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All the information, slides, links, and resources for my 2025 teacher convention presentations are included on this website.
I am available to work with school staff groups or leadership groups both in-person and virtually on the topics shown on this website. Contact me at cloke.shelly@gmail.com for prices and availability.
RESEARCH: How do grades disrupt learning?
How does grade reporting and formative feedback impact student learning?
Summative and Formative at odds...
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Assessment serves two main purposes: giving feedback to students and teachers on the progress of classroom learning and judging to what extent learning has taken place. Because of this, there is tension between learning (using feedback to improve performance) and grading (accumulation of points). Since summative grading dominates the current North American assessment paradigm, the two are continually at odds (Yates & Jonston, 2017).
Summative is the new formative?
With the development online tools that provide continual access to student grades, grades are now serving a ongoing formative purpose rather than an indicator of performance on completed learning.
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No shortage of assessment resources?
There is an abundance of printed and digital publications on grading, yet surprisingly, much of it focuses on grading reform and very little on how these interventions impact students (Kirk, 2019; Van der Kleij et al., 2019).
RESEARCH
Research Question
The information presented on this website centers on the research question: What are the positive and negative impacts of assessment reporting on students?
Defining Key Terms
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In the field of education, assessment terms are often used interchangeably or have different meanings depending on their use. For clarity, in this review:
reporting refers to information a student receives about their performance which includes grades and points, but also comments and feedback,
a grade represents “a summary statement of student performance” (O'Connor, 2018, p. 2) and may also be referred to as summative grade,
summative assessment or evaluation comes at the end of a learning cycle and is focus on the tasks it measures.
Other terms associated with summative assessment are, norm-referenced, defined as a student’s performance compared to standard scale like a percentage grade (Henderson, 2020), ego-involving feedback which is an indicator that informs the student of their performance (Butler & Nisan, 1986; Butler, 1988), ‘Assessment of Learning’ (Davies, 2007), and finally, product feedback which indicates the quality of performance on an assessment but not on the process needed to improve (Daniels & Balut, 2019).
formative feedback will refer to information that informs the student on the process or how to improve performance (Popham, 2009); in other words, information in various forms “with the purpose of shaping the perception, cognition, or action of the learner” (Shute, 2008. p. 175);
formative assessment can also be referred to as feedback (Black & Wiliam, 2003), criterion-referenced feedback where performance is measured according to learning criteria (Henderson, 2020), ‘Assessment for Learning’ (Davies, 2007), task-oriented feedback (Butler & Nisan, 1986; Butler, 1988) and process feedback (Daniels and Balut, 2019).
METHODOLOGY
Approach and Scope
A qualitative methodology was used to produce a stand-alone literature review that deepened understanding of summative and formative assessment practices, as well as allowing a critical reflection of teachers’ assessment practices, including my own (Gall et al., 2009). The literature search assumed an interpretive stance because the author selected what research was included and how it was grouped and organized, thus creating knowledge subjectively at the individual level.
Method
The literature review approach was traditional, with broad view of the current state of knowledge on summative and formative assessment, grading and reporting practices, feedback and feedback uptake studies, as well as what effect summative and formative assessment practices have on student learning, motivation, and self-concept from an educational standpoint. This review incorporates foundational and current research from peer-reviewed articles, dissertations, literature and scoping reviews, as well as mainstream educational websites and magazines. The search cast a broad scope over English language articles of a wide range of student populations (from elementary to post-secondary), both in North America and internationally in, Sweden, New Zealand, and Tanzania.
Process
Search
Literature was gathered by using the keyword search terms of grading, reporting, impact, learning and students in the University of Calgary Library search engine, as well as research guides and databases such as ProQuest and ERIC (Education Resources Center). Reference sections in suitable articles were searched for foundational and seminal articles. Dissertations provided a wealth of references that were included in the search.
Organize and Synthesize
Despite the availability of digital resources to organize articles, a more traditional approach of printing articles and manually highlighting key ideas was preferred. After analyzing articles, cue cards (or recipe cards) were used to condense the information to author, title, year, key findings, methods and participants. The cards made it easy to sort the articles into themes.
Summary
This website is based on a research literature review on the impacts of assessment reporting on students. The approach cast a broad scope in types of literature reviewed, age and grade level of participants and both national and international samples. Two themes emerged from the search, analysis, and synthesis of the literature: summative grading can negatively impact students and formative feedback practices can benefit and support student learning.
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