Towards A Learning-Oriented Assessment To Improve Students ' Learning-A Critical Review of Literature

Educ Asse Eval Acc (2018) 30:211–250
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-018-9281-9
Towards a learning-oriented assessment to improve

students’ learning—a critical review of literature
Wenjie Zeng 1 & Fuquan Huang 1 & Lu Yu 2 &

Siyu Chen 1
Received: 2 June 2017 / Accepted: 3 July 2018 / Published online: 23 July 2018
# Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract Learning-oriented assessment (LOA), a concept coined by Carless, has

emerged in Europe, Canada, the USA, and the Asia-Pacific Region as an alternative
assessment methodology. LOA evolved from both summative assessment and forma-
tive assessment, and its framework comprises three integrated components, assessment
for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. While a few studies
have provided information about the connections among assessment for, of, and as
learning, the purpose of this review is to summarize what is state of the art of LOA, and
we aim to examine the history and the nature as well as the strategy of developing
LOA. We conducted a transformed critical review of LOA to address these questions.
To be specific, the related studies were searched between January 1971 and December
2016, using specific inclusion criteria to remove irrelevant documents. Results provide
the publication types of the selected studies and the reported approaches to LOA, trace
the evolution of classroom assessment from summative and formative assessment to
LOA in order to clarify the historical foundations of LOA, and indicate its nature from
the dimensions of components, functions, conceptual frameworks, and principles, as
* Fuquan Huang
huangfq@scnu.edu.cn
Wenjie Zeng
wenjiezeng@qq.com; zengwj@scnu.edu.cn
Lu Yu
418298112@qq.com; yulu_swu@163.com
Siyu Chen
siyu_chan@126.com
1
The Centre for Research and Development of Values Learning, South China Normal University,
Office 203, School of Education, No. 55 Western Zhongshan Road, Tian He District, Guangzhou
City, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China
2
Faculty of Education, Southwest University, No. 2 Tiansheng Road, Beibei District, Chongqing
City, People’s Republic of China
212 Educ Asse Eval Acc (2018) 30:211–250
well as to illustrate strategies for using it in the classroom. The findings of a deep
analysis of 48 publications were then used to define a holistic framework for LOA and
a dynamic framework for its development and also yield important recommendations
for practice and future research. Finally, we propose the conclusion.
Keywords Students’ learning . Learning-oriented assessment . Assessment for learning

Assessment as learning . Assessment of learning
1 Introduction
In order to meet the learning needs of students and requirements of educational policies,
researchers and teachers have made great efforts to reform the assessment approaches.
Learning-oriented assessment (LOA) has developed against the backdrop of social
change and educational reform emphasizing a learning society (Colantonio 2005) and
classroom assessment (Antoniou and James 2014). In 1990, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 1990) published the
World Declaration on Education for All and Framework for Action to Meet Basic
Learning Needs. Since then, countries all over the world have paid special attention to
the quality of students’ learning and have aimed to improve it through educational
measures, especially the application and modification of classroom assessment. For
example, in Australia, as a political move in 2008, a National Assessment Program was
introduced to create an innovative learning environment in every school (Council of
Australian Governments 2008). In America in 2010, the Common Core State Standards
was introduced in an attempt to improve the quality of assessment of students’ learning
(The Council of Chief State School Officers, CCSSO 2010). In China in 2011, the
Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards was launched, requiring policy makers,
researchers, principals, and teachers to innovate new assessment approaches to promote
meaningful learning (Ministry of Education of P. R. China 2011). With these develop-
ments, it seems that assessment reform has come of age.
The phenomenon under review is LOA as one emerging approach to assessment to
improve students’ learning. Numerous studies of the classroom learning assessment have
focused on student outcomes, such as academic achievement (e.g., Klute et al. 2017),
anxiety reduction (e.g., Bayat et al. 2017), writing improvement (e.g., Abdul Aziz and
Yusoff 2016), deep learning (e.g., Bernauer and Fuller 2017), active learning (e.g., Bell
and Kozlowski 2008; Blasco-Arcas et al. 2013), and decision making (e.g., Cox and
Robinson-Pant 2008). There has also been a focus on different types of courses, including
second language learning (e.g., Abdul Aziz and Yusoff 2016), geoscience (e.g., Teasdale
et al. 2017), and mathematics (e.g., Duckor et al. 2017), and all levels of education:
prekindergarten (e.g., Regalla and Peker 2017), preschool (e.g., Regalla and Peker 2017),
primary school (e.g., Cox and Robinson-Pant 2008; Antoniou and James 2014), second-
ary school (e.g., Schuitema et al. 2012; Duckor et al. 2017), and higher learning institutes
(e.g., Singh et al. 2017; Bayat et al. 2017). Different assessment approaches have also
received attention, for example, summative assessment (SA) (e.g., Black and Wiliam
1998; Black et al. 2003) and formative assessment (FA) (e.g., Stiggins 2005a; Taras
2005). In the literature, three approaches to formative assessment are visible, i.e., assess-
ment for learning (e.g., Martinez and Lipson 1989; Pat-El et al. 2013), assessment as
Educ Asse Eval Acc (2018) 30:211–250 213
learning (e.g., Gibbons and Kankkonen 2011; Earl 2003), and assessment of learning
(e.g., MECY 2006; Hume and Coll 2009).
Many studies have examined and developed a variety of assessment approaches.
Specifically, some of them presented a detailed description of the values (Black and
Wiliam 1998; Black et al. 2003), theories (Clark 2012; Bennett 2010), and goals
(Stiggins 2005a; Taras 2005) of FA as well as the relationships between FA and SA
(Embretson 2010; Taras 2005), while others emphasized assessment for learning
(Martinez and Lipson 1989; Black et al. 2003), assessment as learning (Gibbons and
Kankkonen 2011; Earl 2003), assessment of learning (Hume and Coll 2009), and the
relationships among these three assessment approaches (MECY 2006; Klenowski
2006; Keppell and Carless 2006; Mok 2010).
Moreover, results from these studies showed that, in Europe, Canada, the USA, and
the Asia-Pacific Region, an alternative methodology called LOA has been built on the
FA, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning, as well as assessment of
learning. Researchers in the Nordic countries investigated user participation in many
assessment activities within social, healthcare, and educational sectors to present an
evaluation method based on dialog and learning (Krogstrup 1997). The basis for this
method was Bbottom-up action learning and exploratory evaluation^ (Krogstrup 1997,
p. 205). In 2006, the term LOA was coined by Carless through a reflective account of a
4-year funded initiative entitled the Learning-Oriented Assessment Project (Klenowski
2006; Keppell and Carless 2006). LOA encompasses both SA and FA, and Carless
et al. explored their relationships (2007). SA is used to judge students’ learning
achievement, while FA promotes their ongoing learning. FA is learning-oriented, and
SA may become learning-oriented when it is designed with learning as well as judging.
With the proposal and development of assessment of learning and assessment for
learning, researchers have compared and contrasted SA, FA, assessment of learning,
and assessment for learning and concluded that SA aligns with the former and FA
aligns with the latter (Stiggins 2005b; Volante 2010). And then, to help students take
further responsibility for their own learning, some researchers advanced another meth-
od of assessment—assessment as learning (Earl 2003). BAssessment as learning is a
process of developing and supporting metacognition for students …… focuses on the
role of the student as the critical connector between assessment and learning^ (MECY
2006, p. 13). The three main assessment approaches, which are assessment of, assess-
ment for, and assessment as learning, serve different purposes but are all learning-
oriented. As Mok (2010) argued, BEach of these three components has different focuses
and each addresses a set of different but interrelated questions about students’ learning^
(2010, pp. 21–22).
Today, with growing recognition of the value of LOA for teaching and learning,
there has been considerable interest in exploring issues and problems relating to it.
LOA can locate assessment practices in a new conceptual framework and make them
more meaningful. There is a Chinese proverb that B他山之石可以攻玉^ (Stones from
other hills may serve for polishing our jade), which suggests that teachers can develop
and use assessment in more exciting and empowering ways to enhance meaningful
learning in their classrooms. Teachers and researchers have the prospective need to
understand the history, nature, and methods of LOA, in order to develop, use, and
examine it to improve their students’ learning. However, to our knowledge, this paper
is the first review to summarize the current status of knowledge about LOA. While a
few studies have provided information about the connections among assessment for,
assessment as, and assessment of learning, the results have not been pooled yet.
Therefore, we conducted a transformed critical review of LOA to bridge that gap.
Fundamentally, LOA has been based on cultural philosophy in the sense that assess-
ment is an element of Didaktik. In Didaktik, the concept of Bildung is directed by cultural
philosophy (Westbury et al. 2000, p. 47). Didaktik is relevant both in research and in the
actual training of teachers. The problem of how to mediate theory and practice can be
regarded as a core point in the Didaktik paradigm determined by human sciences and
cultural philosophy. Additionally, as Huang (2003) pointed out, teachers and researchers
attend primarily to learning activities and do not place a comparable focus on learning
values in the light of cultural philosophy. So, in a certain sense, there is the rationale or
logics of cultural philosophy of Didaktik in LOA and its components.
Therefore, we took the theoretical framework of the cultural philosophy of Didaktik
to extract the history, nature, and strategy of LOA and its components from the
overwhelming amount of publications (Westbury et al. 2000, pp. 41–54). On one hand,
Didaktik refers to a theory that emphasizes the reflective processes of BBildung,^ and
assessment should be a central concern in teaching (Vallberg Roth 2014). BDidaktik, on
the other hand, seeks to provide a framework for teacher thinking about the most basic
how, what, and why questions around their work^ (Westbury et al. 2000, p. 33).
In general, Didaktik underlines reflection and the essential why, what, and how questions,
which can meet the need of posing questions and selecting method in the phase of research
design, respectively. The Didaktik of emphasizing reflection provides a well-supported
rationale to pose our general research question (GQ), and the most basic how, what, and
why questions provide a framework for three related subquestions (SQs) as follows:
SQ1. Why has LOA emerged? More specifically, how has LOA evolved from SA
and FA through assessment for learning and assessment as learning as well as
assessment of learning?
SQ2. What is LOA? More specifically, what meanings does LOA have?
SQ3. How can LOA be applied in practice? More specifically, what strategies are
there for using LOA in schools and classrooms?
Below, this paper addresses the history, nature, and strategies underpinning the
development of LOA. Within the scope of a single article, it is impossible to deal with
all aspects of LOA, but the contribution made by this analysis will still be helpful. We
begin the following section with a description of the method used to conduct a deep
analysis and critical review of 48 selected publications. Then, we present the results in
order to address the three SQs in order. In Section 4, we draw on our results to define a
holistic framework for LOA and a dynamic framework for its development, followed
by some important recommendations for practice and future research. It ends with a
conclusion section.
2 Method
Based on the theoretical framework of Cultural Philosophy of Didaktik, the concept of the
reflective processes of BBildung^ led us to focus on the literature review in the stage of
method determination, and the structure of the most basic why, what, and how questions
guided us to concentrate on the theoretical analysis. Following prior studies (Taylor 2007;
Bennett 2011), we adopted the critical review to analyze the identified studies on LOA.
According to Grant and Booth (2009, p. 93), BA critical review aims to demonstrate
that the writer has extensively researched the literature and critically evaluated its
quality^. It goes beyond the mere description of identified publications and contains
a large number of analyses and conceptual innovations. In general, patterns identified in
a critical review may Bprovide a ‘launch pad’ for a new phase of conceptual develop-
ment and subsequent ‘testing’^ (Grant and Booth 2009, p. 93). However, critical
reviews are not typically as systematic as other more structured approaches to the
literature. In order to overcome the limitations of the critical review, we drew on other
types of reviews (i.e., systematic review) to enhance this approach.
Grant and Booth (2009) argued that an effective critical review presents, analyzes,
and synthesizes material from diverse sources. Based on this argument, both the
description of selected studies and the degree of analysis and conceptual innovation
were mapped against a Search, Appraisal, Analysis, and Synthesis (SAAS) framework.
Therefore, this transformed critical review contained five stages, as described below.
2.1 Stage I: identification of publications
In line with Carless (2006, 2007, 2015), Mok (2010, 2013), and MECY (2006), we
integrated three approaches into LOA—assessment for learning, assessment as
learning, and assessment of learning. In order to grasp the development of LOA, we
conducted database and backward searches from relevant studies in Spring 2014.
Bloom et al. (1971) were one of the first to advocate a shift in assessment from Bmerely
judging or grading a student’s success^ to Bpromoting learning.^ Thus, we limited the
search and analysis to include publications starting from 1971 and up to 2013.
The search was undertaken using the following online databases: Elsevier
ScienceDirect, Springer Online Journals, ProQuest Research Library, and EBSCOhost.
Specifically, we used the following search strings: (a) ti(Bformative assessment^) AND
ft(Bclassroom^) AND ft(Blearning-oriented assessment^ OR Bassessment for learning^
OR Bassessment as learning^ OR Bassessment of learning^), (b) ti(Bsummative
assessment^) AND ft(Bclassroom^) AND ft(Blearning-oriented assessment^ OR
Bassessment for learning^ OR Bassessment as learning^ OR Bassessment of learning^),
(c) ti(Blearning-oriented assessment^) AND ft(Bclassroom^), (d) ti(Bassessment for
learning^) AND ft(Bclassroom^), and (e) ti(Bassessment as learning^) AND
ft(Bclassroom^). In particular, considering that the purpose of LOA is not to promote
test-based teaching or impose more large-scale assessment in the classroom context, but
rather to provide a supporting framework for learning (Jones and Saville 2016, pp. 2–
3), we used Bclassroom^ as the one of search terms so that the publications focused on
Bclassroom assessment^ rather than Blarge-scale assessment.^
The initial search identified over 500 research documents. To narrow down the
number of documents, several inclusion criteria were applied. A study was included if it
was published in a peer-reviewed journal, thus ensuring rigor and scholarly signifi-
cance, and was written in English. Studies not meeting these criteria were excluded. To
remove any overlap among different sources, we added them to Endnote X7 for further
comparison and removal, resulting in a total of 253 publications.
2.2 Stage II: updated search
After the initial analysis, as some time had passed, we updated the literature search to
include books and articles published between 2014 and 2016 to identify any new
developments since the initial search. First, we conducted a new search only for books
and articles using the terms and databases like stage I. Second, we ensured they fit the
aforementioned criteria at stage I. Third, we also searched Amazon for some books
about LOA in order to ensure completeness. In doing so, we included 143 books and
articles in this stage.
2.3 Stage III: filtering the publications depending on specific inclusion criteria
The authors read each paper and book and extracted information from the sections of
bibliographic entry, background, problem, subjects (where applicable), methods, re-
sults, discussions, and conclusions (Flynn et al. 1990; Soni and Kodali 2012). At this
stage, each author independently examined the abstracts and all texts of each publica-
tion to determine if the publication explicitly focused on Bclassroom assessment^ rather
than Blarge-scale assessment.^ Publications identified as relevant by all four authors
were retained for inclusion. Four authors met to compare answers and resolve any
differences. Finally, approximately 40 at stage I and 8 at stage II (they were especially
marked with an * before each reference) were subjected to deep analysis. See Fig. 1 for
a flowchart describing the search and selection procedure.
2.4 Stage IV: deep analysis
After scoping searches of the literature, the authors drew on their combined experience
of 38 years of having worked with both school and classroom assessment to provide a
why-what-how framework, underpinned by the cultural philosophy of Didaktik. In
alignment with the theoretical framework, purposes, and aims of this review, we
Fig. 1 Flowchart of the selection procedure

