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Formative, summative, and alternative assessment practices are proven effective in non-pandemic circumstances. This gives confidence to educators engaging a student population impacted by long-term symptoms of COVID-19 that they could provide methods for developing self-regulation to teacher education programs operating within the critical framework of a sociocultural lens. While medical experts work to address possible neurological repercussions of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, cognitive scientists working in teacher education may provide some relief to educators and policymakers alike if self-regulation becomes a focus within assessment. The role of assessment within teacher education continues to grow in the literature; retrieval practices separate from formative and summative assessments while working alongside them to provide no-stakes feedback on where student learning presides. Yet, all three have an opportunity to develop the self-regulatory skills that would aid those in classrooms, known and unknown, impacted by COVID-19.

Barnes et al. (2017) argue that pre-service teachers bring into the classroom multiple ways of thinking about assessment. Across the world students and educators alike have spent much of the past few years out of the classroom participating in virtual instruction. As the global pandemic shifted back towards in-classroom instruction, teacher education programs were forced to face the new realities brought about by the novel coronavirus. While policymakers study the long-term effects, educators must be accountable now by adapting to those factors outside our ability to change and reinforce learning mechanisms within our students’ control. Concerns exist as to whether the unknown may impact accuracy and practices in student assessment. Both are integral to the teaching and learning process where the teacher must assess whether the student has learned enough to move forward with their learning. The theory of self-regulation is one model that allows students to develop intrinsic accountability while simultaneously understanding the significance of their learning. Andrade (2019) found that while students can grow their self-regulation in summative assessment, the skill develops better during formative assessments.

This review of literature seeks to address the following research questions: How do formative, summative, and alternative assessments currently inform student self-regulation and how can research for teacher education programs build on that knowledge to address current needs in education? Budson (2021) suggests that the coronavirus impairs cognitive attention spans. Learning strategies for self-regulation have been shown to increase long-term memory (Frankenstein 2019). Thus, it is incumbent upon teacher education programs and in-service teachers to consider ways to develop self-regulation, especially within formative, summative, and alternative assessments.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessments are clear opportunities for students to practice skills that develop and reinforce learning. Infusing formative assessment training in the classroom will develop self-regulation in students (Makkonen and Jaquet 2020). For example, Andrade (2010) found establishing a culture of critique reframes errors and failure as opportunities for students to learn. Additionally, setting learning goals reduces ambiguity and misunderstanding while students generating feedback for themselves helps internalize the idea that feedback may not be the right answer, but it is a powerful one (Andrade 2010). Formative assessments are tools for mutual accountability in the classroom as they are effective at increasing students’ perceived level of understanding and encouraging further study (McCallum and Milner 2020). These authors’ findings support earlier assertions by Andrade (2010) and previous findings of Barnes et al. (2017) in that formative assessment builds student self-regulation by enhancing their skills at monitoring their own progress in learning.

Summative Assessment

Various approaches to end of unit assessments question the role student feedback plays, as well as how agency is developed during the exercise. Sanchez et al. (2017) found statistically significant improved performance on subsequent assessments after self-grading. Building on this practice using a sociocultural critical lens, Nieminen and Tuohilampi (2020) found students recognized the value of assessing their own skills and would continue to do it into the future regardless of teacher instruction. Additionally, the authors inferred that those participating in summative self-assessment would benefit from a scaffolded approach to agency and a stronger support system. Finally, the authors acknowledge that their sociocultural framework may result in analytical limitations, but adamantly contend that “if critical self- assessment skills are to be promoted assessment, the notion of agency must be considered” (2020, 1043).

Salas Vicente et al. (2021) accepted that assertion and worked to include student agency in their empirical process, ultimately finding that students reviewed past online quizzes more frequently before a mid-semester quiz. They acknowledge that some might interpret this as increased self-regulation but argue that most of the quiz review occurred in the two weeks prior to the summative e-assessment as result of undergraduate procrastination. The summative assessment contained a problem-solving part that became the focus of the case study, because the students could calculate whether they passed the course before attempting this portion of the exam. While a useful tool for mutual accountability in the classroom, summative assessments do not necessarily account for student motivation and can obfuscate actual self-regulation.

