1. Embedded formative assessment: still more rhetoric than reality
National Conference of The Schools Network 2011
Dylan Wiliam

2. Origins and antecedents
Feedback (Wiener, 1948)
Developing range-finders for anti-aircraft guns
Effective action requires a closed system within which
Actions taken within the system are evaluated
Evaluation of the actions leads to modification of future actions
Two kinds of loops
Positive (bad: leads to collapse or explosive growth)
Negative (good: leads to stability)
“Feedback is information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter which is used to alter the gap in some way” (Ramaprasad, p. 4)
Feedback and instructional correctives (Bloom)

3. What’s wrong with the feedback metaphor?
In education
In engineering
Feedback is any information given to the student about their current performance
… or at best, information that compares current performance with desired performance.
Much rarer is information that can be used by learners to improve
That’s just data
That’s just a thermostat
That’s a feedback system

4. Feedback has complex effects
264 low and high ability grade 6 students in 12 classes in 4 schools; analysis of 132 students at top and bottom of each class
Same teaching, same aims, same teachers, same classwork
Three kinds of feedback: scores, comments, scores+comments
Achievement
Attitude
Scores
no gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers: negative
Comments
30% gain
Low scorers : positive
Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol.,

5. High scorers : positive
Responses
Achievement
Attitude
Scores
no gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers: negative
Comments
30% gain
Low scorers : positive
What do you think happened for the students given both scores and comments?
Gain: 30%; Attitude: all positive
Gain: 30%; Attitude: high scorers positive, low scorers negative
Gain: 0%; Attitude: all positive
Gain: 0%; Attitude: high scorers positive, low scorers negative
Something else

6. Students and grades

7. Feedback is not always effective
200 grade 5 and 6 Israeli students
Divergent thinking tasks
4 matched groups
experimental group 1 (EG1); comments
experimental group 2 (EG2); grades
experimental group 3 (EG3); praise
control group (CG); no feedback
Achievement
EG1>(EG2≈EG3≈CG)
Ego-involvement
(EG2≈EG3)>(EG1≈CG)
Butler (1987) J. Educ. Psychol

8. Feedback should feed forward
80 Grade 8 Canadian students learning to write major scales in Music
Experimental group 1 (EG1) given
written praise
list of weaknesses
workplan
Experimental group 2 (EG2) given
oral feedback
nature of errors
chance to correct errors
Control group (CG1) given
no feedback
Achievement: EG2>(EG1≈CG)
Boulet et al. (1990) J. Educational Research

9. …and should leave learning with the learner
‘Peekability’ (Simmonds & Cope, 1993)
Pairs of students, aged 9-11
Angle and rotation problems
class 1 worked on paper
class 2 worked on a computer, using Logo
Class 1 outperformed class 2
‘Scaffolding’ (Day & Cordón, 1993)
2 grade 3 classes
class 1 given ‘scaffolded’ response
class 2 given solution when stuck

10. Effects of feedback Kluger & DeNisi (1996)
Review of 3000 research reports
Excluding those:
without adequate controls
with poor design
with fewer than 10 participants
where performance was not measured
without details of effect sizes
left 131 reports, 607 effect sizes, involving individuals
On average feedback does improve performance, but
Effect sizes very different in different studies
40% of effect sizes were negative

11. Getting feedback right is hard
Feedback indicates performance…
Response type
exceeds goal
falls short of goal
Change behavior
Exert less effort
Increase effort
Change goal
Increase aspiration
Reduce aspiration
Abandon goal
Decide goal is too easy
Decide goal is too hard
Reject feedback
Feedback is ignored

12. Feedback practice audit
How often do students receive ‘feedback’ in the form of scores, levels, sub-levels, or grades?
Key stages 1 to 3
Key stage 4
Key stage 5
Every week
Every two or three weeks
Every month or half-term
Termly/twice a year
Annually

13. Kinds of feedback (Nyquist, 2003)
Weaker feedback only
Knowledge or results (KoR)
Feedback only
KoR + clear goals or knowledge of correct results (KCR)
Weak formative assessment
KCR+ explanation (KCR+e)
Moderate formative assessment
(KCR+e) + specific actions for gap reduction
Strong formative assessment
(KCR+e) + activity

14. Effects of formative assessment (HE)
Kind of feedback
Count
Effect/sd
Weaker feedback only 31
0.14
Feedback only 48
0.36
Weaker formative assessment 49
0.26
Moderate formative assessment 41
0.39
Strong formative assessment 16
0.56

15. Feedback practice audit 2
In your school, what proportion of feedback events involve students in responding to the feedback provided immediately, and in class?
Less than 10%
10% to 30%
30% to 70%
70% to 90%
More than 90%

