When educators talk about “proficiency-based learning,” they are referring to a variety of diverse instructional practices—many of which have been used by the world’s best schools and teachers for decades—and to organizational structures that support or facilitate the application of those practices in schools. Proficiency-based learning may take different forms from school to school—there is no universal model or approach—and educators may use some or all of the beliefs and practices of proficiency-based learning identified by the Great Schools Partnership.
On this page, we have provided a selection of statements and references that support and describe one foundational feature of proficiency-based learning systems, Assessment Practices. In a few cases, we have also included additional explanation to help readers better understand the statements or the studies from which they were excerpted. The list is not intended to be either comprehensive or authoritative—our goal is merely to give school leaders and educators a brief, accessible introduction to available research.
“Providing feedback is an ongoing process in which teachers communicate information to students that helps them better understand what they are to learn, what high-quality performance looks like, and what changes are necessary to improve their learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). Feedback provides information that helps learners confirm, refine, or restructure various kinds of knowledge, strategies, and beliefs that are related to the learning objectives (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). When feedback provides explicit guidance that helps students adjust their learning (e.g., ‘Can you think of another way to approach this task?’), there is a greater impact on achievement, students are more likely to take risks with their learning, and they are more likely to keep trying until they succeed (Brookhart, 2008; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008).” —Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“The studies related to feedback underscore the importance of providing feedback that is instructive, timely, referenced to the actual task, and focused on what is correct and what to do next (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). They also address the use of attributional and metacognitive feedback. For example, a study by Kramarski and Zeichner (2001) investigated the use of metacognitive feedback versus results feedback in a 6th grade mathematics class as a way to help students know what to do to improve their performance. Metacognitive feedback was provided by asking questions that served as cues about the content and structure of the problem and ways to solve it. Results feedback provided cues related to the final outcome of the problem. Students who received metacognitive feedback significantly outperformed students who received results feedback, in terms of mathematical achievement and the ability to provide mathematical explanations. They were more likely to provide explanations of their mathematical reasoning, and those explanations were robust—they included both algebraic rules and verbal arguments.” —Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“As in many other areas of life, timing is everything (or at least important) when giving feedback. Recent research indicates that the timing of feedback depends to some extent on the nature of the task and on whether students are high performing or low performing (Shute, 2008). When students are engrossed in figuring out a difficult task, feedback should be delayed; however, when students can use feedback to complete a task, immediacy helps. Providing immediate feedback can encourage students to practice, and it helps them make connections between what they do and the results they achieve. Delaying feedback may encourage development of cognitive and metacognitive processing for high-performing students, yet it may cause frustration for struggling and less-motivated students (Clariana & Koul, 2006; Shute, 2008). Further, some studies indicate that students may benefit from delayed feedback when they are learning concepts and from immediate feedback when they are acquiring procedural skills (Franzke, Kintsch, Caccamise, Johnson, & Dooley, 2005; Mathan & Koedinger, 2002; Shute, 2008).” —Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“Student-centered assessment also focuses on learning and growth. That means it does more than measure and report student learning or the lack thereof—although it does those things as well. Student-centered assessment promotes learning and growth by providing useful feedback to the students themselves, their teachers, and others about what the students need in order to progress toward the learning target. This quality of student- centered assessment echoes modern conceptions of formative assessment in that assessment is a moment of learning, not just grading, ranking, or sorting (Andrade & Cizek 2010; Shute 2008).” —Andrade, H., Huff, K., & Brooke, G. (2012). Assessing learning. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.
“Formative tests differ in a very important way from practice tests, which usually involve students taking a test, passively listening as the teacher goes over the correct answers, then taking another test. It is not really hearing the correct answers to the test that makes formative use of testing work. Rather, it is the hard thinking that happens in between the tests that matters (Bloom 1984). This approach to testing is based on Benjamin Bloom’s approach to mastery learning, which emphasizes the value of formative assessment and corrective procedures that re-teach content to struggling learners in a new way (Guskey 2010). Research shows that mastery learning is related to learning gains, especially for struggling students, and that it has positive effects on students’ attitudes toward course content (Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns 1990). In fact, after reviewing meta-analyses from over 40 areas of educational research, Chen-Lin Kulik, James Kulik, and Robert Bangert-Drowns concluded that ‘few educational treatments of any sort were consistently associated with achievement effects as large as those produced by mastery learning.’” —Andrade, H., Huff, K., & Brooke, G. (2012). Assessing learning. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.
