A Survey of Teachers' Beliefs Regarding the Importance and Implementation of Formative Assessment

This quantitative study examined teachers' beliefs of the importance and implementation of formative assessment in one north Mississippi school district. There is a limited amount of research related to teachers' beliefs of formative assessment. Heritage, Kim, Vendlinski, and Herman (2009) defined formative assessment as a planned process during instruction. This process involves collecting information throughout instruction and providing feedback to the student and the teacher and results in changes to instruction to meet the needs of the learner.;The purpose of this study was to determine the mean scores, standard deviations, and percentages of teachers' responses to survey items concerning the importance and implementation of formative assessment based on grade levels taught and years of experience. Teachers (n = 77) from two schools in a north Mississippi school district completed the survey consisting of questions pertaining to the importance and implementation of formative assessment. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze each item on the survey. The findings indicated that teachers' beliefs based on the importance and implementation of formative assessment varied according to grade levels taught and years of experience.