Formative assessment: possibilities, boundaries and limitations

These two books are published at a time of growth of interest in formative assessment. They contribute to the debates in this area in a variety of ways and they provide reflection on key issues from both a perspective of practice and of research. In the essay that follows I present a review of each book, identifying key themes and focus. I then offer a critique of main aspects of the work based on my reactions to, and engagement with, some of the fundamental messages within these texts in relation to formative assessment. In this essay I use the terms ‘classroom assessment’ and ‘formative assessment’ interchangeably. I acknowledge that these two activities have different definitions in the literature but in relation to these two texts they do, to a certain degree, reflect similar assessment practice—i.e., the use of assessment to promote learning. In addition, at particular times in the text I also use the term ‘evaluation’ as an alternate for assessment. This reflects the common use of the two words in similar ways within the books reviewed.