Providing students with immediate feedback can provide teachers with a deeper understanding to where the students learning is at and can change according to the curriculum (McMillan, 2010). If teachers make the appropriate adjustments to the curriculum, this can enable students to have a deeper understanding of the learning material and improve their achievement goals. This also can encourage students to think for themselves and prepare them for life outside of school (Popham, 2008). This is supported by McMillan; “Once students reach their senior year, this will enable them to adapt to using scoring rubrics and criteria, and also self-assessment” (McMillan, 2010, p.143). Wiliam (2005) also agrees that formative assessment measures will increase students’ learning and test scores. Therefore formative assessment allows teachers to have a clearer understanding of student’s progress throughout the term (Wiliam, 2005). This can then allow them to make the appropriate adjustments according to the curriculum.
Constant feedback in formative assessment can also assist lower achievers so that teachers can then incorporate the appropriate teaching methods accordingly (Wiliam, 2005). Analysis studies show that; “improved formative assessment helps lower achievers more than other students- and so reduces the range of achievement while raising achievement overall” (Wiliam, 2005, p.29).