implemented Bselective^ quality assessment. Just as Grant and Booth (2009, p. 94) put
it, a critical review provides Bno formal quality assessment^ and attempts to Bevaluate
according to contribution^. On the one hand, we absorbed and integrated the valuable
contributions within the selected literature. On the other hand, we put forward the
holistic framework for LOA and the dynamic framework for its development by
excavating the potential value of the selected literature. Specifically, for a paper to be
included, it needed to have addressed one of the following questions: (1) Why has LOA
emerged? (2) What is LOA? and (3) How can LOA be developed? In particular, we
examined its history (why), components, functions, conceptual frameworks, and prin-
ciples (what) and strategies (how), which were to be demonstrated in Section 3.
2.5 Stage V: transcendental analysis
After data extraction, the literature was synthesized (see Section 4 for further details). In
addition, we searched and used a large number of non-selected studies in order to
discuss the developmental trends of LOA implicated from the data in the field of
assessment, and the discussions would be illustrated in the later section of the ideas for
new concepts and implications for practice and future research.
3 Results
This section reported the results of our analyses. We first summarized the publication
types of selected studies and the approaches to LOA as mentioned earlier. Second, the
evolution of the classroom assessment from SA and FA to LOA was reviewed to clarify
the historical foundations of LOA and answer the first question. Third, we analyzed the
nature of LOA from the dimensions of components, functions, conceptual frameworks,
and principles. Last, strategies for using LOA in classroom were identified. Among the
findings, if the opinions were based on the literature, the citations would be added; if
the arguments were inferred or summarized by authors, some phrases would be added
to demonstrate our views.
3.1 Overview
The main results (publication types and approaches to LOA) from the deep analyses are
summarized in Table 1. As was shown clearly, the majority of the studies were
published in journals (67%), followed by books or book chapters (25%), while
editorials, reports, and guidelines accounted for only 4, 2, and 2%, respectively. Over
95% of the publications mentioned FA/assessment for learning, occupying the largest
proportion. We identified studies that reported SA/assessment of learning (n = 35),
assessment as learning (n = 15), and LOA (n = 10).
3.2 Why LOA developed?
Assessment is clearly of central importance in education (Taras 2005). It plays a major

role in teaching and in students’ motivation and strategies for learning although
classroom assessment practices are often deeply rooted in societal expectations. For a
Table 1 Summary of selective publications that refer to approaches to LOA. Sorted by the publication types
and the approaches to LOA
Publication PT = Publication types ALOA = Approaches to LOA

No-ASN (Y)
JA B/BC ED RE GD LOA SA/AoL FA/AfL AaL
1. Bloom et al. (1971) √ √ √

2. Martinez and Lipson (1989) √ √
3. Plake and Impara (1996) √ √ √
4. Krogstrup (1997) √ √
5. Black and Wiliam (1998) √ √ √
6. Black et al. (2003) √ √ √
7. Earl (2003) √ √ √ √
8. Winter (2003) √ √ √ √
9. Black et al. (2004) √ √ √
10. Stiggins (2005a) √ √ √
11. Stiggins (2005b) √ √
12. Taras (2005) √ √ √
13. Carless (2006) √ √
14. Carless et al. (2006a) √ √ √ √ √
15. Carless et al. (2006b) √ √ √ √ √
16. Keppell and Carless (2006) √ √ √
17. Klenowski (2006) √ √ √ √
18. MECY (2006) √ √ √ √
19. Carless (2007) √ √ √ √
20. Hounsell et al. (2007) √ √ √
21. Tang and Chow (2007) √ √ √ √
22. Volante and Fazio (2007) √ √ √ √
23. Taras (2008) √ √ √
24. Bennett and Gitomer (2009) √ √
25. Hume and Coll (2009) √ √ √ √
26. O’Reilly and Sheehan (2009) √ √ √ √
27. Stiggins (2009) √ √
28. Webb and Jones (2009) √ √
29. Bennett (2010) √ √ √ √
30. Embretson (2010) √ √ √
31. Volante (2010) √ √ √ √
32. Mok (2010) √ √ √ √ √
33. Gibbons and Kankkonen (2011) √ √ √
34. Gikandi et al. (2011) √ √ √
35. Tillema et al. (2011) √ √
36. Wiliam (2011) √ √ √
37. Clark (2012) √ √ √
38. Mclaren (2012) √ √ √ √
Table 1 (continued)
Publication PT = Publication types ALOA = Approaches to LOA

No-ASN (Y)
JA B/BC ED RE GD LOA SA/AoL FA/AfL AaL
39. Pat-El et al. (2013) √ √ √

40. Mok (2013) √ √ √ √ √
41. Antoniou and James (2014) √ √ √
42. Baas et al. (2015) √ √ √
43. Carless (2015) √ √ √
44. Curry et al. (2016) √ √
45. Friesen (2016) √ √
46. Heitink et al. (2016) √ √
47. Miedijensky and Tal (2016) √ √ √
48. Jones and Saville (2016) √ √ √ √
PT/A LOA times 32 12 2 1 1 10 35 46 15
%PT/A LOA times 67 25 4 2 2 21 73 96 31
ASN (Y) author surname (year), JA journal article, B/BC book/book chapter, ED editorial, RE report, GD
guideline, LOA learning-oriented assessment, SA summative assessment, AoL assessment of learning, FA
formative assessment, AfL assessment for learning, AaL assessment as learning, √ which type or approach
every publication belongs
long time, classroom assessment measures and tools have been developed and classi-
fied into the three approaches—assessment of learning (AoL), assessment for learning
(AfL), and assessment as learning (AaL)—after psychologists focused their studies on
the evaluation of learning. This paper focused on these three approaches.
3.2.1 Development of AoL for providing evidence
AoL was the earliest approach to be developed. Assessment of students’ learning is a