Alternative Assessment

Though there are many alternative assessments in teacher education, the subfield of retrieval practices—no-stakes actions that deliberately recall information at spaced intervals to increase memory—is swiftly growing. Agarwal (2019) sought to discover if one need not obtain knowledge through remembering and understanding before mastering higher order learning like application, analysis, evaluation, and creation. Unlike the case study from Salas Vicente et al. (2021), repeated quizzes using retrieval practices showed better improvement in students’ transfer of knowledge across a content domain over repeated studying.

Self-regulation consists of executing, implementing, differentiating, organizing, checking, critiquing, generating, planning, and producing—making retrieval practices an excellent alternative assessment for mutual accountability in the classroom. Ariel and Karpicke (2018) found that a group who received instructions on retrieval practices performed 23 percent better on a delayed critical exam than did the control group. The authors argue that repeated instructions about retrieval practices prompted students to choose to self-regulate their learning for better recall. Moreover, they found that the group who received the retrieval practice instructions in the initial session recalled each item three times both during the initial session and later during the second session.

Also articulating teacher tools for academic development, Agarwal invokes a desirable difficulties framework to examine the relationship between fact learning and higher order learning across three experiments, ultimately finding that “benefits from higher order quizzes were limited to the higher order test, and benefits from the mixed quizzes extended to both types of final tests” (2019, 202). Students prefer re-study over self-testing of material and often interpret one instance of recall as sufficient because they do not associate improved task experience with the retrieval practice itself (Ariel and Karpicke, 2018). An optimal three-recall event prior to summative assessment is one of the biggest takeaways from this entire review.

Infusing Self-Regulation into the Classroom

How formative, summative, and alternative assessments inform student self-regulation and how teacher education programs and in-service teachers could build on that knowledge to address current needs in education continue to be studied from various lenses and approaches. Zeichner and Conklin (2005) argue that perceptions of teacher education programs result from their ability to aid teachers adapt curriculum to meet individual student needs. Darling-Hammond (2013) chose the seven programs in her foundational study due to their alignment with national standards, but also due to a number of different ways they stood out. Four of the criteria she chose are also powerful reasons for including in teacher education programs formative assessment and summative assessment aimed at self-regulation development. Alternative assessments like retrieval practices include today’s sociocultural context, its place in a repertoire of teaching strategies, the role of assessment and feedback within the tools, and its usefulness in developing teachers’ abilities as reflective decision makers. This reinforces the argument for these assessment practices as tools for mutual accountability in the classroom.

Future research considerations should address all three areas of assessment. Additional demographics are needed to determine whether K-12 students of various ages, abilities, and social-emotional capacities benefit from in-classroom formative assessment training. The same could be said for self-grading and peer-grading summative assessment practices as they pertain to self-regulation. Questions remain about why such practices within a summative context increase students’ abilities to recognize that their actions benefit them as well as increase their willingness to engage in such practices again without teacher oversight. Future research would also benefit from additional analysis of the role agency in procrastination plays in masking the effectiveness of self-regulated learning strategies.

Moreover, future studies are necessary to discover why some teachers are not associating their students increased self- regulation with the assessment practices that proceed that development. Implications are such that no-stakes alternative assessments could be applied within the day-to-day tasks in the classroom and would enhance formative and summative assessment approaches while also improving self-regulation. Finally, future research is required to determine when to begin scaffolding retrieval practices in K-12 education, as there are social-emotional, age, and disability considerations that need be addressed when directing education towards self-regulation.

About the Scholar

Derek M. Lough brings a decade of stakeholder-management experience to the intersection of education and public policy. He continues to build his coursework focus on the international sustainability framework of Agenda 2030 as he seeks to cashflow the dissertation stage for his Ed.D. from the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University.

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