“Schools and districts across the nation are reporting impressive gains in student achievement through the use of teacher-created, criterion-referenced assessments (Bambrick-Santoyo 2008). Such assessments are developed by teams of teachers from within and across schools in particular grades and subject areas; they work together to develop items that directly measure the curricula enacted in their classrooms. The teachers use the same assessments on an interim basis throughout the school year (about every six weeks), get together to discuss the results at length, and share pedagogical approaches to helping one another’s students succeed. For example, if Ms. Garcia’s third graders all aced the question on 100s place value, but Mr. Lawson’s third graders bombed it, the teachers meet so that Ms. Garcia can share with Mr. Lawson how she worked with her students on 100s place value. The key to the success of these efforts is that teachers work together to develop the items, discuss the results, and then adjust their pedagogy accordingly when they return to their classrooms (Bambrick 2008).” —Andrade, H., Huff, K., & Brooke, G. (2012). Assessing learning. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.
“Perhaps the most surprising aspect of…student-centered assessment is that it is motivating. Many people associate being evaluated with mild to moderate anxiety, not motivation, and research has shown that grades can be associated with decreased motivation and lower achievement (Butler & Nisan 1986; Lipnevich & Smith 2008). However, recent studies have shown that formative assessment—particularly detailed, task-specific comments on student work—can activate interest in a task (Cimpian et al. 2007) and result in better performance (Lipnevich & Smith 2008).” —Andrade, H., Huff, K., & Brooke, G. (2012). Assessing learning. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.
“Assessment experts from the Forum for Education and Democracy (Wood, Darling-Hammond, Neill, & Roschewski, 2007) note ongoing formative assessments, including performance assessments, can be ‘responsive to emerging student needs and enable fast and specific teacher response, something that standardized examinations with long lapses between administration and results cannot do.’ Performance assessments can provide meaningful, real time information for students, teachers, parents, and administrators, and can be a spring- board for improving teacher practice. They also note, ‘As teachers use and evaluate [performance assessment] tasks, they become more knowledgeable about the standards and how to teach to them, and about what their students’ learning needs are (Wood, et al. 2007).’” —Brown, C., & Mevs, P. (2012). Quality performance assessment: Harnessing the power of teacher and student learning. Boston, MA: Center for Collaborative Education.
“Student learning is also enhanced during performance assessment as students adjust their strategies and make timely corrections in response to targeted feedback from their instructors. This ‘assessment for learning,’ differs from traditional assessments that function as a separate measurement of learning. Thus, local assessment systems that include performance assessment have the potential to improve both student learning and teacher performance. Further benefits of assessment systems with embedded performance assessment include greater teacher buy-in, increased teacher collaboration, and increased capacity to make mid-course corrections based on formative data (Wood, et al. 2007). When teachers are engaged as designers of performance assessments and skilled assessors of their students’ performance, the impact on curriculum and instruction can be profound.” —Brown, C., & Mevs, P. (2012). Quality performance assessment: Harnessing the power of teacher and student learning. Boston, MA: Center for Collaborative Education.
