160 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Let./Vol. 70 (136)
 Št./No. 2/2019
 Str./pp. 160–173
ISSN 0038 0474 Anna Kožuh
Perspectives on assessment at school
Abstract: In this paper , different concepts of assessment in institutional education are taken into consi-
deration. The analysis uses views and observations regarding assessment and grading characteristics at 
schools that are described by various authors. This at the same time means that the text is a generalised 
discussion and does not refer to a particular school system and its assessment policy. The discourse is 
inspired by a variety of solutions both within and outside Europe to seek a model of better practices in 
the field of assesment. The author of the paper does not intend to devise any systemic regulations. It is 
only an attempt of indicating solutions, which, due to a number of socio-economic conditions, may be 
chosen or modified in school practice. They can also be used merely as a theory which, when confronted 
with the experience of particular educational systems, can improve them in the future. These concepts 
represent the starting point for finding the answers to some of the dilemmas concerning the problem of 
assessing student's knowledge. This paper develops arguments and argues that summative assessment, 
which is based on objectively verifiable knowledge standards and on the indicators and assessment criteria 
derived from them, is well linked with and complemented by formative assessment. The latter is not 
confined to an assessment of student performance but, instead, documents a student’s progress and the 
development of key personality characteristics that represent important objectives of every educational 
process. This implies that formative assessment should be understood as a supplement to summative 
assessment. The complementary and linking relationship between these two types of assessment could 
be used to provide more comprehensive guidelines for a student's individual development, as well as for 
the critical assessment of one's own learning process and knowledge acquired.
Keywords: formative assessment, summative assessment, reflection, didactic measurement, perso-
nality development
UDC: 37.091.26
Scientific paper
Anna Kožuh, PhD., associate professor, University of Primorska, Faculty of Education, Cankarjeva ulica 
5, SI-6000 Koper, Slovenia; e-mail for correspondence: anna.kozuh@pef.upr.si

  Kožuh    161
Introduction
School assessment is a complex, multi-faceted, intricate and controversial 
process. Regardless of various discrepancies, a tendency to search for solutions 
that would effectively combine the advantages of different visions and approaches 
towards assessment is becoming more evident in didactic research (Dorn 2010; Earl 
2012; Kozłowska 2002; Niemierko 2007; Noyce and Hickey 2011; William 2011). 
The majority of attention is devoted to the basic and well-known concepts, such as: 
formative assessment (i.e. continuing assessment) and summative assessment. Some 
research within this area of didactics aims to search for a common denominator and 
to find ways in which the assessment process at school can be made more effective. 
These concepts, summative and formative assessment, are neither a novelty nor a 
revolution. However, there has been an extensive search for a model of assessment 
that would allow for the most thorough appraisal of a student’s knowledge and 
would, at the same time, develop the individual needs and abilities of a learner, 
leading to a comprehensive development of his or her personality . It seems that the 
suggested solution of combining the two ways of assessment can move the teaching 
and assessment practice towards meeting these expectations. 
Summative assessment gives a concrete answer to the question regarding the 
achievement of the educational objectives, knowledge standards, the indicators and 
the student assessment criteria derived from them. Formative assessment, on the 
other hand, provides a student with current information about what he or she is 
already capable of doing and how to possibly fill in any of their knowledge gaps. 
It seems that most advantageous is the combination of formative and summative 
assessment which allows a student to demonstrate his or her achievements while 
also contributing to his or her broader development (cf. Ainsworth and Viegut 2006; 
Bennet 2011; William 2009; Szedzianis 2017; Briggs and Dominique 2013;  Cowie 
and Bell 1999; Klenowski 2009; Creswell 2009). Consequently, this paper looks at 
assessment as a challenge, pointing to the objectives and the essence of this pro-
cess. From this perspective, the main functions and effectiveness of assessment, 
as well as basic errors made by teachers during the assessment process, should 
also be analysed. 

