The impact of formative assessment on pupil academic achievement: An empirical study of the effects of a formative assessment practices program that was co-designed in a teacher community

The empirical evidence-base for effects of formative assessment on pupil academic achievement is inconclusive, despite its potential claim to improve teaching and learning. Contemporary views conceptualize formative assessment as a unified practice of integrated strategies. However, studies that investigated the effects of formative assessment on pupil academic achievement in primary education focused on separate components with different methods. This study investigates whether a co-designed program of unified formative assessment strategies affects pupil academic achievement. Participants were 976 Dutch elementary school pupils (10–11 years). A quasi-experimental pretest/posttest research design was used with a pre-established intervention and control group. The intervention group consisted of all pupils who were taught by elementary school teachers that participated in a teacher co-designed formative assessment program. Teachers belonging to the control group did not partake in the co-design. Standardized mathematics test scores were used to investigate whether the co-designed formative assessment practices program had an effect on pupil learning achievement using multilevel modelling. After controlling for pre-intervention gain, and school-specific pupil population complexity, the pupils of teachers that participated in the formative assessment co-design did not significantly outperform the pupils in the control group. The multilevel analysis also revealed non-significant effects of the interaction between the formative assessment intervention and performance levels on mathematical gain. This study provides valuable insights in the challenges that lie in both implementing (effective) formative assessment practices and investigating the effectiveness of a teacher community co-designed formative assessment practices program on pupil academic results. • This study contributes to empirical evidence on effects of formative assessment. • Pupils in the formative assessment group did not outperform the control group. • No significant differential effects were shown across pupil performance levels.