core component of educational evaluation. Formal and informal assessments of learn-
ing have always been a part of education (MECY 2006). For a long time, assessment
was the mechanism for making decisions about future programs and providing infor-
mation to policy makers, parents, and employers about students’ learning. Thus, tests
and exams took on major importance in determining students’ access to higher
education. Therefore, many countries instituted standardized testing programs along-
side classroom assessment to ensure fair, accurate, and consistent opportunities for
students. However, in the early 1990s, there was a great deal of research showing the
negative impact of Bhigh stakes^ summative assessment on teaching and learning
(Plake and Impara 1996). One frequently observed side effect was low-energy feed-
back, which normally has little or no relevance to the subsequent work (Hounsell et al.
2007). What is more, this approach has too often driven schools to be places of sorting
and ranking students, which has resulted in many children failing to learn effectively
(Stiggins 2005a).
To remedy this situation, Black et al. (2004) suggested that assessment should
become a positive part of the learning process by using it for formative purposes. In
this way, assessment began to be used not only to ascertain current level of achievement
but also to provide evidence which can help students to have a better understanding of
where they are and teachers to design curriculum and teaching (Mok 2010).
3.2.2 Development of AfL for providing continuous effective feedback
Although AoL provides evidence for students to enhance their learning, it is commonly
single dimensional, summative, and assessment after learning (Miedijensky and Tal
2016). To overcome the inadequacies of tests and exams, researchers started to consider
assessment during learning instead of assessment after learning, which gave rise to a
shift from AoL to AfL (Martinez and Lipson 1989). AfL aligns with FA, as stated
previously, but they are different in some respects. Insisting that everyone can learn
successfully, Bloom et al. (1971) developed FA, which underlines assessment during
learning and aims to promote, not merely judge or grade students’ success. As Stiggins
noted, FA has emerged as an increasingly prominent tool for school improvement
(2005a). Teachers can use it for decision making that leads to better instructional
practice (Curry et al. 2016). Students can use it to facilitate their learning (Antoniou
and James 2014). Moreover, FA has also been used in higher education, within blended
and online contexts (Gikandi et al. 2011). However, Black and Wiliam (1998) sug-
gested that, while improving FA raised standards, there was still room for improvement,
and subsequently proposed assessment for learning (AfL) to enhance FA (2003, 2004).
The Bimprovement approach^ to FA contends that students are inside the assessment
process and they partner with their teacher to manage their own progress (Stiggins
2005a). In addition, students’ performances are based on the continuing evidence of
their mastery of achievement standards so that they can set goals for what to learn next
and believe that continued success is within reach if they keep trying (Stiggins 2005a;
Heitink et al. 2016).
The most important difference between FA and AfL, according to Stiggins (2005a),
is that the former informs teachers about students’ achievement, while the latter also
informs students about their own learning. To understand the impact that assessment
has on learning, we require a broader focus than the feedback intervention itself,
particularly the learner’s responses to the feedback, and the learning milieu in which
the feedback operates by using the FA to let learners assess their own learning by
developing AfL (Wiliam 2011). Timely feedback and corrective instruction can help
learners to understand where they are in their learning, identify the next step in the
learning process, and raise their awareness of the learning tasks they will be performing
(Baas et al. 2015). AfL is used to make learning visible, thereby guiding the day-to-day
learning decisions (Friesen 2016). Therefore, AfL, instead of FA, has been developed
and used in many schools this century (Black et al. 2003). A review of research studies
indicated that the interest in AfL has resulted in a search for new modes of assessment
that are better aligned to students’ learning how to learn (Tillema et al. 2011). However,
with the introduction of new assessment tools, questions arise with respect to the
quality of its measurement. Quality criteria are dissimilarly connected to the distinct
steps of an assessment cycle, which holds as well for the attention given to student
involvement in AfL (Tillema et al. 2011).
3.2.3 Development of AaL for helping students become self-directed learners
Different from AoL, AfL is first concerned with the development of student role
inventory, which enables students to be both learners and assessors through undertaking
assessment tasks in their learning process (Klenowski 2006; MECY 2006). It has been
suggested that students learn more when they use assessments to evaluate their own
learning (Stiggins 2009). Increasing the amount of time on assessment, however, does
not necessarily enhance learning. Rather, only when teachers use classroom assessment
to become aware of the knowledge, skills, and beliefs that their students bring to a
learning task, and use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction and
monitor students’ changing perceptions as instruction proceeds, can their classroom
assessment promote learning (MECY 2006). When AfL is translated from theory into
practice, tensions emerge (Webb and Jones 2009). LOA significantly improves stu-
dents’ learning motivation and engagement (Keppell and Carless 2006). However, we
argue that it also requires students to spend more time on assessment and less on
learning; this further results in a reduction of their learning quality, or which LOA can
be blamed. Thus, to remove this tension and solve the problem, researchers have
created a third assessment approach named AaL (Earl 2003; Gibbons and
Kankkonen 2011). AaL refers to the active participation of students in their own
assessment (Gibbons and Kankkonen 2011), which aims to explore the assessment
process as a learning process, that is to say, assessment is learning. Specifically, based
on the analysis of literature, we summarized three main characteristics of AaL: first, it
focuses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowl-
edge of one’s own thought processes); second, it pays more attention to developing
complex tasks that encourage students to show the connections they are making among
the concepts they are learning as they integrate their assessment into their learning; and
third, Bstudent directedness^ is also identified as an important feature of AaL, thus
helping students to be autonomous learners.
There are some contradictions among the three assessment categories of AfL,
AaL, and AoL. Webb and Jones (2009) identified many important contradictions in
the changing system that not only produced tensions and difficulties but also
provided driving forces for change. MECY (2006) argued that all three approaches
serve valuable and different purposes. It was not always easy, however, to get the
balance right among them. According to Mok (2013), since the turn of the century
in major systems in the Asia-Pacific Region, there have been two waves of
assessment reforms: one is AaL and another is the shift from AoL to AfL. Never-
theless, because many educational systems in the region have the tradition of AoL
that focuses on marks and grades instead of learning, there is an urgent need to
revise and redesign pedagogy to reconcile tensions among assessment as, of, and
for learning and to glean benefits of each for teaching and learning (Mok 2013).
Many studies have shown that the LOA framework offers a feasible solution to this
new pedagogy (Mok 2013). Therefore, it is the scholars’ responsibility to achieve
the right balance among them.
In short, historically, LOA has been generated through the standard-based education
that emerged during the turn of the century with the ongoing balancing and blending of
the three categories of assessment. LOA has become the new trend in contemporary
assessment reform, which is changing from test-based to learning-oriented.
3.3 What is LOA?
LOA’s current popularity has developed from the changes that have been occurring
over many years, in particular over the recent decades. As far back as the 1960s,
Scriven (1967) articulated the distinction between summative and formative
programs. Since 1971, when Bloom et al. extended the differentiation to various
forms of assessment, SA has referred to tests administered after learning to
determine whether learning has occurred. In contrast, FA is assessment conducted
during the process of learning. AoL evolved from SA and both AfL and AaL from
FA. Krogstrup (1997) used the term Bdialogue and learning oriented evaluation
method^ to emphasize users’ participation in quality assessment, and Klenowski
(2006) cited many articles illustrating the very rich cultural settings in which
assessment with a learning orientation took place. There is evidence of learning-
oriented assessment in national assessment systems, as seen in research conducted
in China and Vietnam, through to classroom assessment practices, as apparent in
studies in Hong Kong and Australia (Keppell and Carless 2006). The Western and
Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education (WNCP) assessment
team developed a document (MECY 2006) that provided a framework for thinking
about the purposes of assessment including AfL and AaL as well as AoL, and
created and implemented changes to teachers’ assessment practices consistent with
enhancing learning for all students. Furthermore, Mok (2013) integrated self-
directed learning into LOA and then developed self-directed learning-oriented
assessment (SLOA). Socially and historically, LOA has emerged as an integrative
and holistic assessment methodology, which, in accordance with FA philosophy,
embeds AfL and AaL as well as AoL. To be more specific, it consists of balances
among and integrates AfL, AaL, and AoL.
3.3.1 LOA consists of AfL and AaL as well as AoL
LOA is a holistic assessment methodology comprised of at the least three pre-

existing assessment approaches discussed above, namely AfL, AaL, and AoL. At
the time when Carless (2006, 2007) coined the term LOA in Hong Kong and
MECY (2006) published the book Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose
in mind: Assessment for Learning, Assessment as Learning, Assessment of Learn-
ing, Bennett and Gitomer (2009) proposed that we could have all three—assessment
of, for, and as learning, and then a research initiative entitled Cognitively Based
Assessment of, for, and as Learning (CBAL) in the USA was conducted (Bennett
2010) so as to create a model for an innovative K-12 assessment system that
documents what students have achieved (of learning), helps to identify how to plan
instruction (for learning), and is considered by students and teachers to be a
worthwhile educational experience in and of itself (as learning). Further, a few
studies explored the application of CBAL (e.g., O’Reilly and Sheehan 2009;
Embretson 2010). The three approaches are distinct and interrelated for classroom
assessment. Each has a different focus and addresses a set of interrelated questions
about students’ learning. From overviews of the related research studies, we may
briefly interpret the three assessment approaches in four dimensions: meanings,
purposes, and implications, as well as key words (see Table 2).
Table 2 Brief representatives of AfL, AaL, and AoL
Items AfL AaL AoL
1. Meanings Any assessment which prioritizes students’ learning. The active participation of students in their SA in nature that may enhance students’
own assessment, where they are their learning through feedback.
own best assessors.
2. Purposes To give both teachers and students information to To focus on the role of the students as the To confirm what students know and
modify and differentiate teaching and critical connectors between assessment can do so as to demonstrate whether
learning activities. and learning, to develop and to support they have achieved the curriculum
metacognition for students. outcomes and to show how they
are placed in relation to others.
3. Implications To make each student’s understanding visible, To focus on students’ self-directed learning To provide evidence of achievement
so that teachers can decide what they can and emphasize assessment as a process to related persons and institutions
do to help students progress or to provide of metacognition for students so that and to result in public statements
descriptive feedbacks for students and decide they must learn to be critical assessors or symbols about how well students
on forward groupings, instructional who make sense of information, relate it are learning so as to affect students’
strategies, and resources. to prior knowledge, and use it for futures. It is important that the
new learning. underlying logic and measurement
be credible and defensible.
4. Key words Learning orientation; FA; feedback as feedforward; Self-directed learning; self assessor; Sorting and ranking; norm-referenced;
standard-referenced. metacognition; assessment activities high stake; SA.
as learning tasks; standard-referenced.
Stem from Earl (2003), Black et al. (2004), Stiggins (2005a), Taras (2005), MECY (2006), Mok (2010), (2013), Gibbons and Kankkonen (2011)
223
3.3.2 LOA as a balance of AfL, AaL, and AoL
Because assessment approaches have various purposes, LOA as a holistic methodology

