ES evaluación sumativa / CAT avaluació sumativa / FR évaluation sommative / DE summative Bewertung

Summative assessment aims to determine the degree to which a student has met the goals set for a relatively broad area or stage. Therefore, it is usually performed at the end of a teaching-learning process, and it is linked to the decisions bearing on student promotion, qualification, or graduation. It is closely tied to achievement assessment.

A conception of assessment as communication and, therefore, as a learning activity, with a regulating, communicative, formative function, is compatible with final, certificating, summative assessment (Stobart 2008, Bennett 2011 and 2015). On the one hand, the feedback provided students during the teaching-learning process contributes to their achieving better results at the end of this process. On the other hand, final or summative assessment is also formative for students, since it informs them about their preparation at the beginning of a new educational process or stage. 

References

• Bennett, Randy E. (2015). “The Changing Nature of Educational Assessment”. Review of Research in Education, 39, 370-407.
• Eres Fernández, Gretel y Rádis Baptista, Lívia M. T. (2010). La enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras y la evaluación. Madrid: Arco Libros.
• Figueras Casanovas, Neus y Puig Soler, Fuensanta (2013). Pautas para la evaluación del español como lengua extranjera. Madrid: Edinumen.
• Stobart, Gordon (2008). Testing Times: The Uses and Abuses of Assessment. Abingdon: Routledge.