To what extent can assessment evidence collected for a summative purpose be used for formative purposes? And can evidence collected formatively be used summatively? Such questions are at the heart of issues surrounding the choice of language assessments in tertiary education.
Plans for an exit proficiency test of English for graduating students, a test with a clear summative purpose of certifying graduating students’ proficiency levels in English, need to include considerations of how the assessment might serve the purpose of supporting student learning. Without such considerations, the assessment is unlikely to lead to positive washback on teaching and learning where students are actively engaged in improving their own learning. A summative test such as this one is likely to be limited in its suitability for formative use by the frequency and the nature of the tests or tasks. Even a system of assessment which aimed to ‘track’ students with repeated instances of summative assessment across occasions is likely to run into the problem of the assessment tasks not being fully consistent with good formative practices. The ability for assessment with a summative purpose to be used formatively would therefore appear to be limited.
A fundamental change in the nature of assessment would be needed if it is to be designed to serve both formative and summative purposes from the start. Rather than use summative assessments formatively, it would appear better to use formative assessments summatively. Both formative and summative purposes might be served by evidence collected during the regular teaching of a curriculum, provided that a distinction is made between the evidence and the interpretation of evidence (Harlen, 2012). Moving from day-to-day learning tasks to a summary of achievement in terms of grades requires assurance that a) the evidence used is valid and adequately reflects learning goals, and b) that judgements are reliable. Since formative use of evidence depends on teachers’ judgements, additional quality assurance procedures will be needed when the information is used for a summative purpose.
With quality assurance in place, it could be argued that formative assessment can fulfil the purposes of summative assessment. The reverse appears not to be true, however, as summative assessment rarely allows for principles of formative assessment to be fulfilled. The fact that formative assessment appears able to fulfil some or most of the purposes of summative assessment, albeit with extra quality assurance and other modifications, suggests that it is possible to blur the distinction between formative and summative assessment. The relationship between formative and summative assessment might be better described as a dimension rather than a dichotomy.
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