162 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Kožuh
The essence of summative assessment is primarily to compare learning out-
comes with the educational objectives and knowledge standards set by curriculum 
or syllabus. It may also cause the student to be classified in the class hierarchy. 
However, this can also lead to a hasty labelling of the student and the assessment 
can become an appraisal of the student's degree of adaptation to school discipline 
without demonstrating his or her actual knowledge and skills. An alternative to the 
assessment understood in this way could be the widest possible use of formative 
assessment, which provides continuous feedback on aquired knowledge or skills. 
Such an assessment also improves the quality of learning process. In this context, 
assessment also allows the learner to feel like a responsible participant and orga-
niser of the learning process. Studies and research on the effects of summative and 
formative assessments are not new and this problem has been subject to a thorough 
analysis for a number of years. A research in New Zealand (Hattie 2009, Hattie and 
Anderman 2013) has attracted much attention recently. Based on the analysis of 
1200 studies, the benefits of formative assessment have been formulated. The main 
positive characteristic of formative assessment is the ability to influence students' 
personal development, their sense of autonomy and responsibility for their own 
work. This change of the way of thinking is closely related to the changing role 
of the school which increasingly becomes a place of support for development and 
constructive criticism. Therefore it is worth making efforts to continually seek a 
balance between summative and formative assessment and combine their best 
elements in order to create an enriched appraisal system.
Major aims and the essence of the assessment process 
Assessment, as an everyday work element for all teachers, is often interpreted 
as the process of diagnosing the knowledge, skills and abilities of students as well 
as of a teacher’s own work. As a result, competence in the field of skills assess-
ment is a basic condition for a correct diagnosis, defined as ‘recognizing an object, 
event or situation in order to acquire precise information’ (Okoń 2003, p. 48). In 
this context, assessment allows a teacher to determine and analyse the cognitive 
and motivational achievements of a student while taking into account various 
conditions (intelligence, memory , ambitions, willingness to acquire knowledge, in-
dividual skills and interests, etc.). It is these conditions that make the assessment 
and measurement of achievements throughout the learning process one of the most 
difficult elements of a teacher’s work. At the same time, it should be noted that the 
consequences of assessment are multi-faceted—positive can serve as an incentive 
for the future work of a pupil, whereas a continuous lowering of grades or a lack 
of ability to find even the smallest success indicators can demotivate a student 
and become factors that inhibit the active participation of such students in classes 
(Brookhart 2007; Castoldi 2012). This is why it is worthwhile to consider systemic 
changes that would make it possible to eliminate at least some of the weaknesses 
in the process of assessment. These changes could move towards employing more 
psychologists and school pedagogues or counselors in order to help students dis-

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cover their strengths. School pedagogues and psychologists could also show the 
teachers the most effective ways of passing on the knowledge and acquiring skills 
in relation to individual students. In addition, they could provide for a richer and 
fuller perspective of school assessment. Teachers should very precisely identify the 
aims of the assessment process itself. The main aim is to provide feedback to both 
students and teachers about the effectiveness of the learning process. Furthermore, 
it is also important that assessment increases the students’ motivation for learning 
and development. This is mainly achieved by showing students the specific ways 
and techniques of cognitive work, as well as by presenting them with the contents 
required to operate the basic mechanisms of the didactic process (Niemierko 2007). 
Finally , the aim of assessment is to obtain the feedback that is necessary for teachers 
to determine which learning objectives have been achieved in a satisfactory manner . 
In this way , assessment becomes a source for both student and teacher reflections 
on their own work. For teachers, it also represents the starting point for modifying 
the ways of working with students. 
The abilities to accurately recognise the level of student achievement and to 
reliably and objectively assess their achievements are among the most highly valued 
skills that teachers can possess in their working environments. However, assessing 
is an exceptionally complex didactic undertaking that does not only assume a ne-
cessity for the efficient and free use of an assessment theory by teachers due to its 
close relation to other teacher competences, such as interpersonal communication, 
motivation and creativity. In the assessment process, other didactic competences 
of teachers are also extremely important, including motivation and the ability to 
creatively formulate tasks and problems for students, as well as a whole range of 
competences within the area of   interpersonal communication. After all, teachers 
are responsible for the climate of the assessment process and all the assessment 
consequences, both in the form of the applied grading scale and the continuous 
feedback directed at their students. The importance of the procedure of informing 
students about their assessment results, while respecting the rights of students 
obtained through privacy and personal data protection regulations, is also strongly 
emphasised. The way in which the assessment of a student is presented reflects 
the teacher’s level of his or her professional maturity and, at the same time, of the 
level of his/her personal culture (e.g. the way in which opinions about a student 
are formulated and expressed, the ability to empathise, the ability to communicate 
by indicating successes first followed by the knowledge/skills gaps, and to focus 
critique on achievements and not on student’s person, etc.).
A constant flow of information about the achievements of students forms the 
basis for flexible shaping of programs, courses and classes in the area of   education. 
Students are stimulated to act when they understand and approve the goals and 
objectives set by their teacher. Hence, receiving feedback on the results and effects 
of work is necessary in each step of the didactic process for both students and their 
teachers. Strengthening student motivation by grading is a necessary but not always 
positive way of building the proper self-esteem of students. Such assessments may 
prove particularly important not only for students and their parents but also for 
other individuals involved in the educational process in further managing the fate 

