Formative Assessment

Assessment & Evaluation

Assessment conducted during the learning process to monitor progress and provide feedback that improves ongoing teaching and learning.

Examples include in-class quizzes, drafts, discussions and practice problems. Formative assessment is low-stakes and diagnostic, in contrast to summative assessment, which evaluates learning at the end of a period.

Related Terms
Summative Assessment
Assessment conducted at the end of an instructional period to evaluate and certify what a student has learned, typically resulting in a grade or qualification.
Continuous Assessment
An approach in which a student's learning is assessed repeatedly throughout a course rather than only through a single final examination.
Assessment
The process of measuring student learning through tests, projects or other evidence.
Academic Integrity
Honest and ethical conduct in scholarship, including avoiding plagiarism, cheating and fabrication.
Adaptive Testing
An exam that adjusts question difficulty in real time based on the test-taker's previous answers.