“The formative assessment concept…emphasizes the dynamic process of using assessment evidence to continually improve student learning; this is in contrast to the concept of summative assessment, which focuses on development and implementation of an instrument to measure what a student has learned up to a particular point in time (Shepard, 2005; Heritage, 2010; National Research Council, 2001). Deeper learning is enhanced when formative assessment is used to: (1) make learning goals clear to students; (2) continuously monitor, provide feedback, and respond to students’ learning progress; and (3) involve students in self- and peer-assessment. These uses of formative assessment are grounded in research showing that practice is essential for deeper learning and skill development but that practice without feedback yields little learning.” —Hilton, M. L., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
“In contrast to assessments of learning that look backwards over what has been learned, assessments for learning—formative assessments—chart the road forward by diagnosing where students are relative to learning goals and by making it possible to take immediate action to close any gaps (see Sadler, 1989). As defined by Black and Wiliam (1998), formative assessment involves both understanding and immediately responding to students learning status. In other words, it involves both diagnosis and actions to accelerate student progress toward identified goals. Formative assessment is sometimes referred to as ‘dynamic assessment,’ to reflect this active process.… Actions could include: teachers asking questions to probe, diagnose, and respond to student understanding; teachers asking students to explain and elaborate their thinking; teachers providing feedback to help students transform their misconceptions and transition to more sophisticated understanding; and teachers analyzing student work and using results to plan and deliver appropriate next steps, for example, an alternate learning activity for students who evidence particular difficulties or misconceptions.” —Hilton, M. L., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
“Individuals acquire a skill much more rapidly if they receive feedback about the correctness of what they have done. If incorrect, they need to know the nature of their mistake. It was demonstrated long ago that practice without feedback produces little learning (Thorndike, 1927). One of the persistent dilemmas in education is that students often spend time practicing incorrect skills with little or no feedback. Furthermore, the feedback they ultimately receive is often neither timely nor informative. Unguided practice (e.g., homework in math) can be for the less able student, practice in doing tasks incorrectly.” —Hilton, M. L., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
“A hallmark of formative assessment is its emphasis on student efficacy, as students are encouraged to be responsible for their learning and the classroom is turned into a learning community (Gardner, 2006; Harlen, 2006). To assume that responsibility, students must clearly understand what learning is expected of them, including its nature and quality. Students receive feedback that helps them to understand and master performance gaps, and they are involved in assessing and responding to their own work and that of their peers (see also Heritage, 2010).” —Hilton, M. L., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
“In a follow-up to ‘Inside the Black Box,’ Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, and Black (2004) examined the achievement of secondary students in math and science who were exposed and not exposed to formative assessment. Teachers involved in the study were trained and supported in their use of classroom-based formative assessment. The research team measured the effects of formative assessment on learning outcomes and found a mean effect size of 0.32 when exposed to the intervention. Also in 2004, Ruiz-Primo and Furtak measured the effect of three formative assessment strategies—eliciting, recognizing, and using information—in the science classroom. They found that the quality of teachers’ formative assessment practices was positively linked to the students’ level of learning.” —Greenstein, L. (2010). What teachers really need to know about formative assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“We do know from research that Robert Marzano conducted for McREL that the school-level variable with the strongest apparent link to student success is ‘opportunity to learn’; that is, the extent to which a school (1) clearly articulates its curriculum, (2) monitors the extent to which teachers cover the curriculum, and (3) aligns its curriculum with assessments used to measure student achievement. Of these three variables, aligning curriculum to assessments appears to have the strongest link with student achievement.” —Goodwin, B. (2010). Changing the odds for student success: What matters most. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL).
“According to research, formative assessment practice has powerful effects on student learning and motivation (see Black & Wiliam, 1998b). Scholars in the area of educational assessment generally agree that when students are evaluated frequently for the purposes of monitoring learning and guiding instruction, they are more likely to be successful learners (Stiggins, 1998). The student who is aware of how he or she learns is better able to set goals, develop a variety of learning strategies, and control and evaluate his or her own learning process. Alternatively, summative assessments, which evaluate student performance at the conclusion of the instructional period, have little to no influence on student learning.” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. (*Note: This report is based on an analysis of 116 peer-reviewed and reputable articles, 92 of which are summarized in the report.)
