Difference between Summative and Formative Evaluation

Difference between Summative and Formative Evaluation

Summative evaluation refers to the assessment of worth whileness of the instructional programme which has already been completed, while formative evaluation refers to the assessment or worth of the instructional programme which is still going on and can still be modified. 

A formative evaluator is a partisan of the instructional sequence and does everything to make teaching-learning better. A summative evaluator is an uncommitted non-partisan person who is to pass judgment on an instructional endeavour.

A summative evaluator gathers information and judges the merit of overall instructional sequence to adapt that sequence. The audience of summative evaluation is the consumer of the instructional programme in contrast to the formative evaluator whose audience is the designer and the developer of the program.

Summative evaluation, judgmental in nature. Its purpose is to appraise the teaching learning process and to distinguish it from formative evaluation. It is an end of the course activity concerned with assessment of the larger instructional objectives of a course or a substantial chunk of the course.

Formative evaluation is developmental, not judgmental in nature. Its purpose is to improve students learning and instruction. Therefore, its major function is feedback to the teacher and student to locate strengths and weaknesses in the teaching-learning process in order to improve it.

Summative evaluation is thus a judgmental activity focused on certification of students achievement But formative evaluation is a means of determining what the pupils have mastered and what is still to be mastered, thereby indicating the basis for improvement of students learning.

ACHIEVEMENT TEST

1. Teachers teach and help the learners to learn. The learning that takes place is assessed or evaluated not only for the learner's benefit but also for the teacher to evaluate his /her own work. At the end of a lesson or a group of

lessons, the teacher needs to get feedback on what the learner has achieved, as a result of the teacher's efforts and also, indirectly to assess his/her own achievement as a teacher. This feedback comes with the help of a tool, generally an achievement test. An achievement test is designed to evaluate a unit during the teaching-learning process.

PURPOSE OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

Achievement tests are universally used in the classroom mainly for the following purposes :

1. To measure whether students possess the pre-requisite skills needed to succeed in any unit or whether the students have achieved the objective of the planned instruction.

2. To monitor students' learning and to provide ongoing feedback to both students and teachers during the teaching-learning process.

3. To identify the students' learning difficulties- whether persistent or recurring.

4. .To assign grades.