Confirmative assessment is an often overlooked but crucial part of the assessment system. While formative and summative assessments get most of the attention, confirmative assessment serves as a follow-up mechanism to ensure that learning has been effective and long-lasting. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore confirmative assessment, its advantages and disadvantages, how it can be applied in the classroom, and more.
Confirmative assessment occurs sometime after a unit has already ended to confirm that knowledge from that lesson still exists. It's like a check-up for your teaching methods, ensuring that your instruction has had a lasting impact. An article by Evelyn Learning states that confirmative evaluation builds on the results and suggestions made during formative and summative evaluations.
For example, a final exam that includes material from earlier in the semester could serve as a confirmative assessment. This type of assessment is particularly useful in courses where long-term retention and application of skills are crucial.
One of its major advantages is that it provides a comprehensive view of both student learning and instructional effectiveness, often months or even years after initial instruction has taken place. This long-term focus allows teachers to make data-driven decisions about curriculum adjustments and can also serve as a quality control measure for a course, class, or academic program. It's like a long-term health check-up for your teaching methods, helping you understand what has truly stuck with your students and what might need revisiting.
Confirmative assessment isn't without its challenges. One drawback is that it can be resource-intensive, requiring careful planning and potentially long periods of data collection. This can be particularly challenging in educational settings where resources and time are already stretched thin. Additionally, the long-term nature of confirmative assessment means that immediate instructional adjustments based on the findings may not be feasible. By the time the assessment is conducted and the data is analyzed, the students may have moved on to new topics, making immediate intervention or support less applicable.
One of the most effective ways to apply confirmative assessment in the classroom is through longitudinal studies that track student performance over an extended period. For example, a teacher might administer a comprehensive test on algebraic concepts at the end of a school year and then re-administer the same or a similar test the following year. This allows the teacher to see not only how well the students retained the material but also how effectively they can apply it in new contexts.
Project-based learning (PBL) assessments can also serve as effective confirmative assessments. For instance, students who engaged in a science project in freshman year could be asked to revisit and extend their original projects in their senior year. This not only measures retention but also allows students to apply additional knowledge and skills they've acquired over the years.
Similarly, in a history class, students might be asked to write essays or create presentations that synthesize topics covered over multiple years, providing a long-term view of their analytical and critical thinking skills. These methods offer a more dynamic and interactive way to conduct confirmative assessments, making the process not just evaluative, but also an integral part of the learning journey.
When implementing confirmative assessments, it's crucial to align the assessment methods with the long-term learning objectives and outcomes you aim to measure. Here are some best practices: