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Empowering Instructors | Supporting Excellence

Formative Assessment

Assessing student progress during learning to adjust and improve instruction.

On this page:

The Importance of Formative Assessment

Assessment is formative when:

  • Evidence is gathered about student achievement or understanding.
  • The information allows the instructor or learner to alter future instructional steps.
  • It is done to improve learning outcomes (Black & Wiliam, 2009).

It is the use of the assessment that makes it formative. If evidence of student achievement is not used to adapt instruction or to give feedback to students to improve their learning, it is summative. Formative assessments are a natural part of the scaffolding process, and provide the following benefits:

Instructor Benefits

  • Helps recognize student strengths and knowledge or skill gaps to determine level of scaffolding needed.
  • Used to adapt instruction and reflect on instructional practices.
  • Allows for opportunities to give feedback and guide learning.

Student Benefits

  • Determines level of understanding or skill development.
  • Identifies areas to review and study.
  • Promotes self-regulating strategies.
  • Allows for opportunities to receive feedback and guidance.

Therefore, use formative assessments to:

  • Check for understanding.
  • Gauge progress toward learning outcomes.
  • Provide students with support and guidance.
  • Pace instruction and adjust as needed.

Previous studies, and large meta-analyses that gather the findings from these studies have shown large effects on student learning gains, equivalent of 1 to 2 letter grades, when teachers use formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998; 2006; Hattie, 2008). It should be noted that there are challenges to the accuracy of research on formative assessment, with the most notable criticisms being vague and often circular definitions of what constitutes formative assessment, poor research design of many studies, and no agreed upon methods or terminology for formative assessment (Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009; Kingston & Nash, 2011). These are issues related to how people have studied formative assessment and not formative assessment itself.

Using Formative Assessment in Your Course

Examples of Formative Assessment

The following examples of assessment can be used formatively to assess student achievement and alter teaching and learning throughout your course.

  • Homework
  • Graphic organizers
  • Exit slips
  • Journal entries
  • Summaries
  • Observations
  • Reflections
  • Performance tasks
  • Minute papers
  • Worksheets
  • Peer assessments
  • Group assignments
  • Diagrams
  • Discussions
  • Rubrics
  • Comprehension questions
  • Concept maps
  • Video responses
  • Checklists
  • Oral responses

Activities, assignments and assessments can all be utilized as formative approaches if they are used to give instructors and students feedback to alter teaching and learning. For feedback to your students to be effective it must be timely, relevant and caring.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo and Cross, 1993) are formative assessments that are meant to be quick and flexible formative assessments. The following sites have compiled a variety of examples:

Example CATs for Large Classes

15 CATs suitable for use with large, lecture-style classes.

50 CATs from Angelo & Cross (1993)

CATs to assess learners’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, self-awareness and reactions to instruction; List organized by level of Bloom’s taxonomy that the set of CATs target.

CATs to get Feedback on Student Learning (Michigan)

1-page chart with selected CATs examples – names, descriptions, amount of time (prep & in-class) required for each.

Next Steps

When you are done choosing or creating formative assessments continue:

Designing assessments

or move on to:

Building assessments
Types of summative assessment and formative assessment

Provides an overview of both assessment types.

Online Formative Assessments in Higher Education: Its Pros and Cons

Through research and analysis this article emphasizes the important of why formative assessments should be used.

Formative assessment techniques

10 Formative Assessments you can Perform in 90 seconds

An in-depth explanation and example(s) of 10 easy & quick-to-administer formative assessments.

56 Different ways to gather evidence of student achievement

Different formative assessment strategies that can be easily integrated into your course to check for student understanding.

20 Formative Assessment Examples to Use in Your College Classroom

Formative assessment examples in higher education.

7 Smart Ways to Do Formative Assessment (Edutopia)

Formative assessment strategies and techniques you can integrate into your course design.

Eleven Alternative Assessments for a Blended Synchronous Learning Environment

Creative alternative assessments to build engagement in your course and check for student understanding.

CATs resources

FAQ on CATs (Johns Hopkins)

What are CATs, benefits (to student and faculty), when, how, and how often to use, 10 in-depth examples.

A Conceptual Model for CATs in the Online Classroom (Bergquist & Holbeck, 2014)

Brief article establishing a conceptual model for the use of CATs in an online classroom.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT) page (GWU)

What are CATs, why should you use them, examples.

Muddiest Point Example (Northern Illinois University)

Sample CAT to quickly do with your students after lesson that assesses confusing “muddy” points, unanswered questions and helpful/not helpful techniques, examples, etc.

CATs examples (University of Texas, Austin)

Description, impacts (students & instructors), 7 characteristics of CATs, examples.

Sample Exit Tickets (Brown University)

Example of a popular, broadly-applicable CAT – “exit tickets.”

For further information about active learning, see the following readings:

  • Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. Second Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5(1), 7–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969595980050102
  • Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2006). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. London, England: Granada Learning.
  • Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 5–31.
  • Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
  • Dunn, K. E., & Mulvenon, S. W. (2009). A critical review of research on formative assessment: The limited scientific evidence of the impact of formative assessment in education. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 14(7), 1–11.
  • Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Karns, K., Hamlett, C. L., Katzaroff, M., & Dutka, S. (1997). Effects of task-focused goals on low-achieving students with and without learning disabilities. American Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 513-543.
  • Hattie, J. (2008). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Kingston, N., & Nash, B. (2011). Formative assessment: A meta-analysis and a call for research. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 30(4), 28–37.
  • Moss, C. M., & Brookhart, S. M. (2010). Advancing formative assessment in every classroom: A guide for instructional leaders. ASCD.
  • Suskie, L. (2009). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment. Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104.
  • Wiliam, D., & Thompson, M. (2017). Integrating assessment with learning: what will it take to make it work? In C. A. Dwyer (Ed.), The Future of Assessment: Shaping Teaching and Learning (pp. 53–82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.