ABSTRACT
The purpose of assessment is conventionally classified into two types, namely, ‘formative assessment’ and ‘summative assessment’. Formative assessment is defined as “encompassing all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by their students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.7). It emphasizes the learning process and is usually conducted on a daily basis. On the other hand, summative assessment is the practice of collecting information that summarizes how much learning has taken place. It focuses on the learning product and usually takes place at the end of a period of instruction. School-based assessment (SBA), administered in schools and marked by the students’ own teachers, is expected to provide students with learning tasks for formative assessment purposes in a low-stakes context, but, at the same time, it could provide evidence of students’ learning outcomes and serve as the summative assessment purpose. SBA attempts to provide better alignment between assessment and curriculum and to enhance students’ ability of self-evaluation and lifelong learning (Davison, 2007). The promotion of SBA occurs under the context of global educational reform, which is trying to lessen the negative impact and consequences of summative educational assessments by placing more emphasis on formative assessment to enhance teaching and learning (Brown et al., 2011).