necessarily aims at striking a balance of AfL, AaL, and AoL. As MECY (2006) noted,
it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to serve these three different purposes at
the same time. Thus, it is important for educators to understand the three assessment
approaches, recognize the need to balance them, know which one they are using and
why, and use them all wisely. Volante (2010) suggested that an equal balance is
important, while MECY (2006) argued that the role of AfL and AaL takes on a much
higher profile than AoL.
Traditionally, the focus of classroom assessment has been on AoL—measuring
learning after the fact, using the information to make judgments about students’
performances, and reporting these judgments to stakeholders. Also, teachers have been
using AfL when they build in diagnostic processes, FA, and feedback at various stages
in the teaching and learning process, albeit often informal and implicit, while system-
atic AaL—where students become critical analysts of their own learning—is rare.
Although some teachers traditionally incorporated self-assessment into their programs,
few used assessment systematically or explicitly to develop students’ capacities to
evaluate and adapt their own learning.
In order to show how assessment is constructed and used, Earl (2003) announced an
evolutionary trend from tradition to a restructuring of the relationships among AfL,
AaL, and AoL. If the purpose is to check learning for reporting, in the traditional
interrelationship of these approaches, AoL becomes the predominant focus as shown
by the first traditional terrace-kink (see Fig. 2). If the purpose is to enhance learning, the
assessment needs to give students opportunities to make their learning apparent. The
second terrace-kink suggests the importance of a reconfiguration of the balance of these
approaches, emphasizing AaL and AfL. AoL also has an important role to play but is
used only when summative judgments are required.
Fig. 2 Terrace-Kink model of balance in AfL, AaL, and AoL. Adapted from Earl (2003)
3.3.3 LOA integrates AfL, AaL, and AoL
Hounsell et al. (2007) used the term Bintegrative assessment^ to represent the concep-
tion of optimal balance between the twin central functions of assessment, i.e., to
evaluate and certify students’ performances or achievements, and them to fulfill their
potentials as learners. There was a considerable body of research that integrated various
assessment approaches to make assessment a powerful process for enhancing learning
(e.g., Winter 2003; Taras 2005; MECY 2006; Carless et al. 2006a, b; Klenowski 2006;
Webb and Jones 2009; Hume and Coll 2009; Mok 2010, 2013; Volante 2010; Wiliam
2011; Mclaren 2012; Pat-El et al. 2013). Therefore, LOA, as a holistic methodology,
not only consists of and smooths but also integrates AfL, AaL, and AoL. Mok (2010)
proposed a priori conceptual framework to guide research on SLOA, which represented
an integral idea of LOA. As the name implies, LOA focuses attention on assessment
that can support students’ self-direction by providing active collaborative/cooperative
learning environments, using metacognition and feedback/feed-forward.
First, LOA is based on active collaborative/cooperative learning (ACL), which can
effectively realize self-directed learning. As long as it highlights AaL and AfL, LOA
implies self-directed learning. The document recording of an attempt to understand
learning-oriented individuals was made by Allen Tough (1967), who initiated self-
directed learning. Knowles defined self-directed learning as Ba process in which individ-
uals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning
needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning,
choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning
outcomes^ (1975, p. 18). It is known that the capacity for self-directed learning is
fundamental to sustainable development in the twenty-first century, given the rapid speed
of knowledge creation. Knowledge and skills that school students of today will need when
they join the workforce have not yet been created. Consequently, in the new century,
education has to go beyond the transmission of knowledge for students to learn what
teachers know. Rather, the core mission of education is to engender in students the
capacity for knowledge creation, management, and transfer as well as its acquisition. In
other words, education means learning how to learn.
Facing the challenge of knowledge-based society, some researchers have developed
active collaborative/cooperative learning environments (Shen and Huang 2004; Bandiera
and Bruno 2006; Li et al. 2009; Blasco-Arcas 2013). The literature has highlighted key
aspects of this ACL environment (Bell and Kozlowski 2008; Järvelä and Järvenojä 2011;
Shi et al. 2013). And we have summarized as follows: firstly, self-directed learning is
social and cultural as well as individual. Secondly, the ACL approach gives people control
over their own learning; that is, the learner assumes primary responsibility for important
learning decisions about goals, resources, strategies, and assessments. Thirdly, it promotes
an inductive learning process, in which individuals must explore and experiment with a
task to infer the rules, principles, and strategies for effective performance. In this sense, it is
necessary that teachers develop ACL environments to promote students’ engagement in
self-directed learning through LOA.
Second, LOA means that learners exercise the self-regulatory process of metacognition
(Flavell 1979, 1985). In other words, a LOA framework, taking AaL as the most powerful
approach, means an assessment process that engages students actively in learning activ-
ities, through considering and setting their own learning goals, deliberating upon and
selecting their learning strategies, monitoring and adapting their learning pace, assessing
and mastering their learning progress, evaluating and using feedback information, and as a
result, reaching new understandings, connecting new information with existing knowl-
edge, or even revising learning goals or strategies. In this way, the LOA framework
incorporates a range of metacognitive tools and mechanisms, including the provision of
timely feedback from assessment and explicit teaching of a range of strategies to raise
students’ self-awareness of their own learning processes, as well as to enrich their
repertoires of self-regulation skills. These skills include identifying key issues in the
learning tasks, posing questions, selecting learning strategies, and monitoring progress
by situating these strategies in learning tasks of curriculum subjects, as well as modeling
and scaffolding the strategies (Mok 2013, pp. 8–9). As Carless discovered, feedback in
general assessment is changing and developing into feed-forward in LOA (2007).
Third, many influential meta-analyses have confirmed that feedback is central to
students’ learning since it plays a decisive role in learning and development (Carless
2006). Feedback can have multiple functions: advice for improvement of current and
future assignments, explain or justify a grade, and an act by which the tutor demon-
strates characteristics, such as expertise, diligence, or authority (Carless 2006). The
feedback function can also be little more than the fulfillment of a ritual which is part of
academic life. Because feedback is concerned with responses to oral and written
assignments presented by students, it has the potential to Bfeed-forward^ into future
tasks rather than back to completed assignments (Carless 2006). Thus, we argue that
LOA attempts to merge both feedback and feed-forward into AfL, AaL, and AoL.
Assessment is formative (AfL) when feedback generated from the assessment is
directed towards the quality of the task or learning process, identifies misconceptions,
and supports the development of more effective learning strategies. AaL can help
students to get information about what and how they learn and to use the information
as feedback or feed-forward for realizing their own deep learning and development of
metacognition. Even for AoL, both teachers and students may try their best, by using
formative strategies raised by researchers (Volante 2010), to develop formative use of
SA and, furthermore, to take the extracted information as feedback or feed-forward for
enhancing their teaching and learning.
We contend that the relationships among them are interlocked. Firstly, AoL in the
LOA framework refers to assessment activities conducted by the teacher and his/her
students that aim to generate evidence about current learning, in which the teacher and
students attempt to confirm their learning outcomes. Secondly, the teacher and students
should make it clear whether there is any gap between the desired learning goal and the
current level of learning. To address this question, the goal should be established and
clear to both parties. Consequently, in the LOA framework, AfL often begins with both
goal setting and a clarification of the desired learning goal. Even though the question of
the gap can be addressed by AfL, information generated from such assessment is often
inadequate to address the next question, if there is a gap, how can it be closed? Then,
AfL refers to assessment activities done by the teacher and students to collect evidence
with the aim of feeding-forward to inform further learning in terms of direction and
potential. Thirdly, AaL in the LOA framework means that the student internalizes and
answers questions such as Where am I going? How am I doing? How can I learn
better? How can I keep up my motivation? and acts upon them in a constant process of
self-monitoring during learning.
3.4 How to develop LOA?
In the early 1990s, Krogstrup (1997) pointed out a problem with goal-free evaluation
models; it was not clear whose and which criteria should be the basis of the evaluation.
Krogstrup presented the concept of Blearning-oriented evaluation^ through stressing Buser
participation in quality assessment^. As explained above, LOA stems from growth and
integration of AfL and AaL as well as AoL. We can see that LOA aims at encouraging
student involvement and self-assessment in the learning process, and this will be realized
only if it is carried out by teachers, administrators, parents, communities, and professional
developers. It can be claimed that LOA, focusing on the process of making AfL, AaL, and
AoL distinct and identifiable parts of the teaching and learning process, is one of the most
significant changes in education as a form of assessment in which the primary focus is on
the potential to develop productive student learning processes (Carless 2015). It requires
either reforms to assessment methods or changes in the mindsets of educators, students,
parents, and society. Many researchers have presented a range of strategies for developing
LOA, which can be organized into two sections: effective methods (method-
implementing) and strong support (mindset-changing and capacity-building).
3.4.1 Method-implementing
This research claims that the order of the three components of LOA (for, as, of) is
intentional, indicating the importance of AfL and AaL in enhancing students’ learning
and developing their metacognition. AoL should be reserved for circumstances when it
is necessary to make summative decisions. AfL occurs throughout the learning process,
focusing on students and emphasizing assessment as a process of metacognition, while
AaL refers to strategies designed to confirm what students know, to demonstrate
whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their individualized
programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about their future programs or
placements, in order to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the
students themselves, and sometimes to outside groups (e.g., employers, other educa-
tional institutions). In planning, developing, and using assessment methods that are fit
respectively for AfL, AaL, and AoL, teachers think about curriculum and their students
as they ask themselves the following five questions (MECY 2006): Why am I
assessing? What am I assessing? What assessment method should I use? How can I
ensure quality in this assessment process? How can I use the information from this
assessment? Moving around them, people have designed and implemented many types
of methods and procedures of AfL, AaL, and AoL, which can be referenced easily, as
summarized in Table 3.
3.4.2 Mindset-changing
Many studies have focused on the process of making AfL, AaL, and AoL distinct and
identifiable parts of the teaching and learning process (Elliott 2003; Simms and George
2014), and few innovations have had any fundamental effect on what happens in
classrooms (Tanner 2001). We argue that LOA provides a framework and directions for
teachers, administrators, professional developers, parents, and members of the wider
community as they work together to make fundamental changes in classroom assessment
Table 3 Summary of developing LOA
228
Questions AfL AaL AoL
1. Why assess? To enable teachers to determine next steps To provide opportunities for each student to To certify or inform parents or others of students’
in advancing students learning. monitor and reflect on his or her learning proficiency in relation to learning outcomes.
and identify next steps.
2. Assess what? Each student’s progress and learning Each student’s thinking about his or her The extent to which students can apply the key
needs related to curricular outcomes. learning, what strategies he or she uses to concepts, knowledge, skills, and attitudes
support or challenge that learning, and related to the curricular outcomes.
the mechanisms he or she uses to adjust
and advance his or her learning.
3. What methods? Methods that make students’ skills Methods that elicit students’ learning and Methods that assess both learning products
and understandings visible. metacognitive processes. and process.
4. How to ensure the quality • Accuracy and consistency of • Accuracy and consistency of student • Accuracy, consistency, and fairness of judgments
observations and interpretations self-reflection, self-monitoring, and based on high-quality information;
of students’ learning; self-adjustment; • Clear, detailed learning expectations;
• Clear, detailed learning expectations; • Students’ engagement in considering • Fair and accurate summative reporting.
• Accurate, detailed notes for descriptive and challenging his or her thinking;
feedback to each student. • Students record their own learning.
5. How to use the information • Provide each student with accurate • Provide each student with accurate • Indicate each student’s level of learning;
descriptive feedback to further his descriptive feedback that will help • Provide foundations for discussions on
or her learning; him or her develop independent placement or promotion;
• Differentiate instruction by continually learning habits; • Report fair, accurate and detailed information
checking where each student is • Have each student focus on the task that can be used to decide the next steps
related with the curricular outcomes; and his or her learning (not on getting in a student’s learning.
• Provide parents or guardians with the right answer);
descriptive feedback about students’ • Provide each student with ideas for
learning and ideas for support. adjusting, rethinking, and articulating
his or her learning;
• Provide the conditions for the teacher
and student to discuss alternatives;
• Students report about their learning.
Stem from MECY (2006, p. 65)

