Reasons for Assessment
There are various reasons why you may be required to complete an assessment:
- Diagnostic
to determine your current level of skills/knowledge so that you can be taught appropriate to your needs. For example, language proficiency or maths testing to determine what group you should be in - Formative
to give you practice at something. You will receive feedback, to aid you in improving your subsequent performance - Instructive
the assessment itself is a means of learning/instruction e.g. a quiz, where you get to see the answers. A formative assignment is also a really important way of learning-through-doing, so is instructive, too - Monitoring
checking that you have made enough progress to proceed, and/or checking the quality of instruction - Ranking
to enable performances to be ordered from the strongest to the poorest - Summative
to sum up what you have learned and assign a mark on the basis of your performance
All course units at the University of Manchester should give you the opportunity to undertake both formative assessment and summative assessment of some kind.
It's possible for an assessment to be formative and summative at the same time, i.e. you receive feedback on your performance that can be used to improve future performance, and you are assigned a mark which will count towards your final degree classification.
When you've completed an assessment:
- DO reflect on what you learned in completing it;
- DO take on board the feedback you receive;
- DON'T discard it thinking that it's of no further use.
Your course units are part of a whole, after all — what you learn about your strengths and weaknesses in one should be applicable to your performance in others.
The information in these pages aims to help you improve your performance and confidence in tackling all the various types of assessment that you may be required to complete.