1. The concepts involved in Assessment for Learning

1. The concepts involved in Assessment for Learning
In language teaching, assessment is a term that encompasses complex concepts related to making quantitative and/or qualitative judgements about learning processes and their outcomes (Scriven, 1967). Drummond (2003) conceptualises the process of assessment in terms of teachers gathering and interpreting evidence of students’ learning and usingthat knowledge to make decisions. It is argued that the purposes of such decisions are of crucial importance in determining the purpose and function of assessment and may impact on the choice of assessment methods. This is supported by James (2013), who emphasises that fitness for purpose is an overarching principle that should guide all assessment practices.
To satisfy the fitness for purpose condition, it is crucial to consider the functions of assessment. A distinction is commonly drawn between summative and formative functions of assessment. Typically, summative assessment (SA) is conducted periodically to measure learners’ progress (Stoynoff, 2012). Its outcomes are often reported quantitatively, as a percentage or a grade, with reference to an explicit set of attainment criteria. This form of assessment is frequently contrasted with formative assessment (FA), which is viewed as a less formal, on-going, classroom based process that seeks to gather data demonstrating students’ understanding and gaps in their knowledge and uses those insights to move learning forward (Stoynoff, 2012).
Formative functions of assessment were originally explored in the 1960s by Scriven (1967), whose notion of the formative evaluation of teaching programmes focused on how to improve in the future in contrast to summative assessment which had a perspective on what had passed. Bloom (1984) used the term formative with reference to students. He investigated on-going formative assessment in one-to-one tutoring which allowed the tutor to identify the tutee’s errors, inform the learner about them (feedback) and provide immediate intervention to rectify the errors (correctives). His understanding of FA implied a degree of integrating the assessment tasks with the teaching process andemphasised the purpose of formative assessment as furthering learning. The majority of research on formative assessment was conducted in 1980s and 1990s. During that time the term AfL was coined to emphasise the contribution that assessment is expected tomake to the learning processes (Gipps, 1994).
More importantly, the emergence of the term AfL demonstrated a shift in thinking about assessment and learning. In language assessment, the mid-1990s witnessed developments in performance-based (Upshur & Turner, 1995) and interactional approaches to assessment (Bachman, 2007). Carless, Joughin & Liu (2006) noticed that there was a shift from understanding assessment as measuring students’ performance towards recognising the influence of assessment on teaching and learning. Notably, Prodromou (1995) discussed assessment practices that had negative backwash (now more commonly referred to as washback) in FLL. These included limiting response time for test takers, assessment methods that often involved single, discrete-point testing with limited context, which valued form over content and accuracy over language development as well as failure to align assessment procedures with teaching pedagogy. These three areas are central to the shift from psychometric testing towards more communicative and context sensitive approaches to assessment. From the 1990s assessment procedures increasingly came to account for the characteristics of learners, tasks, contexts as well as the consequences of assessment and the need to integrate it with the teaching and learning process (Stoynoff, 2012).
It is important to note that the summative and formative functions of assessment can be implemented through a myriad of assessment methods but the functions themselves are not equivalent to methods. For example, theoretically, summative tests may be used for formative purposes. However, Klenowski (2011) warned against the frequent
implementation of summative tests to replace embedded classroom practices arguing that such implementation is not AfL. Harlen (2005) argued convincingly that simplistic interpretations of formative (as ‘mini’ summative) and summative (as an aggregation of formative) assessment in policy documents in England and Scotland led to teachers’ misunderstanding of the formative function of assessment. Harlen (ibid.) claimed that since formative assessment is most commonly conducted by teachers in classrooms, the majority of teacher and classroom-based assessment tends to be erroneously labelled as formative, regardless of its actual function. She argued that, as a result, there is a lack of genuine formative assessment in schools and that this type of assessment is especially important for learning with understanding: i.e. deep learning. A similar critique of (mis)interpreting AfL and a call for a more genuine AfL was presented by Swaffield
(2011)
Different functions of assessment, viz. bureaucratic, pedagogic and learning, were proposed by Rea-Dickins (2001). The bureaucratic function includes externally required assessment used, for example, for reporting purposes. The latter two are internal to the school. The distinction that Rea-Dickins made between pedagogic and learning functions is one that merits further elaboration in the context of the present study. Assessment used for pedagogic purposes informs decisions made by professionals responsible for planning and delivering teaching. The learning function is distinct from the pedagogic one in that it focuses on learning through assessment and on the learner’s role in that process. Rea-Dickins (ibid.) argues that the learning function of assessment encourages learners to become engaged in the process of learning and facilitates metacognitive reflection through developing learners’ awareness, understanding and knowledge. This resonates with Harlen’s (2005) claims about the development of deep learning. Evidently, the conceptualisation of learning seems an important component of the discussion on assessment. Hence, the following section focuses on the relationship between learning and assessment.