practices. This, undoubtedly, is one of the most significant changes to occur in education.
The literature has claimed that it represents a major shift in thinking towards assessment as
a key contributor to enhancing learning for all students (MECY 2006).
However, it is only through changing the mindsets of the abovementioned
stakeholders that any serious alteration to classroom practice can be embedded
and sustained. In accordance with MECY (2006), critical elements in the process of
mindset-changing are understanding and motivation, knowledge and skills, local
leadership, support for changes, and habits of mind. Understanding and motivation
means that related people need to think reasonably about and engage actively in
changes of classroom assessment. Then, teachers should enhance their knowledge
and skills to do LOA effectively. Changing classroom assessment depends not only
on teachers’ knowledge of learning theories, content knowledge, and pedagogical
knowledge but also on professional skills in identifying purpose, deciding what to
assess, choosing methods, ensuring quality, interpreting evidence, and using as-
sessment for the intended purpose as well (MECY 2006). Thus, teachers need to
shift their paradigm to understand how assessment can drive instruction and impact
positively upon student learning and performance (Volante and Fazio 2007). More-
over, changes in classroom assessment require principals to show strong instruc-
tional leadership and creative management since they are the ones responsible for
examining and modifying school policies, helping to prioritize teachers’ time,
allocating funding, monitoring changing practices, and creating a culture within
the school that allows teachers to feel safe as they challenge their own beliefs and
change their practices. Support for change mainly comes from the school and
community. Last, LOA aims at making students into lifelong learners; thus, it is
much more important that teachers and their students nurture inquiring mind habits.
All this calls for the relevant people, particularly teachers, to improve their own
capacity of dealing within changes in classroom assessment practice (MECY 2006).
3.4.3 Capacity-building
This review indicates that mindset-changing is necessarily accompanied by capac-

ity-building. To develop LOA for enhancing classroom assessment, concerted
efforts are needed to build the capacity to embed and sustain changes to classroom
assessment. Many initiatives have focused on how to integrate changes in class-
room assessment into other capacity-building endeavors (e.g., MECY 2006; Carless
2006; Tang and Chow 2007; Hume and Coll 2009; Mok 2010, 2013; Bennett 2010;
Volante 2010; Gibbons and Kankkonen 2011; Clark 2012; Mclaren 2012). From the
results of these initiatives, we can see that the main capacity-building endeavors
have been professional learning, leadership, and support as well as collaboration
with parents and community.
First, professional learning can be realized in two ways: the formal (as in in-service
and professional development sessions and professional growth planning) and the
informal (as in close daily attention to classroom assessment practices). It can occur
individually or collectively in initial teacher training or throughout teachers’ careers.
Some examples of strategies for building capacity through professional learning are
assessment study groups, assessment learning walks, assessment plans, assessment
collaborations, assessment action research, electronic assessment conferences or
bulletin boards, and professional reading and writing about assessment as well as
assessment audits.
In addition, to provide access to these types of professional learning strategies, there
is a need for a number of other possible strategies for leadership and support, including
boundary-spanning activities, developing critical friendships, modeling, and making
time, through which leaders can support teachers by endorsing and encouraging
opportunities for LOA. All this can build a basis for having students more involved
in and reporting about their learning.
Last, it is a useful way of collaborating with parents, students, and the community in
the work of the school, in order to intentionally create a partnership when LOA is not
something that is done to students but with, for and by them. Some strategies for
developing successful school-family-community partnerships with a classroom assess-
ment include workshopping with parents, two-way communicating, parents and com-
munity members volunteering, learning at home, and making decisions and celebrating
with the community.
There is no doubt that classroom-based assessment has tremendous potential to
promote students’ learning. We believe that students improve learning quality and
standard-based schools make progress, provided that LOA is designed and implement-
ed elaborately. Obviously, this requires teachers to undertake more assessment process-
es and to have higher levels of assessment literacy (e.g., Plake and Impara 1996). Even
though very few teachers have been given opportunities to learn and apply LOA
principles and methods, they can realize both mindset-changing and capacity-
building through effective professional development and strong support from relevant
people and institutions and thus attain sufficiently high levels of assessment literacy.
4 Discussion
Based on a deep analysis of 48 selected literatures, we found that a few studies did
provide information about concepts of AfL and AaL as well as AoL, and integrated three
approaches, but the relationships among them had not been clearly clarified yet. After
synthesizing the concepts reviewed in the results section, we created new knowledge
about the holistic framework for LOA and the dynamic framework for its development.
Furthermore, we put forward some recommendations for developing LOA.
4.1 Ideas for new concepts of LOA
Many studies (e.g., Terpstra and Rozell 1997; Beyer et al. 2010; Bowers and Ryan 2013;
Mysen 2013; Palmer and Choi 2014) have described valid and credible ways to identify
ideas for new concepts, future directions, and explorations. According to it, next discus-
sions are focused on both the holistic framework for LOA and the dynamic framework for
developing LOA in order to propose ideas for new concepts of future work.
4.1.1 The conceptual framework for LOA
In summary, LOA is by nature a new integrative and holistic methodology of assess-

ment, which is based on and aims at self-directed learning that can be realized only in a
new learning environment, such as ACL, and depends on several assessment ap-
proaches such as AfL, AaL, and AoL.
To both enhance the learning elements of assessment and avoid confusion and doubt
about FA processes, Carless et al. coined the term LOA (2006a, b) to denote assessment
processes in which learning elements are emphasized more than measurement ones and
proposed a consolidated framework of LOA. By expanding the work of Joughin
(2004), Carless et al. (2006a), and Carless (2007), we have conceived a holistic
framework for LOA to identify and represent contemporary thinking about assessment
and learning in a productive way and to identify elements which might influence its
effect on students’ learning, teachers’ pedagogical practices, and affordances which the
system could provide (see Fig. 3).
The environmental foundation of LOA In this review, the foundation of the holistic
framework of LOA is the innovative learning environment (ILE) (see Fig. 3). This
means that, through developing an ILE, the teacher can build and use LOA effectively.
We argue that the ILE is a new landscape of learning activities in the information era. In
view of this perspective (Kirschner 2005; Schuitema et al. 2012; Istance and Kools
2013), after being reconceptualized, ILE refers to any generative environment as a
whole, as well as each of the diverse sub-environments that has the necessary techno-
logical, social, and educational affordances to provide opportunities for everyone to
learn. Affordances, such as the technological, and/or the educational, and/or the social,
determine how individuals or groups interact with the different aspects of their envi-
ronments and with each other. That is to say, principals and teachers need to develop
and/or use an overall ILE and one or more learning approaches, such as ACL, self-
Development
purpose
Students understandings and
experiences of assessment
Tutors understandings and
experiences of assessment
Certification Learning
purpose purpose
AoL AaL AfL
Learning-oriented assessment (LOA)
Assessment tasks Student Feedback as

as learning tasks involvement feedforward
Innovative learning environment (e.g., ACL, SDL, RBL, PBL)
Fig. 3 Holistic framework for LOA

directed learning (SDL), research-based learning (RBL), and problem-based learning

