Formative assessments are a very interesting concept. But before we jump the gun and declare that summative assessments by themselves are evil and need to be rooted out, we need to understand the two forms of assessment and the reasons the two have evolved.

Assessment patterns are products of what the primary objective or thrust behind the education is, in the first place. For instance, the modern mass form of summative assessments evolved with the rise of modern public education. However, modern public education in itself evolved with the development of an industrialised and globalised world. Industries need qualified employees to work in their industries, and they need some mechanism to know that the prospective employee is qualified before hiring him or her. A summative assessment acts as a licensing system or a method to determine the validity and reliability of someone's qualification or capability.

But the problem is that people can easily game the system. Studying for tests is an effective way of performing better in tests but not learning anything. And so we need to find fool-proof methods to ensure we know that students aren't gaming the system.

Formative assessments have a different purpose altogether. Here is an example of one of the definitions. It was proposed by Bronwen Cowie & BeverleyBell in1996/1999 (A model of formative assessment in science education):

"The process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning."

In other words, formative assessment is an assessment that exists not to determine if someone has participated in the process of learning but rather to determine how the student can improve their own knowledge or skill.

Formative assessments are easily more useful for education than summative assessments, but summative assessments are no-nonsense easy solutions for the industries. This dilemma and tension can be resolved using modern technologies. Technology can allow us to collect aggregates of formative assessment data points. And this aggregate can tell us a lot more about whether someone is qualified for the job or not as opposed to summative assessments. And therein lies the advantage of formative assessment using e-learning affordances!

Sources:

1.  Crooks, T. (2001). "The Validity of Formative Assessments". British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Leeds, September 13–15, 2001 http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001862.htm Retrieved June 7, 2021.

2. Smith, M. K. (2001, 2006). Evaluation for education, learning and change – theory and practice, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [https://infed.org/mobi/evaluation-theory-and-practice/ . Retrieved June 7, 2021]