of summative assessment in practice: End-of-unit test End-of-chapter test Achievement tests Standardized tests Final projects or portfolios Teachers and administrators use the final result to assess student progress, and to evaluate schools and districts.

  18. Summative Assessments

    This example demonstrates an authentic assessment as well as an assessment of learning (AoL) and assessment as learning (AaL). The validity and reliability of this summative assessment are ensured using a rubric that is focused on the learning objectives of the course and consistently utilized for the grading and feedback of the summative project.

  19. 11+ Summative Assessment Templates in PDF

    1. Summative Assessment Template poorvucenter.yale.edu Details File Format PDF Size: 113.1 KB Download Now 2. Sample Summative Assessment in PDF isetl.org Details File Format PDF Size: 303.5 KB Download Now 3. Classroom Summative Assessment amle.org Details File Format PDF Size: 268.9 KB Download Now 4. Basic Summative Assessment

  20. Summative Assessment

    Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments ctl.ya le.edu [/ ns_col] Details File Format PDF Size: 70 KB Download Research on Classroom Summative Assessment in.sagepub.com Details File Format PDF Size: 78 KB Download Authentic Summative Assessment unco.edu Details File Format PDF Size: 76 KB Download Reading Comprehension Summative Assessment

  21. (PDF) Summative Assessment (Wing Institute Original Paper

    Summative assessment is a form of appraisal that occurs at the end of an instructional unit or at a specific point in time, such as the end of the school year. It evaluates mastery of learning and offers information on what students know and do not know. Frequently, summative assessment consists of evaluation tools designed to measure student ...

  22. Summative Assessments In Early Childhood

    Examples Of Summative Assessment. The following provides a summary of learning under each of the EYLF Learning Outcomes, that forms the Summative Assessment: A summative assessment builds a picture of the child progress over time, through the evidence you have collected. The Learning Outcomes provides key reference points in which a child's ...

  23. (PDF) Synergizing Formative & Summative Assessment of Presentation

    The report into the formative use of summative assessment describes the processes and instruments used in this experiment in assessment synergy. Assessment information and data from five students in the class provide actual assessment examples to help delineate the processes described.