16. Unfortunately, humans are not machines…
Attribution (Dweck, 2000)
Personalization (internal v external)
Permanence (stable v unstable)
Essential that students attribute both failures and success to internal, unstable causes (it’s down to you, and you can do something about it)

17. Success
Failure
Personalization
internal: “I got a good grade because I did a good piece of work”
internal: “I got a low grade because it wasn’t a very good piece of work”
external: “I got a good grade because the teacher likes me”
external: “I got a low grade because the teacher doesn’t like me
Stability
stable: “I got a good grade because I’m good at that subject”
stable: “I got a bad grade because I’m no good at that subject”
unstable: “I got a good grade because I was lucky in the questions that came up”
unstable: “I got a bad grade because I hadn’t reviewed the material before the test”
Specificity
specific: “I’m good at that but that’s the only thing I’m good at”
specific: “I’m no good at that but I’m good at everything else”
global: “I’m good at that means I’ll be good at everything”
global: “I’m useless at everything”

18. Mindset Views of ‘ability’ fixed (IQ) incremental (untapped potential)
Essential that teachers inculcate in their students a view that ‘ability’ is incremental rather than fixed (by working, you’re getting smarter)

19. Force-field analysis (Lewin, 1954)
What are the forces that will support or drive the adoption of formative assessment practices in your school/authority?
What are the forces that will constrain or prevent the adoption of formative assessment practices in your school/authority? + —

20. “Flow”
A dancer describes how it fees when a performance is going well: “Your concentration is very complete. Your mind isn’t wandering, you are not thinking of something else; you are totally involved in what you are doing. … Your energy is flowing very smoothly. You feel relaxed, comfortable and energetic.”
A rock climber describes how it feels when he is scaling a mountain: “You are so involved in what you are doing [that] you aren’t thinking of yourself as separate from the immediate activity. … You don’t see yourself as separate from what you are doing.”
A mother who enjoys the time spent with her small daughter: “Her reading is the one thing she’s really into, and we read together. She reads to me and I read to her, and that’s a time when I sort of lose touch with the rest of the world, I’m totally absorbed in what I’m doing.”
A chess player tells of playing in a tournament: “… the concentration is like breathing—you never think of it. The roof could fall in and, if it missed you, you would be unaware of it.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, pp. 53–54)

21. Motivation: cause or effect?
competence
challenge
Flow
apathy
boredom
relaxation
arousal
anxiety
worry
control
high
low
Csikszentmihalyi (1990)

22. Providing feedback that moves learning on
Key idea: feedback should:
Cause thinking
Provide guidance on how to improve
Comment-only marking
Focused marking
Explicit reference to mark schemes/scoring guide
Suggestions on how to improve:
Not giving complete solutions
Re-timing assessment:
e.g., three-quarters-of-the-way-through-a-unit test

23. A blossoming of research reviews…
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)

24. Effects of formative assessment
Standardized effect size: differences in means, measured in population standard deviations
Source
Effect size
Kluger & DeNisi (1996)
0.41
Black &Wiliam (1998)
0.4 to 0.7
Wiliam et al., (2004)
0.32
Hattie & Timperley (2007)
0.96
Shute (2008)
0.4 to 0.8

25. Problems with effect sizes
Restriction of range
Sensitivity to instruction
Ambiguous comparisons

26. 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)

27. “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)

28. “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” (Broadfoot et al., 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 et al., 2004 p. 10)

29. Which of these is formative?
A science adviser uses test results to plan professional development workshops for teachers
Teachers doing item-by-item analysis of KS2 math tests to review their curriculum
A school tests students every 10 weeks to predict which students are “on course” to pass a big test
“Three fourths” of the way through a unit test
Exit pass question: “What is the difference between mass and weight?”
“Sketch the graph of y equals one over one plus x squared on your mini-dry-erase boards.”

30. What does formative assessment form?
Cycle length
Long
Medium
Short
Curriculum alignment ✔
Monitoring progress
Student involved assessment
Student engagement
Teacher cognition about learning
Responsive classroom practice

31. 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 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.” (Wiliam, 2009)
Formative assessment involves the creation of, and capitalization upon, moments of contingency in the regulation of learning processes.