164 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Kožuh
of students (Boyle and Charles 2010). It should also be remembered that teachers 
should be able to produce accurate diagnostic tools that enable them to assess the 
achievements of objectives in the most objective manner possible. This means that 
teachers should be able to develop appropriate measurement tools, based on a clear 
procedure for assessing achievements, expressed in the form of clear assessment 
criteria. Teachers should also know that written exams are only one of the many 
ways in which they can assess their students and that the ability to communicate 
opinions and judgments about their students is one of the most important assessment 
skill elements (Creswell 2009; Harris 2011). The presented aims and the essence of 
pedagogical competence in the field of assessment are attempts to accentuate the 
multi-aspect nature of the assessment process. This is, perhaps, why the discussion 
of various points of view on the school assessment process has been ongoing for 
many years and still remains open.
Selected points of view on the assessment process at school
Leading teacher competences in the area of   assessment, such as creativity in 
preparation of measurement tools, ability to communicate grades and ability to 
reflect on their own work based on the school achievements and development of 
their students, point out the importance of assessment. That is why assessment 
should be designed to support the dialogue between teachers and students and their 
development, as well as the development of school as such. Assessment associated 
only with a conclusive opinion about student performance seems to be insufficient. 
Hence, it is worthwhile to look at the benefits of attempting to supplement sum-
mative assessment with formative assessment.
If such benefits turn out to be important for the didactic process of further 
research, it could then be worthwhile to make efforts to change the adopted as-
sessment procedures and legal regulations. Due to the complementary nature of 
summative and formative ways of assessment, the benefits for all the educational 
process participants of combining them are most promising. Such a combination 
benefits all the learning outcomes’ feedback recipients. The main recipients in this 
process are, of course, the students. The feedback resulting from a combination of 
summative and formative measures of assessment, in this context, is based on a 
structure that shows a very wide spectrum of knowledge and skills mastery levels. 
This spectrum contains a range of information that supports the student. The most 
significant skills and strengths of students develop during the educational process 
course. In this combinatory approach to assessment, the school as an institution 
ceases merely to be a place of knowledge acquisition. Instead, it becomes a place for 
self-reflection and for the reflection on the ways in which changes can be made to 
acquired information and skills (Popham 2008; Kožuh 2017; Niemierko 2007). It 
also becomes the place of discovery—of the world, of one’s own abilities and of how 
to develop one’s personality . Additional arguments that speak in favour of combining 
the two approaches to assessment (i.e. summative and formative assessment) are the 
provision of a competent introduction of students to the process of self-assessment 

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Perspectives on assessment at school
 
