Formative assessment in mathematics:opportunities and challenges

Dylan Wiliam (@dylanwiliam)

Seminar at Teachers College, Columbia UniversityOctober 2013

A research agenda for formative assessment

Definitional issues Domain-specificity issues Effectiveness issues Communication issues Implementation issues Adoption issues

Definitional issues

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The evidence base for formative assessment

Fuchs & Fuchs (1986) Natriello (1987) Crooks (1988) Bangert-Drowns, et al. (1991) Dempster (1991, 1992) Elshout-Mohr (1994) Kluger & DeNisi (1996) Black & Wiliam (1998)

Nyquist (2003) Brookhart (2004) Allal & Lopez (2005) Köller (2005) Brookhart (2007) Wiliam (2007) Hattie & Timperley (2007) Shute (2008)

Definitions of formative assessment

We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers—and by their students in assessing themselves—that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs” (Black & Wiliam, 1998 p. 140)

“the process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning” (Cowie & Bell, 1999 p. 32)

“assessment carried out during the instructional process for the purpose of improving teaching or learning” (Shepard et al., 2005 p. 275)

“Formative assessment refers to frequent, interactive assessments of students’ progress and understanding to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately” (Looney, 2005, p. 21)

“A formative assessment is a tool that teachers use to measure student grasp of specific topics and skills they are teaching. It’s a ‘midstream’ tool to identify specific student misconceptions and mistakes while the material is being taught” (Kahl, 2005 p. 11)

“Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (Assessment Reform Group, 2002 pp. 2-3)

“Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence. An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes “formative assessment” when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs.” (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004 p. 10)

Theoretical questions8

Need for clear definitions So that research outcomes are commensurable

Theorization and definition Possible variables

Category (instruments, outcomes, functions) Beneficiaries (teachers, learners) Timescale (months, weeks, days, hours, minutes) Consequences (outcomes, instruction, decisions) Theory of action (what gets formed?)

Formative assessment: a new definition

“An assessment functions formatively to the extent that evidence about student achievement elicited by the assessment is interpreted and used, by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions that would have been taken in the absence of that evidence.”

Unpacking formative assessment

Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there

Teacher

Peer

Learner

Clarifying, sharing and

understanding learning

intentions

Engineering effective discussions, tasks, and

activities that elicit evidence of learning

Providing feedback that

moves learners forward

Activating students as learningresources for one another

Activating students as ownersof their own learning

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Definitional issues: potential research

How can formative assessment be defined and what are the consequences of different definitions, for psychometrics, for communication, and for adoption?

Domain specificity issues

Pedagogy and didactics

Some aspects of formative assessment are generic Some aspects of formative assessment are

domain-specific There is a continuing debate about what aspects of

formative assessment are generic (pedagogy) and which are domain-specific (didactics)

Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions

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A standard middle school math problem…

Two farmers have adjoining fields with a common boundary that is not straight.

This is inconvenient for plowing. How can they divide the two

fields so that the boundaryis straight, but the twofields have thesame area asthey had before?

How many rectangles?

Engineering effective discussions, activities, and classroom tasks that elicit evidence of learning

Questioning in math: Diagnosis

In which of these right-angled triangles is a2 + b2 = c2 ?

A a

c

b

C b

c

a

E c

b

a

B a

b

c

D b

a

c

F c

a

b

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Diagnostic item: medians

What is the median for the following data set?

38 74 22 44 96 22 19 53

a. 22b. 38 and 44c. 41d. 46e. 70f. 77g. This data set has no median

Diagnostic item: means

What can you say about the means of the following two data sets?

Set 1: 10 12 13 15Set 2: 10 12 13 15 0

A. The two sets have the same mean.B. The two sets have different means.C. It depends on whether you choose to count the zero.

Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Getting feedback right is hard

Response type Feedback indicates performance…

falls short of goal exceeds goal

Change behavior Increase effort Exert less effort

Change goal Reduce aspiration Increase aspiration

Abandon goal Decide goal is too hard Decide goal is too easy

Reject feedback Feedback is ignored Feedback is ignored

Activating students:as learning resources for one anotheras owners of their own learning

+/–/interesting: responses for “+”26

I got that ball-park estimates are supposed to be simple I know that you have to look at it and say “OK” I know that when I am adding the number I end up with must

be bigger than the one I started at I get most of the problems It was easy for me because on the first one it says 328 so I took

the 2 and made it a 12 I know that we would have to regroup I know how to do plus and minus because we have been doing

it for a long time I get it when you cross out a number and make it a new one I know that when you can’t – from both colomes you go to the

third colome and take that from it I know that when my answer is right the ball park

estimate is close to it

+/–/interesting: responses for “–”27

I am still a tiny bit confused about subtraction regrouping I am a little bit confused about ball park estimates I get confused because sometimes I don’t get the problem I am confused when you subtract really big numbers like

1,000 something I’m still a little bit confused about regrouping Minus is confusing when you have to regroup twice Minus is a little bit hard when you have to regroup I don’t understand when you borrow which colome you

borrow from when both are 0 I am still confused about showing what I did to solve the

problem I am a little confused about when you need to subtract

+/–/interesting: responses for “interesting”28

Carrying the number over to the next number It’s interesting how some people go to the nearest hundred

while some go to the nearest ten It’s interesting how some have to regroup twice It’s pretty interesting about how you have to work really hard I am interested in borrowing because I didn’t just get it yet. I

want to really get to know it I find it weird that you could just keep going from colome to

colome when you need to borrow On the ball park estimate it is easy but sometimes hard I really think that regrouping is pretty amazing It is cool how addition and subtraction regrouping is just

moving numbers and you could get it right easily

Domain-specificity issues: potential research

How much domain-specific knowledge does a teacher need in order to be able to implement high-quality formative assessment routines consistently?

