What is a summative assessment?
Summative evaluation is an evaluation conducted at the end of a training program. It evaluates the overall effectiveness of the training program and whether the learning objectives and goals of the learning initiative were achieved. It also serves as a measure of the learner’s success or failure in the program and is used to provide a grade, score, etc.
Based on the information gathered from the summative evaluation, important decisions about the training program are made, such as:
- Future funding and budget for the program
- Potential improvements to program training methods and delivery
- Potential improvements regarding which aspects of the program are evaluated
- Curriculum Changes
Therefore, summative evaluation is very important for training and development and serves a necessary function for the overall success and effectiveness of a training program.
Types of summative evaluation
Types of summative evaluation
Because summative assessments have different purposes, they can be categorized into one or more types. Common types include:
- Outcome assessment: Outcome evaluation measures the tangible results of the project, such as behavior change, knowledge gained, or attitudinal change.
- Impact assessment: Impact evaluation assesses the broader effects that a learning intervention has on an organization, sector, community, etc.
- Cost-benefit assessment: Cost-benefit evaluation seeks to determine whether the benefits of a program justify, compensate, or outweigh the costs.
Summative evaluation method
There are many different ways to conduct a summative evaluation. The strategy you choose will depend on the size of your sample, the type of program, and the type of information you want to collect.
- Standardized Testing: These tests are intended to assess learners against certain pre-set performance criteria, i.e. they follow predetermined standards. Standardized tests are fair and objective, meaning that each student’s answers are scored based on the same criteria.
- investigation: Surveys are multiple choice questionnaires to gather information about learners’ beliefs, attitudes, and opinions towards your course. They are a useful tool to measure parameters like engagement, experience, impressions, etc.
- questionnaire: Questionnaires are similar to surveys but are better suited to testing learners’ knowledge acquisition.
- presentation: Presentations require learners to research a topic and present it to an audience, either individually or in a group. Presentations allow learners to learn more about the intricacies and applications of a subject. Furthermore, presentations are a good way to assess learners’ understanding of a topic and are an effective summative assessment strategy.
- Focus Group Interview: A focus group interview is a discussion aimed at gathering feedback and experiences from audiences and stakeholders regarding a learning program. Focus groups provide important information such as how a learning program is received and experienced by users, what aspects of the program are satisfactory or unsatisfactory for learners, etc.
- project: Finally, projects serve as a form of summative assessment. Projects include a set of tasks and activities that learners must complete to achieve a final, tangible outcome. Projects promote the application of knowledge and act as a benchmark to measure whether learners have acquired practical skills from the training program.
Benefits of summative evaluation
Now that we know what summative assessment is and how it can be conducted, let’s look at its benefits.
Summative assessment is a common practice used as a reminder at the end of a learning initiative. As a pillar of learning and development, summative assessment has the following benefits:
- Generate feedback for learners: In summative assessment, learners
- Identify areas for improvement: Summative evaluations help you identify aspects of your training program that need improvement. This could be about delivery, content, hardware and software requirements, design, accessibility, etc.
- Enables data-driven decision-making: Summative assessments provide robust data about learning programs and enable data-driven decision-making, ensuring every decision is strategic and meaningful improvement and troubleshooting.
- Measuring impact: Without summative evaluation, it is difficult to quantify and identify the impact of a learning program. This can lead to undesirable outcomes such as maintaining an inefficient status quo, offering programs that do not achieve the desired outcomes, and inefficient allocation of resources to different programs. Impact also gives credibility to a program, which ultimately increases its value in the eyes of learners, leading to more effective and engaged learning.
- Increased accountability and transparency: Regular evaluation of learning programs increases the sense of accountability of learners and project members. It also increases transparency of processes and resource use, ensuring that all supplies are being used to their full potential.
Informing policy: Summative assessment also plays a role in informing learning policy by providing important information about what is and isn’t working, learner needs, and so on.
Limitations of summative evaluation
Although summative evaluation is necessary and useful, it does have some limitations that must be considered and mitigated wherever possible.
- Can cause stress and anxiety: Summative assessments can be demotivating for some learners due to the stress and anxiety of the final grade. Moreover, the higher the stakes, the greater the stress and anxiety may be. These emotions and mental states can hinder and reduce the effectiveness of the learning program.
- It can limit your creativity: Standardized testing and other assessment methods can limit learners’ creativity in exploring the limits of the knowledge and skills they have acquired through their studies. This can impact the overall learning design and make the learning experience less engaging.
- Inaccurate measurement of learning: If not carefully designed, summative assessments may measure the wrong aspects of learning and ultimately defeat the purpose of assessment.
Summative assessment in e-learning
Summative assessment is widely used in classrooms and other face-to-face learning settings, but it can easily be adapted for e-learning. Let’s look at some ways this can be done.
- End-of-Lesson Quiz: One of the most common ways to implement summative assessment in eLearning is through an end-of-lesson quiz.
- project: You can also assign learners individual or group projects to submit at the end of the program through a portal or LMS.
- presentation: It is also possible to have presentations in your eLearning courses. Presentations can be pre-recorded submissions by learners or live presentations in a virtual classroom via a video conferencing platform.
- investigation: Surveys are another great tool for conducting summative assessments in an e-learning environment.
Typically, a combination of approaches is used to make the summative assessment as thorough as possible. There are many other summative assessment approaches that can be used. As mentioned above, it is important to choose the right strategy so that the data collected provides valuable insight into your program of study.
Conclusion
Summative assessment is an important part of the life cycle of a learning program and plays a key role in measuring impact and improving. Summative assessment has many benefits but needs to be used strategically to get the most out of it.
Infographic
Six Summative Evaluation Methods
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is meant by summative evaluation?
A summative evaluation is an evaluation that occurs at the end of a training program. It evaluates the overall effectiveness of the training program and whether the learning objectives and goals of the learning initiative were achieved.
What is an example of summative evaluation?
Standardized tests are a common example of summative assessment.