(PBL), suitable to LOA when they reform classroom assessment.
Three main purposes of LOA In this section, we summarize three main purposes of
LOA (see Fig. 3). The literature has shown three main purposes of assessment in LOA:
the certification element, which focuses principally on evaluating student’s achieve-
ments, the learning focus on student’s motivation, engagement and outcomes, and the
developmental emphasis on student’s metacognition, emotion, and social skill as well as
career development. The intersecting circles indicate that, when assessment is function-
ing efficiently, there should be substantial overlap among these three functions. Hence,
LOA requires every student to become an active researcher, self-teacher, and curriculum
developer to strengthen both learning and pedagogical aspects of assessment.
Two mechanisms within LOA As shown on the left and right side of Fig. 3, there are
two mechanisms within LOA. One can be achieved respectively through either AoL,
AaL, or AfL, or all of them together, as long as a central focus is on engineering
appropriate student learning so as to make LOA strengthen the learning aspects of
assessment. When AfL, AaL, and AoL are all included in LOA, they contribute to the
development of productive student learning in the presence of certain features described
by Carless (2006). The first and most crucial of these is that the LOA is represented by
the term Bassessment tasks as learning tasks.^ The second component is students’
involvement in assessment so that they develop a better understanding of learning goals
and engage more actively with criteria and standards. The third is that, for assessment
to promote learning, students need to receive appropriate feedback which they can use
to feed-forward into current and future work.
Another critical feature is that the teaching mechanism can be realized through
effective teacher professional development as long as enough attention is paid to
engineering appropriate teaching that will enable the pedagogical aspects of assessment
to be strengthened. It is effective professional development that strengthens teachers’
roles in supporting LOA (InPraxis Group Inc. 2006). Thus, we suggest that the teacher
needs to become a developer of ILE, establishing a sound base for LOA, and a designer
of effective assessment methods. For example, Miller (2008) described a situation in
which when teachers took up the challenge associated with employing assessment-
driven instruction and the exploration of subject matter, pedagogy, and assessment, they
found opportunities to generate knowledge about teaching and learning. In this process,
we argued that the teachers’ problems became a mechanism to pool their collective
knowledge, to rearticulate their problems as necessarily complex, to explore possible
solutions, and to connect their problems to broader issues of teaching and learning.
Furthermore, according to Cognitively Based Assessment of, for, and as Learning
(CBAL) (Bennett 2010), teachers thoroughly remold themselves to be researchers
and explorers of subject matter, pedagogy, and assessment as well as psychology of
learning and development, so they can not only generate but also represent pedagogical
content knowledge (PCK). This notion was seeded much earlier at the turn of the last
century, in 1888 (Bullough 2001), and coined first by Shulman (1986, 1987), and
developed widely by a lot of scholars (e.g., Rovegno 1992; Fernández-Balboa and
Stiehl 1995; Van Driel et al. 2001; Niess 2005; Angeli and Valanides 2009; Voogt et al.
2013; Depaepe et al. 2013).
Expanding from the above holistic framework, some meanings of LOA may be
summarized succinctly by the following principles; the first three of these, interpreted
by Carless (2007), are grouped as Blearning principles^ while the latter three are
Bteaching principles^:
& Principle 1: Assessment tasks should stimulate sound learning practices among
students.
& Principle 2: Assessment should involve students actively in engaging with criteria,
quality, their own, and/or peers’ performance.
& Principle 3: Feedback should be timely and forward-looking so as to support
current and future student learning.
& Principle 4: The teacher as curriculum developer ought to provide innovative
learning environments to support sound learning practices among students
& Principle 5: The teacher as assessment designer must make AoL, AaL, and AfL
methods relevant enough to involve students actively in engaging with criteria,
quality, and their own and/or peers’ performance.
& Principle 6: The teacher as knowledge producer needs to create an understanding of
learning motivation, engagement, and outcome drive assessment feedback as feed-
forward, so as to support current and future student learning.
4.1.2 Dynamic framework for developing LOA
Many scholars paid attention to the development and use of LOA in practice. Tang and
Chow (2007) attempted to conceptualize LOA supervisory practices to understand the
ways in which feedback is communicated in teaching practice supervision to enhance
teacher professional learning within the learning-oriented field experience assessment
(LOFEA) framework. According to Volante (2010), these results definitely warranted a
more sustained and targeted approach to building assessment literacy within schools
and districts, particularly for experienced educators, students and parents who have
little training in newer self-assessment and peer assessment methods. These findings
generated insights for our understandings of complex processes of using LOA that
enhances learning in teaching practice and conceptualizes how to develop LOA for the
building of assessment literacy.
As mentioned before, the strategies for developing LOA involve two dimensions:
effective methods and strong support. The former is, by nature, a procedure of
designing and implementing LOA. It refers to a detailed operation of the three
assessment approaches, which forms a framework for thinking about how to select or
develop assessment tasks, how to use them, and how to communicate about them with
students, parents, and others. The latter comes mainly from both mindset-changing and
capacity-building. Mindset-changing refers to ideas about what is needed to change and
sustain LOA practices and capacity-building means using a set of strategies, structures,
and processes to build capacities needed to embed and sustain changes to LOA.
Systemically, we should focus on three sources of reform in relationships between
these elements of developing LOA: method-implementing, mindset-changing, and
capacity-building and their mix. And this should aim at building assessment literacy
(Volante 2010). In this review, the core of LOA may be imagined as a 3-D ball as it
involves intertwining relationships among these elements over time (see Fig. 4).
Figure 4 shows that LOA is an organizational form that embraces arrangements of
learning and assessment catering for a group of learners in context and over time. We
can elaborate the concept of developing LOA as bringing together three elements in the
shape of a ball to enhance the assessment literacy of all stakeholders, including
administrators, principals, teachers, students, and parents. This ball provides a dynamic
framework not only to analyze any such development of the LOA but also to design
and redesign these three elements, in order to make LOA development more innova-
tive, powerful, and effective for enhancing everyone’s learning and developing their
metacognition.
4.2 Recommendations for practice and future research
Carless argued that LOA represents an attempt to emphasize the learning features of
assessment and sought to address the issue of how assessment could be used more
effectively to enhance students’ learning (2007). As Boud pointed out, LOA Bis not just
a new piece of educational jargon, but also a signal of the important shift in assessment
thinking^ (Carless et al. 2006a, p.x). LOA is getting more and more attention from
those interested in improving learning quality and effectiveness. The results and ideas
stemming from the research literature have implications for both practice and future
research. On one hand, in response to the limitations of LOA, we suggest the potential
value of supporting effective assessment practice and creating a learning culture. On the
other hand, based on our deep analyses of the identified studies on classroom assess-
ment, some implications are put forward to inform future LOA research.
Method-implementing
in AfL and AaL
as well as AoL
Developing LOA
Building
assessment
literacy
Mindset-changing in Capacity-building in
the related people the related people
and institution and institution
Fig. 4 Dynamic framework for developing LOA

4.2.1 Implications for practice
MECY (2006) proposed the need to provide a framework for extending thinking, to
confirm and to guide changes in effective assessment practices, and to foster
professional learning. The question then is how these ideas can be articulated and
operationalized in different educational settings. Carless (2007) illustrated some prac-
tical possibilities inherent in the LOA model and discussed implications for practicing
LOA at the module level. With the aim of integrating AfL, AaL, and AoL into teaching
and learning, the effective assessment practices consist of students’ learning practices,
teachers’ pedagogical practices, and supports for these practices, while professional
learning refers to pre- and in-service teacher education practices. Based on the holistic
framework for LOA summarized in Figs. 3 and 4, the next section of this paper
proposes some implications for different practices, including learning, pedagogy,
teacher education, and ILE practices.
Implications for learning practice Carless (2007) indicated how the LOA frame-
work can be implemented in practice through an example of a 12-week 30-h module,
with a class of 35 pre-service students in a Bachelor of education program. One
student who participated in this module commented, BThe module assignments
allow me to practise what I learned in the module^ (p. 64). Enlightened by Rushmer
et al. (2004a, b), we can define the learning practice (LP) as a general practitioner (or
similar) unit where individual, collective, and organizational learning and develop-
ment are pursued systematically according to learning community principles, in
order to enhance learning for everyone in a way that is increasingly satisfying to its
related people, such as students, parents, teachers, administrators, and other stake-
holders in the educational area.
The above results and discussions have implications for students’ learning develop-
ing into LP. Rushmer et al. (2004a, b) outlined the nature of LP, particularly its cultural
underpinnings and structural arrangements. The former requires students to construct a
positive learning culture through engaging more actively in the LOA of LP. The
cultural values of LP may be summarized in a series of attitudes and expectations,
such as celebration of success, absence of complacency, tolerance of mistakes, belief in
human potential, recognition of tacit knowledge, prioritizing the immeasurable, open-
ness, trust, and outward looking. There is no doubt that such cultures can help to
facilitate learning; they also need to be supported and reinforced by specific structural
arrangements, which can make the appearance of the values of the culture more likely.
Five structural elements that would seem to help are flatter hierarchies, team work
structures, incentives and rewards for learning, information and communication net-
works, research and development budgets, and programs.
According to our critical review of available literature, stakeholders need to explore
the process by which classroom learning can become LP. To enhance individual,
collective, and organizational assessments, the process of moving towards a learning
culture begins. Attention is given to the routines of LOA that can be established within
LP to make assessment systematically become an integral part of what the learning
does. We should develop a set of practical guidelines for LOA to show how LP can
make students start to have an influence on the structural factors and to activate learning
cultures in classroom settings in order to enhance their own learning.
Implications for pedagogical practice The message is clear: there is an urgent need to
revise and redesign pedagogy to reconcile the tensions among assessment as, for, and
of learning and to glean the benefit of each to enhance learning and teaching (Mok
2013). Following MECY (2006), Carless (2007), and Mok (2013), implications for
pedagogical practices may be summarized into several aspects, including balancing the
tensions, developing students’ evaluative expertise, differentiating instructions, and
maximizing feedback potential.
First and foremost, appropriate approaches to AfL, AaL, and AoL need to be
developed to balance the tensions among assessment of, for, and as learning (e.g., it
is very difficult to serve three different assessment purposes at the same time, MECY
2006). A major challenge to a learning-oriented perspective on assessment is the
dominance of viewpoints that simply equate assessment with grading or measurement.
AaL and AfL risk being drowned by the power of SA. Potential approaches appear to
be contributing to productive synergies among AfL, AaL, and AoL and the kinds of SA
or AoL that promote the characteristics of assessment tasks as learning tasks, student
engagement in assessment, and feedback as feed-forward discussed above.
Second, it is necessary to develop students’ evaluative expertise in order to realize
their involvement in the assessment. Developing evaluative expertise includes teaching
students to learn and use self- and peer-assessment. Another way is to encourage them
to engage with criteria allied with students’ self-evaluations. A further attempt to
promote evaluative expertise is to use student exemplars.
Third, an emphasis on AfL and AaL in the holistic framework for LOA presented
above can lead to differentiated instruction. Teachers need to tailor their pedagogical
practice to address the needs of groups and individuals. They ought to plan some
learning contexts that are the same for all students while offering others for groups or
individuals. They should draw on a wide range of strategies, activities, and related
resources to involve students in their own learning, scaffold their learning along the
way, and provide experiences that give students lots of practices and supports. These
plans must provide the blueprint that they and their students can use to improve
students’ learning for individuals, groups and whole classes. BAssessment is then the
key to making on-the-spot modifications, or, if need be, proceeding in another
direction^ (MECY 2006, p. 72).
In addition, practitioners need to develop and then systematize assessment feedback
to maximize its potential for students’ action in line with the LOA framework. Carless
(2007) presented a case demonstrating how feedback was designed and enacted and
hence became feed-forward. Feedback must be relevant to assessment assignments in
LOA. One form of feedback may come 2 weeks before the due date of the first
assignment. At this stage, individual tutorials are held instead of the regular taught
class. This enables students to collect feedback on the drafts of their first assignments to
receive reassurance that they are on the right track. In fact, students themselves have
expressed the view that feedback on drafts is more useful to them than feedback on
completed assignments. To encourage engagement with feedback, students may be
required to write a response to the feedback at the beginning of the second assignment.
This represents attempts to fulfill two conditions under which feedback supports
learning, pertaining to timeliness and feedback that can be acted upon. A further form
of feedback may be provided in class before the second assignment is due. In sum, a
variety of timely written and verbal feedback may be provided during the course.
Meanwhile, both the formative feedback on drafts for the first assignment and the
feedback from the first assignment to the second one become, by nature, feed-forward.
Implications for innovative learning environment practices In recent years, many

more researchers than previously have focused on the issue of integrating information
and communication technology (ICT) into assessment. Carless (2006) argued that the
Internet is also an integral part of learning for almost all students and is playing an
increasingly important role in their assessment, so related people should communicate
better in assessment through using technology. Keppell and Carless (2006) presented a
case that used some principles of LOA within a module in a teacher education context.
The module, focusing on multimedia and web authoring, was taught through blended
learning with an emphasis on peer learning and project-based learning. The technology-
enhanced assessment, as one of themes with relevance to LOA, was identified by
Carless (2007) through a content analysis of the summaries of assessment practices.
Hsu et al. (2013) exploited computerized adaptive testing (CAT) as a useful tool for
implementing (S)LOA. Gikandi et al. (2011) conducted a systematic qualitative review
of the research literature on online FA in higher education and argued for creating a
learner- and assessment-centered learning environments (LALE).
This implies the emergence of a new trend to strongly support LOA through
developing learning environments (LE). We know, informed by Fraser (1981), that
scholars have been exploring themes of LE in curriculum evaluation for a long time.
According to Davies et al. (2013), LE is taken to extend beyond the physical architec-
ture of the space in which learning takes place, to encompass psychosocial and
pedagogical features, and should include the influence of places and people outside
the school. The role of assessment in facilitating good learning environments was
highlighted by the Innovative Learning Environments Project (ILEP) (OECD 2010).
ILEP reconceptualized Blearning environments (LE)^ in general and Binnovative
learning environments (ILE)^ in particular. As Istance and Kools (2013) noted, ILE
means that students’ assessment must be compatible with ICT-enriched learning. We
conclude that there is a very mixed message being conveyed by expecting young
people to be digitally literate and then assessing them in conventional ways supported
by ICT. People should use assessments consistent with ILE’s aims, with strong
emphasis on formative feedback or feed-forward, and technology can support FA and
feedback/feed-forward. To take this idea further, Redecker and Johannessen (2013)
argued for a paradigm shift in the use and deployment of ICT in assessment. They
proposed that assessment strategies need to be harmonized better with twenty-first
century learning approaches by re-focusing on the importance of providing timely and
meaningful feedback to both learners and teachers. The e-assessment approach should
go beyond the traditional BExplicit Testing Paradigm^ and towards the BEmbedded
Assessment Paradigm^ as a new assessment paradigm using ICT.
All this implies much more for LE practice. Firstly, we should build the new concept
of ILE and then immerse the LOA in ILE practice. Secondly, we need to promote
current ICT-enabled assessment practices, with a particular focus on the more recent
developments of ICT-enhanced assessment tools that allow the recognition of twenty-
first century skills. Thirdly, we should realize the embedded assessment, with an
attention to advance Computer-Based Assessment (CBA) to seamlessly integrate
holistic and personalized assessment into learning. Additionally, teacher education
and professional development need to emphasize technology and promote ICT literacy
in all stakeholders, especially ensuring the assessment literacy of teachers and students.
Implications for teacher education practices A group of studies examined the

