Formative assessment approach: its e-learning implementation and effects

Abstract

Innovation in assessment is becoming a natural choice in a tech- savvy world with the advent of the Internet. First, the purpose of this paper was to get more insight into the implementation of formative assessment through the e-learning tool in our University. The idea was to implement a series of weekly or fortnightly tests through the e-learning tool that supports automated feedback as a follow-up. The students’ perceptions on the formative assessment and its online test implementation were invited. Secondly, we wanted to study the effects of formative assessment on students. Two categories of subjects are discussed here. Category 1 is where the internal assessment was done as a fair combination of formative assessments and a summative assessment. Category 2 is where the emphasis was on summative assessments through case studies and assignments. An analysis using course work grades and overall grades reveals that there are slight differences between the two categories. It is seen that there is a positive influence on students’ attitudes in the effect of formative assessments, as reflected in the overall grades of Category 1 students.