Definition of Summative Assessment
Assessment is of central importance in education, yet there is a lack of commonality in the definition and the terminology relating to assessment. In general, schools and teachers in school view assessments as "judgment of students' work." Notably, while formative assessment is a temperature check of students' studies, summative assessment is used as a "final judgment" of their knowledge. In other words, the assessment process leads to summative assessment, that is, a judgment that encapsulates all the evidence up to a given point. This point is seen as a finality at the point of the judgment. However, summative assessment has various functions that reach beyond giving a grade for the student's work.
We use this summative assessment as the encapsulation of all the formative assessments. Analyzing students' work will allow us to evaluate what students learned or did not learn following the unit taught. Furthermore, the assessment results will shine a light on the teacher's strengths and weaknesses as well. We can use these outcomes as a mirror of our teaching and alter, better, and deepen our knowledge of teaching these concepts more effectively next time. In this way, summative assessment is used as feedback for the teacher on how to teach the topic in the future.
Taras. (2005). ASSESSMENT - SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE - SOME THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS. British Journal of Educational Studies, 53(4), 466–478. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00307.x