Can domain-specific formative assessment tools be independent of a particular curriculum?

The effectiveness issue

Effects of formative assessment

Source Effect sizeKluger & DeNisi (1996) 0.41Black &Wiliam (1998) 0.4 to 0.7Wiliam et al., (2004) 0.32Hattie & Timperley (2007) 0.96Shute (2008) 0.4 to 0.8

Standardized effect size: differences in means, measured in population standard deviations

Understanding meta-analysis:“I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” (Goldacre, 2008)

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Understanding meta-analysis33

A technique for aggregating results from different studies by converting empirical results to a common measure (usually effect size)

Standardized effect size is defined as:

Problems with meta-analysis The “file drawer” problem Variation in population variability Selection of studies Sensitivity of outcome measures

The “file drawer” problem

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The importance of statistical power

The statistical power of an experiment is the probability that the experiment will yield an effect that is large enough to be statistically significant.

In single-level designs, power depends on significance level set magnitude of effect size of experiment

The power of most social studies experiments is low Psychology: 0.4 (Sedlmeier & Gigerenzer, 1989) Neuroscience: 0.2 (Burton et al., 2013) Education: 0.4

Only lucky experiments get published…

Variation in variability

Annual growth in achievement, by age37

Bloom, Hill, Black, and Lipsey (2008)

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 160.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

Age

annu

al g

row

th (S

Ds)

A 50% increase in the rate of learning for six-year-olds is equivalent to an effect size of 0.76 A 50% increase in the

rate of learning for 15-year-olds is equivalent to an effect size of 0.1

Variation in variability38

Studies with younger children will produce larger effect size estimates

Studies with restricted populations (e.g., children with special needs, gifted students) will produce larger effect size estimates

Selection of studies

Feedback in STEM subjects40

Review of 9000 papers on feedback in mathematics, science and technology

Only 238 papers retained Background papers 24 Descriptive papers 79 Qualitative papers 24 Quantitative papers 111

Mathematics 60 Science 35 Technology 16

Ruiz-Primo and Li (2013)

Classification of feedback studies41

1. Who provided the feedback (teacher, peer, self, or technology-based)?2. How was the feedback delivered (individual, small group, or whole

class)?3. What was the role of the student in the feedback (provider or

receiver)?4. What was the focus of the feedback (e.g., product, process, self-

regulation for cognitive feedback; or goal orientation, self-efficacy for affective feedback)

5. On what was the feedback based (student product or process)?6. What type of feedback was provided (evaluative, descriptive, or

holistic)?7. How was feedback provided or presented (written, video, oral, or

video)?8. What was the referent of feedback (self, others, or mastery criteria)?9. How, and how often was feedback given in the study (one time or

multiple times; with or without pedagogical use)?

Main findings42

Characteristic of studies included Maths Science

Feedback treatment is a single event lasting minutes 85% 72%

Reliability of outcome measures 39% 63%

Validity of outcome measures 24% 3%

Dealing only or mainly with declarative knowledge 12% 36%

Schematic knowledge (e.g., knowing why) 9% 0%

Multiple feedback events in a week 14% 17%

Sensitivity to instruction

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Sensitivity of outcome measures

Distance of assessment from the curriculum Immediate

e.g., science journals, notebooks, and classroom tests Close

e.g., where an immediate assessment asked about number of pendulum swings in 15 seconds, a close assessment asks about the time taken for 10 swings

Proximal e.g., if an immediate assessment asked students to construct boats out of paper

cups, the proximal assessment would ask for an explanation of what makes bottles float

Distal e.g., where the assessment task is sampled from a different domain and where

the problem, procedures, materials and measurement methods differed from those used in the original activities

Remote standardized national achievement tests.

Ruiz-Primo, Shavelson, Hamilton, and Klein (2002)

Impact of sensitivity to instruction45

Effect size

Close Proximal

Effectiveness issues: potential research

Under what kind of conditions does the implementation of formative assessment practices in classrooms lead to student improvement?

What kinds of increases in the rate of student learning are possible?

Communication issues

Dissemination models

Gas-pump attendant FedEx IKEA Sherpa Gardener PhD supervisor

So much for the easy bit…

Theorization

Advocacy

Products

Evidence of impact

Ideas

Communication issues: potential research

How can the vision of effective formative assessment practice be communicated to teachers?

Implementation issues

Hand hygiene in hospitalsStudy Focus Compliance rate

Preston, Larson, & Stamm (1981) Open ward 16%

ICU 30%

Albert & Condie (1981) ICU 28% to 41%

Larson (1983) All wards 45%

Donowitz (1987) Pediatric ICU 30%

Graham (1990) ICU 32%

Dubbert (1990) ICU 81%

Pettinger & Nettleman (1991) Surgical ICU 51%

Larson, et al. (1992) Neonatal ICU 29%

Doebbeling, et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Zimakoff, et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Meengs, et al. (1994) ER (Casualty) 32%

Pittet, Mourouga, & Perneger (1999) All wards 48%

ICU 36%

Pittet (2001)

Implementation issues

What are the practical obstacles to the introduction of formative assessment practices, and how can they be overcome?

What kinds of tools and supports can be provided for teachers, and what needs to be developed locally?

Adoption issues

The story so far…

1993-1998 Review of research on formative assessment

1998-2003 Face-to-face implementations with groups of teachers

2003-2008 Attempts to produce faithful implementations at scale

2008-2013 Creating the conditions for implementations at scale

Adoption issues: potential research

How can we support leaders in prioritizing changes that make the most difference to student outcomes?

Comments? Questions?

www.dylanwiliam.net