Formative Structural Assessment: Using Concept Maps as Assessment for Learning

Within the educational community, there is an increasing recognition of the need for formative assessment tools. Effective formative assessment must meet four criteria: it must assess higher order knowledge, identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, provide effective feedback, and be easy to use. Although concept maps and other structural knowledge representation techniques have been used successfully in a variety of ways, we believe that their utility in formative assessment has not been fully explored. In this paper, we review evidence which suggests that structural assessments, including concept maps, meet the criteria of effective formative assessment. We then describe a proposed computer-based formative assessment system that uses concept maps as the basis of feedback and individualized remedial instruction.