Making Formative Assessment Feasible: A Collaborative Approach Supporting Grant Funded Projects
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X1701700402 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Author | Hadeel F. Al-Nawab,Amy M. Gullickson |
| Subject Matter | Academic Article |
4Evaluation Journal of Australasia Vol 17 | No 4 | 2017
ACADEMIC ARTICLE Evaluation Journal of Australasia Vol 17 | No 4 | 2017 | pp. 4–12
AMY M. GULLICKSON | HADEEL F. AL-NAWAB
Making formative assessment feasible:
a collaborative approach supporting
grant funded projects
Formative assessment is a means of
unlocking the ‘black box’ of an intervention
to explore and understand cause and eect,
and is, therefore, vital for improvements
that lead to success. However, most funders
focus on summative evaluation, and projects
with limited resources struggle to meet that
requirement, leaving formative investigations
ideal, but infeasible. Yet, formative
assessment is essential when conducting an
intervention that must create results with
a small budget. This paper discusses the
Formative Assessment Systems for Advanced
Technological Education (FAS4ATE) project,
which used a high level, theory based
participatory approach to address these
issues in small grant funded projects.
FAS4ATE brought the leaders and evaluators
from a variety of small projects together
with experts in formative assessment and
evaluation in two webinars and a workshop.
Logic models were the core activity and
teaching tool used to identify formative
assessment needs throughout the life cycle
of individual projects. The logic models were
then analysed across projects to provide
specications for the development of
tools and resources to support formative
assessment. The paper describes the
project’s process, key strategy, products and
recommendations. It will be particularly
valuable for those who are interested
in evaluation capacity building, both in
terms of individual learning and creating
evaluation systems.
Introduction
Evaluation design and implementation constitute a major
challenge for most small projects—just mapping out the
evaluation process and necessary data for a summative
evaluation requires considerable time and eort. Moving
beyond just evaluation for required reporting, to creating
systems that provide formative data throughout the life
of the project, is often more than a small project budget
can aord. However, even small projects can benefit
from access to formative data to help ensure they are
keeping on track toward their goals; in fact, when trying
to conduct an intervention that creates results with a
small budget, formative information is even more critical.
So, how can small projects get access to this important
resource? The FAS4ATE project described in this paper
was designed to address that challenge by bringing
together project sta and evaluators to work through a
process identifying common formative assessment needs
and laying out a blueprint for a system and tools to help
small projects address them. This article outlines how
the FAS4ATE project began to address these needs, by
creating an international, multi-disciplinary space where
experts on formative assessment and evaluation interacted
with Advanced Technological Education (ATE) principal
investigators, evaluators and senior sta to bring best
practices in evaluation into the ATE program.
To continue reading
Request your trial