PhD defence Janneke van der Steen

Keywords: Formative assessment plan, Assessment for learning, Design-based research, constructive alignment

"Formative Assessment Plans for Better Informed Decision-Making: Educational Design Research in Secondary Education"

Over the years, formative assessment has gained interest in educational systems around the world. Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to inform decisions about the next steps in instruction that align with what students need at that moment to take the next step in their learning process. The worldwide interest is a result of the intuitive appeal, as well as theoretical claims that formative assessment can support and improve learning. This dissertation aimed to identify design principles that help teachers create effective formative assessment plans for multiple lessons and evaluate if these plans contribute to well-informed formative decision-making. Multiple cycles of design research, trying out, evaluating and refining design principles and designs, divided over four studies contributed to achieving this aim and ensured a more solid base for the design principles.

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