and the evaluation of others. Combining these approaches to assessment thus creates 
a possibility for a reliable final assessment that is supplemented by a holistic view of 
the students’ knowledge. In this manner, the assessment does not only come from 
teachers but also from classmates, as well as from a student himself/herself, and 
is the result of his/her deep self-assessment and self-reflection. Students’ learning 
competence is thus developed, and his or her personal development more broadly 
supported. In this respect, school becomes a place in which the competencies of 
students—related to the development of their own potential through a sense of 
autonomy , ability to make decisions and to reflect on personal progress—are tested 
and developed (Bennet 2011; Earl 2012; Ainsworth and Viegut 2006; Gallagher; 
Hipkins and Zohar 2012; Heritage 2013). 
Complementing summative assessment and grading with formative as-
sessment also imposes a different role on teachers. By skilfully combining both 
approaches to assessment, a teacher becomes a moderator of the learning process 
that supports student development and involves students in the search for creative 
solutions. Teachers’ work on the approaches to assessment begins with setting 
educational objectives. It is at that point that a reflective teacher creates a matrix 
of expectations, answering the questions of what, when and how he or she will 
be assessing. This is how assessment is planned, taking place prior to starting 
the set objectives fulfilment process—i.e. before a teacher’s first meeting with 
students. This assessment system planning stage is followed by the beginning of 
the objective achievement process with which the assessment process also begins 
(Niemierko 2007; William 2009; Mihaly and McCaffrey 2014; Kožuh 2017). This 
is done by analysing and evaluating the statements of the students participating 
in discussions, debates and brainstorming activities or working on the basis of 
any other educational technique. Here, the assessment most often takes on the 
form of commentaries made by teachers, their suggestions and opinions on how to 
solve problems, as well as the argumentation and counter-argumentation of the 
statements made by their students (Kozłowska 2002; Niemierko 2007; Crouch and 
Mazur 2001; Brophy 2002). At the same time, it should be emphasised that this 
final stage of assessment is constituted by the feedback about the effects of the 
teachers’ work—i.e. the extent to which they have fulfilled the planned objectives 
during the education process. The assessment of students and, on this basis, the 
assessment of teachers, is the foundation for subsequent reflections on the work 
of both students and teachers as well as a source for future ideas on what and how 
to change in the educational process so that the results of the work are better and 
more valuable. From this perspective, the process of mere identifying of acquired 
knowledge is much narrower than the process of assessing students at school. This 
is because grading primarily aims to answer the question about the quality of the 
students’ knowledge. It shows students their most significant achievements and, 
at the same time, reveals important gaps in their knowledge as well as possible 
ways to fill them in. It also identifies the strengths of each learner, showing them 
the ways to effectively control their acquired skills. This way of thinking about as-
sessment at school can also become the basis for the reflection of teachers on their 
own work. It would make it easier for teachers to find the answer to the question 

166 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Kožuh
which work technique will allow their students to avoid mistakes. In turn, a change 
in the work quality of both students and teachers would contribute to a change in 
the quality of the way the entire school system works.
In the area of assessment, efforts are also being made to familiarise students 
with various ways of effective learning. This also supports the motivation and cre-
ativity of students, their curiosity about the world, creative thinking and the ease 
of adapting to change (Łukasik, Adamska-Staroń and Piasecka 2009). It should be 
emphasised that a student’s self-esteem and ability to find an individual develop-
ment path play a very important role in the assessment process. The assessment 
process also emphasises the importance of abilities such as: teamwork, interpersonal 
communication, purposeful action and taking the responsibility for the effects 
of one’s own work. School assessment should preserve the ability to express any 
judgments, praises and opinions to students and other addressees of comments and 
assessments (William 2011; Sterna and Strzemieczny 2014; Shepard 2009; Leahy, 
Lyon, Thompson and William 2005). 
A change in the way of thinking about assessing and, more specifically , about 
attempting to complement summative with formative assessment, may involve 
changing the students’ mentality among other things. Students can be involved 
in self-assessment and self-control. Educational assessment is also an element of 
a teacher’s didactic workshop, indicating to students the most effective ways of 
supporting their development (Crouch and Mazur 2001; Briggs and Dominique 
2013). For a teacher, assessment is a systematic reflection of student work as well 
as a reflection of his/her own work. This reflection, in turn, determines the basis 
for planning didactic activities and classes with students and also serves as the 
foundation for student development, because the assessment, which documents a 
learner’s development process, becomes the feedback for both parties involved in 
the didactic process (Kožuh 2017). By indicating the student’s level of knowledge 
and skills mastery , the process of assessment thus becomes an indicator of student 
and teacher success during the didactic process. Nowadays, assessment should be 
understood even more broadly—as a mechanism that supports the work of schools 
and other institutions and, thus, as the operation process for the entire system of 
education. Such an understanding of the assessment process by all participants of 
the education process provides a great opportunity to elevate the quality of school 
work through the critical reflection of both teachers and students on their own work.
Function and efficiency of assessment 
An analysis of deliberations on the subject of assessment and its role in 
the didactic process authorises the identification of some of the most frequently 
mentioned functions of the assessment process at school. The first of these is its 
diagnostic function (Niemierko 2007; Kozłowska 2002), which takes the form of 
preliminary findings and ongoing monitoring of student progress as well as of the 
individual student development process. This diagnostic function improves the 
activities of teachers and students, directing them towards the path of continuous 

