Compare methods

	Formative Assessment	Learning Progressions Analysis
Field	Education	Education
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1998	2009
Originator	Scriven (term); Bloom; Black & Wiliam (modern synthesis)	Science and mathematics education research (Corcoran, Mosher, Rogat; Wilson; Clements & Sarama)
Type	Instructional process using evidence of learning to adapt teaching and feedback	Empirically grounded ordered description of how understanding develops over time
Seminal source	Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5(1), 7–74.	Corcoran, T., Mosher, F. A., & Rogat, A. (2009). Learning Progressions in Science: An Evidence-Based Approach to Reform (CPRE Research Report RR-63). Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
Aliases	Assessment for Learning, Classroom Formative Assessment, Feedback-Based Assessment, Embedded Formative Assessment	Learning Trajectories, Progress Variables, Learning Progression Validation, Construct Maps
Related	4	4
Summary	Formative assessment, or assessment for learning, is the practice of gathering evidence of student understanding during instruction and using it immediately to adjust teaching and to give feedback that moves learning forward. Unlike summative assessment, which measures learning after the fact for grading or accountability, formative assessment is woven into the teaching cycle. Synthesized influentially by Black and Wiliam, it is defined not by the type of instrument but by whether the resulting evidence actually changes subsequent instruction and learning.	Learning progressions analysis is a methodology for describing and validating the typical paths by which students' understanding of a core concept grows more sophisticated over time. A learning progression hypothesizes an ordered sequence of increasingly advanced ways of thinking — from naive ideas to expert understanding — and then tests that ordering against evidence of how students actually reason. Prominent in science and mathematics education, it links a theory of the domain, the design of assessment tasks, and a measurement model into a coherent description of conceptual development.