“Promising practice in formative assessment for improving student achievement involves the application of diverse evaluation practices to everyday classroom instruction to engage students in their own learning. Effective formative assessment involves real-time questioning and frequent classroom discussion to gain an understanding of what students know (and don’t know) in order to make responsive changes in both teaching and learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998a).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Feedback is an essential component of the formative assessment process and is widely recognized in the literature as a critical support mechanism for student learning (Callingham, 2008; Cauley, Pannozzo, Abrams, McMillan, & Camou-Linkroum, 2006; Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2006; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shepard, 2000; Stiggins, 2004). According to past research, effective feedback is specific, immediate, and focused on students’ thought processes, and goes beyond merely directing the student to the “correct” answer.” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Formative assessments are more effective when they are aligned with learning objectives that (1) provide a trajectory of student learning at key points in the curriculum and (2) guide feedback to students about their performance (Ayala et al., 2008; Stiggins & Chappius, 2008; Valencia, 2008; Wiley, 2008). Furthermore, these learning objectives should be aligned with the unique learning styles, strengths, and developmental needs of individual students (Stiggins, 1998).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“According to existing literature, high-quality formative assessment involves tasks that go beyond recall or recognition to include reasoning and justification of responses that teachers may or may not have anticipated prior to the assessment. More specifically, learning is enhanced when students are asked to formulate problems, organize their knowledge and experiences in new ways, test their ideas with other students, and express themselves orally and in writing (Newmann et al., 2001).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Sound formative assessment in the classroom is one of the most potent factors for influencing student achievement (see Black & Wiliam, 1998ab). It guides students’ judgments of what is important to learn, affects their motivation and self-perceptions of competence, structures their approaches to self-study, consolidates their learning, and facilitates the development of enduring learning strategies and skills (Crooks, 1988). Assessment experts generally agree that a balanced assessment system that addresses both state accountability and assessment for learning is necessary to maximize student achievement (Stiggins, 2002; Valencia, 2008). While less frequent evaluations for summative purposes should focus on describing what students can and cannot do, ongoing evaluation activity in the classroom should be directed toward providing students with feedback to facilitate their learning (Crooks, 1988).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“In 1998, Black and Wiliam published a seminal work on formative assessment titled Assessment and Classroom Learning. The manuscript was based on an extensive research review of 250 journal articles and reports to determine if classroom-based formative assessment increases academic achievement (Black & Wiliam, 1998a). The results showed that well-designed formative assessment is associated with major gains in student achievement on a wide variety of conventional achievement measures (standardized, accountability tests), across all ages and all subject disciplines. Effect sizes ranged from moderate to high, with formative assessment having the greatest impact on low- achieving students (Black & Wiliam, 1998b).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Several others have discussed the relationship between formative assessment and student learning (e.g., Boston, 2002; Chappuis & Stiggins, 2002; Crooks, 1988; Stiggins, 1998). In general, there is wide agreement among assessment experts that when teachers use formative assessment as part of their everyday classroom instruction, students are more likely to attain higher levels of achievement. When students are assessed frequently during the learning process, it allows teachers to adjust their instruction to address learning deficiencies and misconceptions before it is too late. Successful formative assessment informs students about their own learning and guides their decision-making so they can become more successful learners in the future (Stiggins, 1998). Students who are aware of how they learn are better able to set goals, develop a variety of learning strategies, and both control and evaluate their individual learning processes.” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Cauley et al. (2006) performed a large-scale literature review to identify specific classroom strategies for capitalizing on the relationship between formative assessment and student motivation. In general, research indicates that in order to foster feelings of self-efficacy and improve student motivation, assessments must grant students regular opportunities to improve on their work, with errors and mistakes considered a natural part of learning. Furthermore, teacher feedback on student performance should focus on the student’s effort and ability and should value the process or strategy toward producing an answer as opposed to the correctness of the answer itself. Lastly, students should be encouraged to use self-assessment strategies that will put them at the center of their own learning experience. In sum, both research and theory support a strong relationship between classroom-based formative assessment and student achievement. When students are involved in the assessment of their own learning, they become more motivated to learn, and when students want to learn, they learn better. The sound practice of formative assessment helps students understand their own strengths and weaknesses, provides them with a sense of control over their learning, and motivates them to obtain greater levels of achievement in the future.” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“There is an extensive body of literature on the nature and extent of feedback as related to its impact on student learning (e.g., Brookhart, 2008; Crooks, 1988; Kulhavy, 1977; Mory, 2004; Shute, 2008). Research suggests that positive learning outcomes are more likely when feedback focuses on features of the task, such as how the student can improve his or her performance in relation to standards and learning goals (Kluger & DeNisi, 1998; Hattie & Timperley, 2007). This task-oriented emphasis is advantageous over nonspecific evaluation (e.g., praise or criticism) or normative comparisons (Tunstall & Gipps,1996; for meta-analysis, see Bangert-Drowns et al., 1991). Specifically, it helps students become aware of misconceptions or gaps between desired goals and current knowledge, understanding, and skills, and then helps guide students through the process of obtaining those goals (Brookhart, 2008; Sadler, 1989). Research also suggests that effective feedback includes specific comments about errors and areas of improvement (Brookhart, 