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Perspectives on assessment at school
 
student development and leading to more effective results of student work. The 
second function indicated by the assessment process is the motivating function, also 
referred to as the function of activating students. Each student is an individual and 
each student reacts differently to stimuli; consequently , different ways of working 
can be motivating for different students. In order for the assessment process to be 
most effective, it is necessary for teachers to have rich knowledge of the individual 
interests and specific abilities of their students. Moreover, each specific student age 
group requires a different didactic approach and a different way through which a 
teacher can motivate and involve students in the process of acquiring skills and 
knowledge (Brophy 2002). A third function of the assessment process lies in its 
self-assessment and self-control function, which helps students evaluate themselves. 
This function requires a continuous cultivation of skills in the area of   objective 
and reliable self-assessment of one’s own activities—because the more accurate the 
self-appraisal is, the closer the actions taken on its basis are to the most effective 
achievements of the student. The preventive function is also mentioned among the 
more important functions of school grades and of the assessment process. It shows 
the students the possible directions for their improvement and for supplementing 
their deficits. This function also allows for an understanding of the shortage range 
regarding knowledge, skills and actual understanding of acquired knowledge. The 
preventive function shows students the content that they have not yet learnt but 
know or that they neither know nor realise they do not know. It effectively shows 
the tracks and paths students can take to reach the content that is not studied or is 
foreign to them. An extremely important function of assessment is also its prognostic 
function (William 2009; Kozłowska 2002; Niemierko 2007). This function allows 
for predicting the learning outcomes and achievements of students at successive 
levels of education. It, therefore, facilitates the decisions made by students and is 
helpful to and supportive for their parents and teachers in choosing the direction 
and scope of their further education. When formulating a list of postulates regarding 
the activities and school procedures related to the assessment process, it should be 
clearly emphasised that assessment should start with positives even if the domin-
ating factor is going to be pointing out student mistakes. Assessment viewed from 
this perspective may be perceived as constructive criticism.
Beginning assessment by reminding students of their recent successes, even 
if they are very distant, would prove to students that teachers mainly remember 
successes not failures. Proper assessment should also include an opportunity to 
change or improve the assessment. It should be directed at activities or behaviours 
that a student can and is able to change. Assessment should take into account the 
needs of the recipient, that is, it should provide students with specific information 
about the areas of their ignorance—i.e. the lack of knowledge, information or 
skills—and the ways in which they can obtain the missing knowledge as well as 
where it should be looked for. Information about the time needed to improve their 
skills and knowledge, as well as the ways in which this can be done, is also valu-
able for students. Similarly, students should also be told when and how they can 
improve upon their current acquired skills and knowledge. Teachers should ensure 
that students can use different forms of presenting their achievements, including 

168 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Kožuh
the possibility of making written and oral statements (Balley and Heritage 2008; 
Sterna and Strzemieczny 2014). Individual predispositions of students can make 
it easier for one student to speak out verbally, while other students have greater 
success responding in written form. This is why it is so important for teachers to 
continuously develop their assessment skills in order to avoid mistakes in everyday 
didactic work.
Basic errors teachers make during the assessment process 
Scientific theories regarding the assessment process are consistent with the 
analyses of teacher errors that occur during the education process. Weaknesses 
of assessment as a basic tool for documenting the development and progress of a 
student during the didactic process have long been an area of   research (Hanushek 
and Rivkin 2010; Harris 2011). Such studies were mainly conducted in two direc-
tions: the first consisting of analysing the factors that affect a student’s ability to 
formulate oral or written statements, and the second concerning the factors that 
are the result of a teacher’s subjectivity or lack of a certain didactic competence 
(Kožuh 2017). Consequently, the analysis of such previous research conducted 
made the identification of factors that influence errors in assessment possible, 
which depend on the differing abilities of students and the subjectivism of teachers. 
Within the group of factors that are dependent, to a large extent, on student skills, 
it is necessary to indicate the intellectual capability of a student as well as his/her 
verbal abilities and emotional immunity. These include the students’ use of lan-
guage symbols, ease of expression, richness of vocabulary and the degree of their 
familiarity with the concepts used. Intellectual abilities of students, such as the 
ability to concentrate, individual emotional stability , ways of formulating thoughts 
and judgments, being able or unable to think in an analytical, synthetic, conver-
gent, divergent and creative manner, are also important. The above mentioned 
abilities and competences are not equally developed in individual students. This is 
the main reason why high grades are often granted to students who speak without 
difficulty and successfully reproduce and formulate acquired content, or have the 
ability to speak fluently on any subject. Students who do not have well-developed 
verbal skills are in a different situation. When speaking, they often suspend their 
voice, searching for and choosing the right words. Some pupils have speech defects, 
involving stuttering or lisping. The manner of content presentation also plays a 
significant role here—the more it is in line with a teacher’s expectations, the better 
grade a student can get. Emotional resistance, which is a very important component 
in this group of factors, is determined both by the teacher created climate and by 
a student’s abilities. The second group of factors that distort student assessments 
are factors that result from a teacher’s subjectivism or from the absence of other, 
broader didactic competences. The latter contains selected elements of the emotional 
generalisation phenomenon, such as the effect of having favourites—also called the 
halo effect, the effect of the first impression—as well as stereotypes, prejudices, 
self-checking prophecies and petrified expectations. Differentiation is among other 

