Does improving formative assessment raise standards?
• Is there room for improvement in formative assessment practice(s)? • Are there ways to improve formative assessment practices(s)? Black and Wiliam searched through journals dating back nine years and synthesized 250 related articles. As a result of their meta-analysis, the answers to their three questions were clearly YES! YES! YES! What follows is a summary of their findings as reported in Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through Classroom Assessment (1998). 1. Does improving formative assessment raise standards? YES! The research clearly showed that improving formative assessment practices raised students achievement levels. Further, many of the studies reached the important conclusion that improved formative assessment practice helps low achievers more than other students and so reduces the range of achievement while raising overall achievement. The researchers concluded that they know of no other way of raising student achievement for which such a strong case can be made.