assessment literacy of pre- and in-service teachers, found that this was an area in which
they were lacking, and then developed recommendations for teacher education practices
(e.g., Plake and Impara 1996; Volante and Fazio 2007; Wang et al. 2008; DeLuca and
Klinger 2010; Fan et al. 2011; Koh 2011; DeLuca et al. 2013). Based on these studies,
we propose some recommendations for both pre-service and in-service teacher profes-
sional development and action research in classroom assessment in the next section.
First, we recommended four strategies to cultivate teacher candidates’ LOA literacy:
(1) integrating the assessment literacy into the National Standards of teacher education,
(2) increasing and optimizing a series of courses about evaluation and assessment in
teacher education and training programs, (3) incorporating at least one innovative LOA
course into the program, and (4) developing lab-based approaches to learning and
teaching in a series of courses of evaluation and assessment, especially in LOA-
oriented courses, so as to help students increase their experiences of assessment practices.
The second recommendation is drawn from the findings reported by Volante and
Fazio (2007), that teachers mentoring pre-service teachers in field practice were also
likely to have notable weaknesses in the application of effective assessment and
evaluation practices. They recommended careful selection of assessment literate in-
service teachers to act as mentors and that they should ideally have professional
development opportunities. Furthermore, others (e.g., MECY 2006; Carless et al.
2006a, b; Carless 2007; Tang and Chow 2007; Bennett 2010; Volante 2010; Mok
2013) have emphasized the importance of all in-service teacher having access to this
type of professional development. We support this recommendation that all in-service
teachers should be given more professional development opportunities to learn and
practice LOA as a way to change their mindsets and build the necessary capacity
through receiving support from the local leadership, the work environments, and the
wider community.
Third, it is well known that action research processes have been seen to be
particularly suitable for exploring new assessment practices. Carless (2007) set up
action research teams to explore the many themes discussed in the literature in relation
to teachers’ developmental work with their own classes. We recommend that action
research is a suitable strategy for dealing with the development of LOA including AaL,
AfL, and AoL.
4.2.2 Implications for future research
As a relatively new educational practice, LOA is worth studying in the future. As

Dobson (2010) and Mok (2013) pointed out, there is a need for much more research
that develops systems of theories and strategies for expanding LOA and that provides
evidence of how LOA, AoL, AfL, and AaL improve students’ learning. Hence, it is
important for our study to provide some suggestions about the implications of the
studies reviewed here for future research on LOA. Stödberg (2012) used a special
framework focusing on research topics, research settings, and research methods, thus
addressing three interrelated questions: what is to be researched, who is to do the

research, and how the research is to be done. To address these questions, the focus of
the following discussion is the three areas of research topics, research facilitators, and
research methods of LOA.
Implications for future research topics We can see that the study of LOA is a
valuable and potentially fruitful area of future research. Classroom assessment is
content-specific, and thus, there are countless LOA research topics in various contexts
and disciplines, but many of these fall within the dimensions of education. The research
topics that emerged from the analyses described in this paper can be represented with
five key words: fundamentals, strategies, effects on learning, literacy, and e-assessment.
These five topics might be especially appropriate for future studies in this area.
Fundamentals include articles that analyze and interpret theoretical fundamentals and
principles underpinning LOA. Strategies include articles introducing, examining,
discussing, or evaluating methods and tools used in LOA. Effects on learning include
articles examining or discussing all kinds of effects that LOA has on learning motiva-
tion, engagement, and outcomes. Literacy refers to articles concerning teachers’ and
learners’ experiences, course development, and the use of LOA including AoL, AfL,
and AaL. E-assessment refers to articles in which specific e-assessment referenced from
LOA was developed and examined.
Firstly, related studies can be used as baselines to explore emerging philosophical,
sociological, psychological, and scientific theories of LOA. We will continue to collect
related theories (e.g., meta-theory of assessment, Bevitt 2015) and periodically analyze
and compare them to the results of this study. Doing so will show which theoretical
arguments are increasing or decreasing and help to determine if new fundamentals are
emerging for LOA. The second topic that needs to be addressed is research on other
strategies of LOA to make AoL, AfL, and AaL more effective. Researchers have
already presented general strategies in related studies based on universality of class-
room assessment, but what teachers and learners need is all kinds of effective strategies
to implement LOA in specific contexts and disciplines. The third topic may be
highlighted by Mok (2013), who focused on the effects of LOA on learning. Indeed,
at the very start, Carless et al. (2006a) highlighted LOA in action and paid attention to
how assessment supports learning so as to respond to challenges at the interface
between assessment and learning. It is expected that relationships and interfaces
between assessment and learning must be constant themes in research topics of LOA,
and these will be valuable for future research on AoL, AfL, and AaL. The fourth area
for future research is the improvement of LOA literacy of both teachers and learners. A
long time ago, Stiggins (1991) coined the term Bassessment literacy.^ Since then,
scholars have assessed and discussed teacher assessment literacy continuously (Plake
and Impara 1996). Up to now, as Gotch and French (2014) pointed out, teacher
assessment literacy has been viewed not only as an important characteristic of effective
teachers but also as a hot topic of policy consideration. To promote learning, students’
assessment literacy is as significant as the teacher’s. Recently, some scholars (Smith
et al. 2013) conceptualized students’ capacities to understand and use assessment as
assessment literacy, defined as their understandings of the rules surrounding assessment
in their course context, their use of assessment tasks to monitor or further their learning,
and their ability to work with the guidelines on standards in their context to produce
work of a predictable standard. We argued that the notion of assessment literacy is

multi-dimensional, and dimensions of assessment literacy contribute to educational
gains. This in turn means that creating a research emphasis on the development of
teachers’ and students’ assessment literacy can enhance learning outcomes. Finally, the
most significant topic for future research may be to explore the development of e-
assessment. LOA not only attempts to integrate assessment into learning but also seeks
to automate assessment. Related studies have shown that automation can save time for
teachers and learners as assessors (Heap et al. 2004; Stödberg 2012), which they can
spend in more effective and deeper teaching and learning. It is very exciting (Yang and
Tate 2012) that Bcloud computing,^ as a term for Internet-based computing service,
promises to provide on-demand computing power with quick implementation, low
maintenance, fewer IT staff, and consequently lower costs, and this has become a
dominant IT-related topic over the past several years. Some scholars (Lin et al. 2014)
have described the design and development of education cloud platform while others
(Wilmott and Knox 2012) have reported the cloud-based assessment practices used in
undergraduate courses and seemed convinced that judicious use of cloud applications
opens up opportunities for providing authentic and innovative assessment. Thus, we
believe that future e-assessment will become alternative cloud-based assessment. Based
on Stödberg’s framework of research topics relating to e-assessment (2012), we
summarized five categories of emerging research themes related to cloud-based assess-
ment referenced from LOA, namely implementation, tools, reliability, alternative
learning environments, and cognitive skills. Additionally, and especially, both artificial
intelligence (AI) (Youssefa et al. 2017) and the neuroscience of education (Fourie et al.
2017) are developing rapidly, and they can be integrated into e-assessment, which is
undoubtedly set to become a new and exciting research topic.
Clearly, the themes contained in these research topics about LOA are so numerous
that for the research to be conducted well, it needs to be done by wider groups than just
researchers from universities and research institutions. In the next section, we will
present some suggestions to meet this challenge.
Implications for future research facilitators The results and discussions above
suggested that researchers should include teachers and learners from schools as well
as mainstream academics from higher education institutes in future research on LOA.
First, every teacher, either from higher education institutions, secondary schools,
elementary schools or kindergartens, could and should become a researcher and then
practice teacher research on LOA. This is because either AfL, AaL, or AoL is a
strategic process that cannot be separated with teachers’ activities. It has been evi-
denced that the teacher can be curriculum developer, assessment designer, and knowl-
edge producer. To realize the goal, teachers are required to receive training they need to
competently make and carry out the research plan, interpret the results, and apply them
to make important decisions concerning classroom assessment and their students.
Meanwhile, through doing research, teachers are equipped with more assessment
literacy knowledge, skills, and expertise to make the good use of raw data to inform
and support students’ learning.
Second, it seems obvious that if student teachers are placed in positions where they
can learn to challenge their existing views of practice through researching their own
experiences of teaching and assessing, then such learning should be both valuable and
meaningful in shaping their subsequent practice. Based on the findings of previous