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mistakes made by teachers during the assessment process—e.g. too large a differ-
entiation of the rating scale—making it impossible to prepare consistent learner 
assessment. Consecutive errors include the error of contrast, the error of extreme 
grading, the error of the central tendency and the error of adjusting grades to the 
level of the class. Another important element affecting assessment distortion is 
the lack of teacher competence regarding the ability to construct measurement 
tools. An improperly prepared test does not objectively verify the full extent of the 
knowledge and skills of students. Sometimes, the test instructions are missing, 
sometimes the questions or instructions sound incomprehensible and, despite 
the knowledge they have, the students give incorrect answers. The use of tests 
should also be accompanied by caution and common sense, manifested, inter alia, 
through the resignation of the treatment of the test results as the final judgment 
on students. Navigating away from such an attitude allows teachers to consider 
tests as an important but not the only source of information about students. This 
point of view on didactic measurement makes it possible to perceive the results of 
school achievements as a starting point for seeking and gathering comprehensive 
knowledge about students.
Conclusion
Contemporary education challenges teachers in all areas of their work. In 
particular, many important tasks concern the area of assessment. Teachers should 
less frequently think about how to check the knowledge of students with tests and 
quizzes and should seek answers to the following questions more often instead: What 
conditions should be created for a student to learn effectively? How can students 
be made to feel responsible for their own learning? How can student emotions be 
engaged to support the overall effectiveness of learning? The presented perspective 
of assessment at school, which is a combination of summative and formative as-
sessment, provides a chance to improve the contact between teachers and students 
and to make school the primary place for the personal development of its students. 
In accordance with this perspective of assessment, the ultimate objective of the 
school is to prepare students for the lifelong process of skill acquisition and for 
the continuous development of their strengths. Such an approach assigns the role 
of a locomotive to assessment, which pulls the process of education along the best 
tracks, adapting to the highest quality and speed. 
This perspective of assessment is indispensable because it is difficult to change 
the functioning of a school without changing the philosophy of assessment. Assess-
ment that is understood as the art of grading and determining what the student 
does not know has been obsolete for a long time. Assessment today is understood 
as a diagnosis of student achievements, that is, as a source of knowledge about the 
actual abilities of students. It also provides information about the abilities to apply 
acquired knowledge in different situations. 
Assessment is increasingly treated as something that brings about the real 
development of students and the professional transformation of teachers; thus, it 

