Formative Assessment in Focus: An Exploration of Theory and Practice

We sought to understand how both scholars and practitioners conceptualized formative assessment. First, we conducted an umbrella review of scholar’s definitions of formative assessment, as a proxy to understand how formative assessment is presented to preservice teachers in coursework. Then we engaged in an inquiry community with three university-based student teaching supervisors (supervisors) to understand how they conceptualized formative assessment, and the extent to which their conceptualizations mirrored the scholarly definitions. We organized our findings across five parameters (i.e., who, why, what, when, how) of formative assessment. While supervisors defined formative assessment along some of these parameters, their conceptualizations of formative assessment differed in two ways. There was variability in the supervisors understanding of what should be assessed with formative assessment and they emphasized the importance of accountability and validity in formative assessment. When synthesized, these findings provide a comprehensive framework for teacher educators.