Formative and Summative Evaluation in the Assessment of Adult Learning

Assessment is an important, yet poorly understood, process in adult education. This chapter examines the differences between two important types of assessment/evaluation, formative and summative, and examines how these are incorporated into the literature of adult learning. Focusing on the literature of program planning in adult education, the authors identify a disagreement in the common definition of the terms and consider the impact this could have on educational planning for adult programs. Adapting a formative assessment model that focuses on short-, medium-, and long-cycle formative assessments, examples of all three types currently used in adult education classrooms are provided. The model is then telescoped out to the program level, where a long-cycle formative assessment is identified using a military graduate school as an example. The chapter concludes with a reiteration of the importance of formative assessment and a call to educators to more effectively incorporate it into adult learning.