Towards a Theory of Formative Assessment in Online Higher Education

The affordances of online learning have coincided with increasing demand for higher education across disciplines. The need to provide appropriate learning support while fostering self-regulation in online higher education calls for formative assessment to facilitate meaningful learning. This chapter attempts to conceptually generalize the findings of a recent collective case study and develop a relevant theoretical framework for online formative assessment. The theoretical framework is intended to inform successful implementation of formative assessment in online learning contexts. The collective case study purposefully conceptualized formative assessment from a holistic pedagogical approach. Investigating application of formative assessment in the recent study explored multifaceted elements including provision of a variety of embedded authentic assessment activities. The theoretical framework advanced through this chapter is therefore an attempt to coherently unify the diverse elements and techniques from the collective case study, and explicate how this creates an effective pedagogical design to promote meaningful learning.