32. Unpacking formative assessment
Key processes
Establishing where the learners are in their learning
Establishing where they are going
Working out how to get there
Participants
Teachers
Peers
Learners

33. Unpacking formative assessment
Where the learner is going
Where the learner is
How to get there
Engineering effective discussions, tasks, and activities that elicit evidence of learning
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Teacher
Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions
Peer
Activating students as learning
resources for one another
Activating students as owners of their own learning
Learner

34. Five “key strategies”…
Clarifying, sharing, and understanding learning intentions
curriculum philosophy
Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning
classroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
feedback
Activating students as learning resources for one another
collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment
Activating students as owners of their own learning
metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment
Wiliam & Thompson (2007)

35. Unpacking formative assessment
Where the learner is going
Where the learner is
How to get there
Using evidence of achievement to adapt what happens in classrooms to meet learner needs
Teacher
Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions
Peer
Learner

36. Clarifying, sharing, and understanding learning intentions

37. Sharing learning intentions
3 teachers each teaching 4 Year 8 science classes in two US schools
14 week experiment
7 two-week projects, each scored 2-10
All teaching the same, except:
For a part of each week
Two of each teacher’s classes discusses their likes and dislikes about the teaching (control)
The other two classes discusses how their work will be assessed
White & Frederiksen, Cognition & Instruction, 16(1), 1998

38. Sharing learning intentions
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills
Group
Low
Middle
High
Likes and dislikes
Reflective assessment

39. Outcomes Who will benefit most from the reflective assessment?
Higher achievers
Average achievers
Lower achievers
All students will benefit equally

40. Sharing learning intentions
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills
Group
Low
Middle
High
Likes and dislikes
4.6
5.9
6.6
Reflective assessment

41. Sharing learning intentions
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills
Group
Low
Middle
High
Likes and dislikes
4.6
5.9
6.6
Reflective assessment
6.7
7.2
7.4

42. Sharing learning intentions
Explain learning intentions at start of lesson/unit:
Learning intentions
Success criteria
Consider providing learning intentions and success criteria in students’ language.
Use posters of key words to talk about learning:
e.g., describe, explain, evaluate
Use planning and writing frames judiciously
Use annotated examples of different standards to “flesh out” assessment rubrics (e.g., lab reports)
Provide opportunities for students to design their own tests

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

44. Eliciting evidence Key idea: questioning should cause thinking
provide data that informs teaching
Improving teacher questioning
generating questions with colleagues
closed v open
low-order v high-order
appropriate wait-time

45. Medicine Hat Tigers
A major junior (ice) hockey team playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference of the Western Hockey League in Canada
Players are aged from 15 to 20
15 year olds are only allowed to play five games until their own season has ended
Each team is allowed only three 20 year olds
Total roster 25 players

46. Medicine Hat Tigers

47. Eliciting evidence Getting away from I-R-E
basketball rather than serial table-tennis
‘No hands up’ (except to ask a question)
‘Hot Seat’ questioning
All-student response systems
ABCD cards, Mini white-boards, Exit passes

48. Nothing new under the sun…

49. Eliciting evidence practice audit
In what proportion of lessons in your school would a teacher use an ‘all student response’ system at least every 30 minutes?
Less than 10%
10% to 30%
30% to 70%
70% to 90%
More than 90%

50. Hinge questions
A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that is critical for students to understand before you move on in the lesson.
The question should fall about midway during the lesson.
Every student must respond to the question within two minutes.
You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all students in 30 seconds

51. Questioning in maths: Diagnosis
In which of these right-angled triangles is a2 + b2 = c2 ? A a c b C E B D F

52. Questioning in science: Diagnosis
The ball sitting on the table is not moving. It is not moving because:
no forces are pushing or pulling on the ball.
gravity is pulling down, but the table is in the way.
the table pushes up with the same force that gravity pulls down
gravity is holding it onto the table.
there is a force inside the ball keeping it from rolling off the table
Wilson & Draney, 2004

53. Questioning in English: Diagnosis (2)
Which of these is correct?
Its on its way.
It’s on its way.
Its on it’s way.
It’s on it’s way.

54. Questioning in English: Diagnosis (3)
Identify the adverbs in these sentences:
The boy ran across the street quickly (A) (B) (C) (D) (E)
Jayne usually crossed the street in a leisurely fashion (A) (B) (C) (D) (E)
Fred ran the race well but unsuccessfully (A) (B) (C) (D) (E)

55. Questioning in English: Diagnosis (4)
Which of these is the best thesis statement?
The typical TV show has 9 violent incidents
The essay I am going to write is about violence on TV
There is a lot of violence on TV
The amount of violence on TV should be reduced
Some programs are more violent than others
Violence is included in programs to boost ratings
Violence on TV is interesting
I don’t like the violence on TV

