Research On Formative Students' Assessment In Colleges And Universities

Entering the stage of mass higher education, universities aim not to cultivate elite, but to train advanced specialists with professional knowledge and skills, being able to meet the diverse needs of society. In such a case, much negative influence wrought by summative students' assessment whose only purpose is to accredit and grade has been realized by educators. People begin to pay more and more attention to formative students' assessment whose purpose is to promote the growth and development of students. By using literature research, this paper is intended to discover the content of formative students' assessment and its significance to undergraduate education in our colleges and universities.Based on the research of the history and fundamental problems of formative assessment, the paper discusses the practical and theoretical basis, principle and features of formative students' assessment. The study shows the following steps are the most important in putting formative assessment into effect: to activate the assessed' motivation of improvement, to diagnose their performance and give them the feedback in a constructive way, to help them improve their performance. The philosophy of higher education, higher education science, the theory of multiple intelligences, success intellect theory and constructivism learning theory are the basic theories of formative students' assessment in colleges and universities. A good many formative assessment approaches have been developed in higher education field. It is necessary to spread the knowledge of formative assessment and to put forward the application of formative assessment approach in China's higher education.Facing the situation dominated by summative assessment, this paper puts forward some suggestions as follows: leaders and policy should attach importance to formative assessment; we should further change the idea of students' assessment in universities, deepen the research and practice of formative assessment theory, better students' assessment system in universities, improve the teachers' knowledge and skills of students' assessment, actively support teachers to put formative assessment in to practice, and to advance the formative assessment application in our colleges and universities by model program of formative students' assessment.