2008); however, too specific feedback compromises student exploration of his or her own learning (Goodman, Wood, & Hendrickx, 2004). Furthermore, immediate feedback is more effective than delayed feedback, and presearch availability (i.e., knowledge of correct responses prior to performing the learning activity) is counterproductive (Epstein et al., 2002; Kulhavey, 1977; Kulick & Kulick, 1988). —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“A critical aspect of high-quality formative assessment is that it is well aligned with classroom-based learning objectives as well as the individual needs, performance levels, strengths, and weaknesses of the students in the class. Research indicates that formative assessments should be aligned with learning objectives that provide a trajectory of student learning, and ideally, teachers and students should work together to develop learning objectives (Ayala et al., 2008; Stiggins & Chappius, 2008; Valencia, 2008; Wiley, 2008).” —lark, T., Englert, K., Frazee, D., Shebby, S., & Randel, B. (2009). Assessment: A McREL report prepared for Stupski Foundation’s Learning System. Denver, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
“Recently, researchers have tried to tease out what makes some feedback effective, some ineffective, and some downright harmful (Butler & Winne, 1995; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Other researchers have described the characteristics of effective feedback (Johnston, 2004; Tunstall & Gipps, 1996). From parsing this research and reflecting on my own experience as an educational consultant working with elementary and secondary teachers on assessment issues, particularly the difference between formative assessment and grading, I have identified what makes for powerful feedback—in terms of how teachers deliver it and the content it contains. Good feedback contains information a student can use. That means, first, that the student has to be able to hear and understand it. A student can’t hear something that’s beyond his comprehension, nor can a student hear something if she’s not listening or if she feels like it’s useless to listen. The most useful feedback focuses on the qualities of student work or the processes or strategies used to do the work. Feedback that draws students’ attention to their self-regulation strategies or their abilities as learners is potent if students hear it in a way that makes them realize they will get results by expending effort and attention.” —Brookhart, S. (2008, January). Feedback that fits. Educational Leadership, 65(4), p. 54–59
“[A]s a result of reviewing almost 8,000 studies, researcher John Hattie (1992) made the following comment: “The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving education must be ‘dollops of feedback.’” —Marzano, R. J. (2007). Classroom assessment and grading that work. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“Scholars have conducted many reviews of the research on classroom assessment. Some of the more comprehensive reviews are those by Natriello (1987); Fuchs and Fuchs (1986); Crooks (1988); Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, and Kulik (1991); Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, Kulik, and Morgan (1991); Kluger and DeNisi (1996); and Black and Wiliam (1998). The reviews lead to many conclusions that provide insights into effective classroom assessment; however, four generalizations are particularly germane… (1) Feedback from classroom assessments should give students a clear picture of their progress on learning goals and how they might improve; (2) feedback on classroom assessments should encourage students to improve; (3) classroom assessment should be formative in nature; and (4) formative classroom assessments should be frequent.” —Marzano, R. J. (2007). Classroom assessment and grading that work. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“Formative assessment is another line of research related to the research on feedback. Teachers administer formative assessments while students are learning new information or new skills. In contrast, teachers administer summative assessments at the end of learning experiences, for example, at the end of the semester or the school year. Major reviews of research on the effects of formative assessment indicate that it might be one of the more powerful weapons in a teacher’s arsenal. To illustrate, as a result of a synthesis of more than 250 studies, Black and Wiliam (1998) describe the impact of effective formative assessment in the following way: The research reported here shows conclusively that formative assessment does improve learning. The gains in achievement appear to be quite considerable, and as noted earlier, amongst the largest ever reported for educational interventions. As an illustration of just how big these gains are, an effect size of 0.7, if it could be achieved on a nationwide scale, would be equivalent to raising the mathematics attainment score of an ‘average’ country like England, New Zealand, or the United States into the “top five” after the Pacific rim countries of Singapore, Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong.” —Marzano, R. J., & Brown, J. L. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“One strong finding from the research on formative assessment is that the frequency of assessments is related to student academic achievement. This is demonstrated in the meta-analysis by Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, and Kulik (1991)…. To interpret [data from the study], assume that we are examining the learning of a particular student who is involved in a 15-week course…. If five assessments are employed, a gain in student achievement of 20 percentile points is expected. If 25 assessments are administered, a gain in student achievement of 28.5 percentile points is expected, and so on. This same phenomenon is reported by Fuchs and Fuchs (1986) in their meta-analysis of 21 controlled studies. They report that providing two assessments per week results in an effect size of 0.85 or a percentile gain of 30 points.” —Marzano, R. J., & Brown, J. L. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
“At least 12 previous meta-analyses have included specific information on feedback in classrooms. These meta-analyses included 196 studies and 6,972 effect sizes. The average effect size was 0.79 (twice the average effect). To place this average of 0.79 into perspective, it fell in the top 5 to 10 highest influences on achievement in Hattie’s (1999) synthesis.” —Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007, March). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 88–112.