Teachers’ Beliefs About And Use Of Formative Assessment In The Middle Grades Mathematics Classroom

Research abounds on the benefits of formative assessment to both students and teachers. Those benefits include student achievement on summative assessments, self-efficacy of students, students’ regulation of their own learning, and much more. School districts and teachers understand the benefits of formative assessment to students. However, teachers’ beliefs about formative assessment are not always mirrored by their use of it in the classroom (Yan & Cheng, 2015). This case study was designed to examine middle school math teachers’ beliefs about and use of formative assessment in the classroom. The setting for this study was a western North Carolina middle school. This case study utilized a questionnaire, classroom observations and individual semi-structured interviews with data analyzed. Formative Assessment Framework and the Theory of Planned Behavior were the lenses used for this study. The data from this study revealed that teachers’ use of formative assessment in the classroom aligns with their definition of it. However, when applying the definition of formative assessment used in this study, there are gaps in teachers’ use of it.