170 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Kožuh
prompts change in school quality itself. Contemporary understanding of assessment 
is—assessment for learning not assessment of learning. It presents a change from 
earlier forms of assessment that merely documented the degree of knowledge mastery 
only , to that of assessment which provides information about the entire development 
process of students. The assessment that is thus understood encourages students 
to analyse their own mistakes, to eliminate their shortcomings, as well as to search 
new areas for previously unknown information. This type of assessment explores 
the knowledge that students have about themselves and provides teachers with 
information about their development abilities as well as the direction of changes in 
didactic strategies. This approach to assessment has a great chance to strengthen the 
reflection and self-assessment skills of both students and teachers, thus becoming 
a lifelong learning strategy at different levels of education. 
The most important change, however, is probably the  change of the assess-
ment model with the actions of teachers involving a combination of summative 
and formative approaches to assessment. This combination indicates a necessary 
transformation of student assessment into a more complete picture of student 
achievement. This involves a broader assessment perspective that highlights the 
knowledge gained and documents student abilities during the process of acquiring 
this knowledge. After all, one cannot fail to notice that a well-organised assessment 
process, registering the didactic achievements of students and thus also the achieve-
ments of teachers, together with all the above-mentioned advantages, enables the 
teachers to develop an extremely important didactic competence—which is flexibility 
in reacting to the learning process. This further involves skilful moving between 
theoretical concepts and not adhering to only one way of assessing the successful 
achievements of students. Such flexibility is manifested, inter alia, through the 
selection of various ways of assessment that activate students as well as through 
the development of a variety of didactic measurement tools that constitute feedback 
for both teachers and their students. Irrespective of the importance of assessment 
in the didactic process, it needs to be reiterated that it is the school, rather than 
the student assessment, that should stimulate the passion for learning and seek 
to constantly improve the student knowledge and skills resources. The trans-
formations of the forms of assessment in the field of education should therefore 
resemble a journey from a place in which the pedagogy of memory and perceptual 
education continues on towards the land of pedagogy of expectations, which enables 
students to learn creatively, to search for knowledge independently and to choose 
their own, individual ways of development, discovering themselves and their own 
abilities along the way . This perception of the assessment process at school clearly 
indicates that teacher actions, which are based on different forms of assessment, 
are an integral part of didactic activities at every stage of the teaching process 
and in all areas of school activity. The teacher who uses summative assessment 
complemented by formative assessment can create more intentional and consistent 
lessons and make better use of time during the different lesson phases. In addition, 
being more aware of the purpose of their meetings with students, teachers would 
be able to better inform students about the assessment criteria, thus increasing 
student motivation and their involvement in the learning process. Furthermore, 

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using effective feedback, teachers provide guidance to their students to assist them 
in the process of modifying their actions while they themselves also receive tips to 
help shape and change their own work techniques. Using assessment criteria that 
have been explained and are familiar to students, teachers make their students feel 
more secure. This, in turn, means that students are not afraid to make mistakes, 
focusing on ensuring their best performance when completing a task and not on 
competing with other students. 
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Perspectives on assessment at school
 
Anna KOŽUH (Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija)
PERSPEKTIVE OCENJEVANJA V ŠOLI 
Povzetek: V pričujočem besedilu razmišljamo o različnih zasnovah preverjanja in ocenjevanja znanja 
v institucionalnem izobraževanju. V svoji analizi se opiramo na poglede in spoznanja o značilnostih 
šolskega preverjanja in ocenjevanja kot jih opisujejo različni avtorji v mednarodnem prostoru. Ta 
spoznanja so izhodišče za iskanje odgovorov na nekatere dileme o preverjanju in ocenjevanju znanja v 
šoli.  V besedilu tako razvijamo in strokovno utemeljujemo tezo, da bi moralo biti ocenjevanje znanja, 
ki sicer temelji na objektivno preverljivih standardih znanja ter iz teh izpeljanih opisnikov in kriteri-
jev, vselej smiselno povezano tudi z dejavnostmi formativnega, procesnega preverjanja, za katerega je 
značilno, da se ne omejuje zgolj na ugotavljanje učenčeve storilnosti, pač pa tudi na njegov napredek 
in razvoj ključnih osebnostnih značilnosti – kar so prav tako pomembni cilji vsakega vzgojno-izobraže-
valnega procesa. Gre torej za tezo, da je treba formativno preverjanje razumeti kot komplementarno 
sumativnemu ocenjevanju znanja. Formativno preverjanje namreč lahko smiselno dopolnjuje sumativno 
ocenjevanje znanja, saj v večji meri lahko upošteva individualne potrebe učenca, mu nakazuje možnosti 
za lastno kakovostno učenje in razvoj, ga spodbuja k samoocenjevanju kot subjektivnemu kritičnemu 
vrednotenju lastnega učenja in znanja ter ga vodi k spoznanjem o tem, kako naj se uči, da bo uspešen 
in da mu bo učenje v veselje. 
Ključne besede: formativno preverjanje, sumativno ocenjevanje znanja, refleksija, merjenje v didaktiki, 
razvoj osebnostnih značilnosti
E-naslov: anna.kozuh@pef.upr.si