56. Questioning in history: Diagnosis
Why are historians concerned with bias when analyzing sources?
People can never be trusted to tell the truth
People deliberately leave out important details
People are only able to provide meaningful information if they experienced an event firsthand
People interpret the same event in different ways, according to their experience
People are unaware of the motivations for their actions
People get confused about sequences of events

57. Questioning in MFL: Diagnosis
Which of the following is the correct translation for ”I give the book to him”?
Yo lo doy el libro.
Yo doy le el libro.
Yo le doy el libro.
Yo doy lo el libro.
Yo doy el libro le.
Yo doy el libro lo.
This item is diagnostic because it has been designed so that if pupils answer incorrectly, it is easy to work out why. Response A indicates a pronoun error, responses B and E indicate placement errors, and responses D and F indicate both pronoun and placement errors

58. Key requirement: discriminate between incorrect and correct cognitive rules
Version 1 There are two flights per day from Newtown to Oldtown. The first flight leaves Newtown each day at 9:20 and arrives in Oldtown at 10:55. The second flight from Newtown leaves at 2:15. At what time does the second flight arrive in Oldtown? Show your work.
Version 2 There are two flights per day from Newtown to Oldtown. The first flight leaves Newtown each day at 9:05 and arrives in Oldtown at 10:55. The second flight from Newtown leaves at 2:15. At what time does the second flight arrive in Oldtown? Show your work.

59. Activating students as owners of their own learning

60. Self-assessment: Portugal
45 teachers studying for a Masters degree in Education, matched in age, qualifications and experience using the same curriculum scheme for the same amount of time
Control group (N=20) follow regular MA program
Experimental group (N=25) develop self-assessment with their students
117 students aged 8 years
125 students aged 8 years
119 students aged 9 years
121 students aged 9 years
77 students aged years
108 students aged years
Fontana & Fernandes, Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 64:

61. Details of the intervention
Weeks
Intervention
1 to 2
Individual choice from a range of work provided by the teacher. Student self-assessment using materials provided
3 to 6
Children construct own problems like those in weeks 1 and 2 and select structured math apparatus to aid solutions
7 to 10
Children presented with a new learning objectives, and make up their own problems, without exemplars by the teacher
11 to 14
Children set their own learning objectives, construct appropriate problems, and use appropriate self-assessment
15 to 20
As weeks 1 to 14, but with less monitoring from the teacher and increased freedom of choice and personal responsibility

62. Impact on student achievement
Pre-test
Post-test
Gain
Effect size
Control
65.1
72.9
7.8
0.34
Experimental
58.7
73.7
15.0
0.66

63. Students owning their own learning
Students assessing their own work:
With mark schemes or scoring guides
With exemplars
Self-assessment of understanding:
Traffic lights
Red/green discs
Coloured cups

64. Activating students as learning resources for one another

65. Benefits of structured interaction
15-yr-olds studying World History were tested on their understanding of material delivered in lessons
At the end of the lessons, students were given time to review their understanding of the material before they were tested
Half the students had been trained to pose questions as they listened to the lectures
Individual
Group
Unstructured
Independent review
Group discussion
Structured
Structured self-questioning
Structured peer-questioning
King, A. (1991). Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5(4),

66. Impact on achievement
King, A. (1991). Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5(4),

67. Students as learning resources
Students assessing their peers’ work:
“Pre-flight checklist”
“Two stars and a wish”
Training students to pose questions/identifying group weaknesses
End-of-lesson students’ review

68. Pulling it all together

69. Dual-pathway model (Boekaerts, 1993)
“It is assumed that students who are invited to participate in a learning activity use three sources of information to form a mental representation of the task-in-context and to appraise it:
current perceptions of the task and the physical, social, and instructional context within which it is embedded;
activated domain-specific knowledge and (meta)cognitive strategies related to the task; and
motivational beliefs, including domain-specific capacity, interest and effort beliefs.” (Boekaerts, 2006, p. 349)

70. Growth and well-being
Share learning goals with students so that they are able to monitor their own progress toward them.
Promote the belief that ability is incremental rather than fixed; when students think they can’t get smarter, they are likely to devote their energy to avoiding failure.
Make it more difficult for students to compare themselves with others in terms of achievement.
Provide feedback that contains a recipe for future action rather than a review of past failures.
Use every opportunity to transfer executive control of the learning from the teacher to the students to support their development as autonomous learners, and as learning resources for one another
Use random questioning and all-student response systems to provide high-quality evidence to the teacher about the progress of learning

71. Force-field analysis (Lewin, 1954)
What are the forces that will support or drive the adoption of formative assessment practices in your school/authority?
What are the forces that will constrain or prevent the adoption of formative assessment practices in your school/authority? + —