Education Commons^™

Formative Assessment Practices With Benchmark Testing: Phase I, Lisa Abrams, Angela P. Wetzel, James H. Mcmillan

MERC Publications

The recent popularity of benchmark testing has become closely tied to formative assessment. Formative assessment has traditionally focused on a process in which evidence elicited from classroom assessments is used to provide feedback to students and inform instructional correctives (McMillan, 2007: 2010, Popham, 2008). However, accountability demands have led to widespread implementation of benchmark, interim, periodic, or quarterly testing at the school or district level that is often labeled “formative.” Indeed, some in the testing industry believe that benchmark testing is formative assessment. For example, the definition of benchmark testing by the Regional Education Laboratory Mid-Atlantic is that “a benchmark …