DRAFT © King’s College London 1 16/4/03 Formative and Summative Assessment : Can They Serve Learning Together ? Paul Black with the King’s College London Assessment for Learning Group (Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall, Dylan Wiliam) Paper presented at AERA Chicago 23 April 2003 SIG Classroom Assessment Meeting 52.028 Abstract The first part of this paper presents an account of how we developed formative assessment practices with a group of 36 teachers. This is then complemented by analysis of the successful outcomes in the light of learning principles, of changes in the roles of teachers and pupils in the task of learning, and of effects on the self-esteem and motivation of pupils. The second part then explores the formative–summative interface starting with an account of how the project’s teachers struggled to reconcile their improved formative assessment with the pressures of high-stakes summative testing. The issues are then explored more generally by consideration of the systemic problems that would be raised by any attempts to align practice which could serve both the formative and the summative purposes. Evidence for formative In 1998 we published a review, summarising the results from over 250 articles by researchers from several countries, which established that there was a strong body of evidence to support a claim that formative assessment practices can raise standards (Black & Wiliam, 1998a). At the same time, the published evidence also showed that such practices were only weakly developed in most classrooms: in fact the assessment methods that teachers use are not effective in promoting good learning. In particular, their marking and grading practices tend to emphasise competition rather than personal improvement. However, the published research could not provide recipes for improvement: the reported surveys and experiments lacked the detail that would enable teachers to implement the practices in classrooms. In response to this situation, the King’s team took two steps. The first was to publicise the findings in a 20-page booklet Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998b). We organised a press launch and thereby secured publicity in the media. To date over 20000 copies have been sold and the work is widely quoted. Thus it was clear that teachers were interested in what we had to say. Our second step was to develop the practical implementation of the ideas. We obtained agreement to collaborate with us from six schools who taught pupils in the age range 11 to 18 years: each school selected two science and two mathematics teachers willing to take on the risks and extra work involved. In second year of the project we added two teachers of English, from each of same schools, so that in all 36 teachers have been involved. They were supported by staff from their local (district) education authorities.