What are the differences between formative and summative assessment?

 Students are assessed by different types of assessments, during the academic period of the students, teachers try to assess them with the different method in order to make changes and improvise the structure or planning of the lessons. Assignment help experts published the difference between the formative and summative assessment and in this article; we are discussing them as follows

Formative assessment

The motive of the formative assessment is to monitor the learning of the students so that the instructor or the teacher can get on-going feedback to improve their teaching techniques and styles, while the student can improve their learning. The formative assessment helps the students to find out their weaknesses and strength so that they can work on them accordingly to become better learners. 

Formative assessments help the faculty to identify where the students are struggling to learn or understand so that they can change or improve the techniques. It is the of no other point other than these and a student can be asked to write in two lines about their understanding of an on-going topic.  

Summative assessment

The goal of the summative assessment is to evaluate the learning of the students by comparing it to some benchmark or standard at the end of an instructional unit. The summative assessment has a high-value point and it includes mid-term exams, a final year project, a research paper, etc. 

Although almost all assessment is primarily summative few also consist of the formative assessment characteristics that are where the two of them compliments each other. 

Differences between formative and summative assessment

Formative assessment	Summative assessment
It monitor the students	It evaluate the students
It is informal and flexible diagnostic tool	It is formal and structured tool
Looks for the development of students at a particular point of time	It just evaluates the students
It is thoroughly qualitative	It is more quantitative
It does not includes any percentage or grading system	It uses percentage, marks and grades to evaluate the students
It can be incorporated anytime while an on-going lesson, module or course evaluation.	It is fixed and will only happen after a lesson, module.
It mainly focuses on the performance and the needs of the students	It normalizes the score for the comparison with the standards
It monitors the process does not evaluate the end results	It evaluate the end result not the process

While there are so many differences between the formative and summative assessments both have their advantages and disadvantages. Students always try to keep up with the on-going assessment process and methods. They try to give their best and want to score better like when they are seeking help for the thesis dissertation writing services to be better in their academic grades. Similarly, they are participating in the assessment like formative to help the faculty for better teaching techniques and helping themselves to a good student. Researchers have seen the benefits and disadvantages of both types of assessment process.