studies, students have multiple identities and they can be explorers, researchers,
authors, and experts. For example, Loughran (2015) reinterpreted the term student
teacher (or pre-service teacher) as researcher. Nelson and Bishop (2013) reported a
New Zealand example researching on students as action researchers at a middle school.
Participation in LOA research can enhance students’ learning experience and develop
their abilities in self and peer assessment, such as understanding and implementing the
marking criteria (Tang and Chow 2007).
Third, to make children or students become researchers, we need to watch for the
methods they are offered and use. Research with children differs from research with
adults. This problem results from adults’ perceptions of children and children’s lower
position in adult society. Generally, there are three kinds of opinions on children: just
the same or entirely different from adults or on a continuum along which research with
children moves back and forth in the light of multiple factors: research contexts,
research questions, researchers’ attitudes and behaviors, children’s individuality, and
so on (Punch 2002). Accordingly, adult researchers use traditional methods or develop
child/ student friendly ones or combine both for children. Furthermore, students should
be taught what to research, how to research, and how to respond to the information
gained through research in LOA. Any LOA research techniques cannot be used by
students if researchers and teachers have not tried on themselves in the past, and LOA
research cannot become a chore for students.
This part discussed LOA around the idea of teachers and students as researchers.
Researchers need physically go to the classroom and collaborate with teachers and
students in assessment practice. Methods more sensitive to children’s particular inter-
ests and abilities should be created. Thus, action research, focusing on collaboration
among scholars and practitioners, is being called for LOA research.
Implications for future research methods This article has significant implications for
research methods. Action research (AR) is carried out routinely by classroom teachers
and students. This research paradigm assists teachers and students to find what works
with or impedes their teaching and learning. Specifically, through AR, teachers can spot
and solve practical problems by changing something, such as assessment methods or
procedures. Students, too, can become researchers by taking part in various assessment
activities to find out and prove to themselves which assessment strategies are most
effective for them. In this way, they will gradually take control of their learning and
become more independent. Thus, the next discussion turned on how the LOA research
is to be done in terms of AR in four aspects.
First, researchers and teachers should consider an action research approach to the
study of LOA. This methodological position arises in response to the challenges of a
philosophy of practical knowing. The shift in philosophical and methodological stance
taken by educational researchers has left their mark on LOA. This has been the case not
only in terms of the seemingly diverse range of questions asked about assessment
issues but also in terms of the increasing spread of new methods and techniques used in
LOA and action research.
Second, action research is a highly desirable research strategy, rather than an
optional extra. The basic elements and methods of action research from the 1940s
have been reinvented to engage with new types of problems and goals. The previous
study showed that there are eight main AR paradigms in the new millennium: collab-
orative AR, participatory AR, insider AR, living theory AR, systemic AR, anticipatory
AR, ethnographic AR, and network AR (Chen et al. 2017). Collaborative AR has been
used to promote classroom assessment (Carless et al. 2006b), but other paradigms have
not yet. They need more consideration in the study of LOA in the future.
Third, action research has been regarded as one of the most suitable strategy to
renew the assessment practice in schools (Torrance and Pryor 2001), but one of the
problems faced by action researchers is that their findings are not necessarily applicable
to other school systems or to school children in other school classrooms. Thus, the
population sampling problem must be faced and solved by researchers. Appropriate
sampling strategies increase how well any findings of LOA can be generalized to a
population from a smaller sample. The need for large sample sizes can be addressed in
various ways, but one innovative solution is to make use of emerging technologies that
have made more elegant research designs, such as multilevel modeling.
Last, with the proliferation of new research paradigms and the increasing difficulty
and complexity of practical and academic questions about LOA, mixed methods
research is emerging that integrates philosophical research, quantitative research,
qualitative research, and action research (e.g., the combination of qualitative and
quantitative research to explore how LOA affected students’ writing; Kim and Kim
2017). Holistic action research or mixed research methods are becoming dominant in
social science methodology. Since action research is change oriented, it requires data
that helps to track the consequence of intended changes. The core of the research
process derives from interpreting and making sense from these data (Elden and
Chisholm 1993). Action research is not limited to or precludes any special data
collection or analysis methods. Rather, it uses methodological pluralism, such as
LOA Project conferences and portfolio (Carless 2007), which allows researchers to
choose the most pragmatic collection and analysis method (philosophical, quantitative,
and qualitative) that best suit their special research questions (Guiffrida et al. 2011).
Based on empirical data, a plenty of themes related to LOA can be identified and
furthered explored by teachers with their own class.
5 Conclusions
The present study was designed to determine the historical development and essential
intentions of LOA and discussed the strategic measures involved in its development.
Through a critical review, 48 publications were included and analyzed. The 48 studies
examined portrayed why LOA emerges, what it means, and how to apply it. The
significance of the study was that the findings contributed the holistic framework for
LOA and the dynamic framework for its development. However, a deficiency also
existed. A weakness of this review was our focus only on selective but not on
systematic evaluation of the included literature. A new study is necessary to appraise
these literatures and present their qualities. On the basis of our results and discussion,
we would like to draw several conclusions.
The first significant finding to emerge from this study is the analysis and interpre-
tation of the progression from SA and FA to LOA. For a long time, psychologists
focused on developing classroom assessment measures and tools. The first assessment
approach they developed was SA/AoL, which provides evidence for making decisions.
However, AoL has driven schools to be places of sorting and ranking students, which
resulted in some children failing to learn. To overcome the inadequacies of AoL, the
next wave of researchers targeted assessment during learning instead of assessment
after learning, which gave rise to a shift from SA/FA to AoL/AfL. AfL provides
teachers and students with continuing, effective feedback. When AfL is translated from
theory into practice, tensions emerge. It causes students to spend more time in
assessment and less in learning. Thus, to remove this tension, the third new assessment
approach, AaL, evolved. AaL aims to help students become self-directed learners.
However, there are some contradictions among the three approaches. In order to
balance and further blend three categories of assessments, the concept of LOA
emerged. Despite the rapid rise, growing popularity, and widespread adoption of
LOA in recent years, a problem raised in the literature is concerned with the lack of
conceptual clarity pertaining to the term.
The second major finding of this research is clarification and demonstration of the
three types—AfL, AaL, and AoL—and their relationships. Based on this, a holistic
conceptual framework of LOA was constructed. Specifically, the three approaches are
distinct and interrelated for classroom assessment. From overviews of the related
studies, it is evident that the three assessment approaches are different in four dimen-
sions: meanings, purposes, implications, and key words. However, we contend that the
relationships among them are interlocked. AoL, in the LOA framework, refers to
assessment activities aiming to generate evidence about current learning. AfL refers
to assessment activities collecting evidence with an aim to feed-forward to inform
further learning in terms of directions and potentials. AaL, in the LOA framework,
means that the student engages in a constant process of self-monitoring during learning.
Based on these notions, we can conceive a holistic framework for LOA, which
consists of three aspects: the environment foundation of LOA, its three main purposes,
and two mechanisms within it. Firstly, the Benvironment^ foundation of LOA refers to
the innovative learning environments. Secondly, Bthree main purposes of LOA^ refer to
the certification purpose, the learning purpose, and the development purpose. Thirdly,
Btwo mechanisms within LOA^ refer to learning mechanisms and teaching mechanisms.
Another contribution of this paper is a dynamic framework for LOA, which includes
three components of method-implementing, mindset-changing, and capacity-building.
Specifically, the strategies for developing LOA involve two dimensions: effective
methods and strong support. The former is the procedure of designing and
implementing LOA. It refers to a detailed operation of the three assessment approaches,
which forms the framework for thinking about how to select or develop assessment
tasks, how to use them, and how to communicate about them with students, parents,
and others. The latter comes mainly from both mindset-changing and capacity-building.
Mindset-changing refers to ideas about what is needed to change and sustain LOA
practices and capacity-building means using a set of strategies, structures, and process-
es to build capacities needed to embed and sustain changes to LOA. Moreover, we have
elaborated upon the concept of developing LOA as bringing together three elements of
a 3-D ball for enhancing assessment literacy in all relevant stakeholders. This ball
provides a dynamic framework, which makes LOA development more innovative,
powerful, and effective for enhancing learning and developing metacognition.
Taken together, the above findings and contributions of the study suggest that, in
learning practices, educators should design assessment in such a way as to ensure it is
not a burden separated from learning tasks, but an integral part of the teaching and
learning process. In pedagogical practices, innovative classroom teaching is needed and
realized through dealing properly with the relationships among AaL, AfL, and AoL,
improving students’ own assessment abilities; stratifying teaching to satisfy different
needs of each individual student, groups, and the whole class; and making use of
feedback to further and deepen students’ learning. In innovative learning environments,
the new term ILE should be created, the old ICT-enabled assessment tools should be
improved, and the holistic and personalized assessment and learning should be inte-
grated. In teacher education practices, it is urgent to increase assessment literacy of pre-
and in-service teachers and apply action research in the classroom assessment.
Implications for future research also can be drawn from the present study. Five
potential research topics have been explored and are recommended. Currently, scholars
approach LOA from very different theoretical angles and there is not yet any detailed or
systematic discussion about each or all intellectual threads; thus, the first research topic
pertains to following, learning, and explaining theoretical foundations of LOA. Due to
the enthusiasm and efforts of researchers and teachers, multiple strategies of LOA have
been built but not been reviewed; in this context, the second research topic contains
sorting, comparing, analyzing, and even creating approaches to LOA. The reason for the
burgeoning LOA literature and practice is its positive impacts on students’ learning.
Questions about the effects and how they come about are worthy of consideration, so
this is the third research topic. The effectiveness of LOA strategies depends on teachers
and students. That is to say, knowledge of assessment and use of assessment information
and tools, which is called assessment literacy, should be explored. Consequently, this is
the fourth topic. Finally, in keeping with the trends and advancement of education and
society, resources of science and technology, especially, both artificial intelligence and
neuroscience, should be exploited for the improvement of LOA practices.
With regard to the researchers themselves, an important implication of this study is
the necessity to include teachers and learners in future research on LOA. First, every
teacher, from either higher education institutions, secondary schools, elementary
schools, or kindergartens, could and should become a researcher and then practice
teacher research on LOA. Second, it seems obvious that if student teachers are placed in
positions where they can learn to challenge their existing views of practice through
researching their own experiences of teaching and assessing, then such learning should
be both valuable and meaningful in shaping their subsequent practice. Third, to make
children or students become researchers, we need to watch for the methods they are
offered and use.
Teachers and students should have access to appropriate research methods and
ongoing support to realize the goal of becoming researchers. The results of this study
suggest action research as an important future research method for LOA studies. Four
aspects that constitute the action research methodological system have been discussed.
First, researchers and teachers should consider an action research approach to the study
of LOA. Second, action research is a highly desirable research strategy, rather than an
optional extra. Third, appropriate sampling strategies increase how well any findings of
LOA can be generalized to a population from a smaller sample. Last, with the
proliferation of new research paradigms and the increasing difficulty and complexity
of practical and academic questions about LOA, mixed methods research is emerging
that integrates philosophical research, quantitative research, qualitative research, and
action research.
The present study makes several noteworthy contributions to research on LOA.
Firstly, it extends our knowledge of the evolution of LOA. Previous research has
focused on discussions about LOA or comparisons of one or more types of assessment.
These studies serve as a foundation and support for understanding and using classroom
assessment but fail to draw a whole picture of LOA history. By tracking the course of
evolution of assessment from the perspective of cultural philosophy and learning, this
study provides a kind of blueprint of LOA. Secondly, based on historical investigation
and definition analysis, a holistic framework for LOA is advanced which not only
confirms the findings of AfL, AaL, and AoL studies that assessment fosters learning
but also gives an innovative definition of LOA. Thirdly, the dynamic framework for
developing LOA that we have offered can assist teachers and students to design and
implement LOA.
Acknowledgements First, the authors would like to thank the editors for their hard work. Second, they also
thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments to improve the quality of the
paper. Third, revising this article has been a collaborative process, so the authors would like to express their
appreciation to all those who have helped to revise the paper. They are Huifang Jiang, Na Dong, Tingting
Ruan, Rui Liu, Yufen Zeng, Jing Lai, Yanfang Shi, Yuxi Tang, and Lingli Li. Fourth, we want to thank Dr.
Margaret Taplin for her advice on copyediting this article. Fifth, this research was supported by the National
Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC, Grant No. BHA180125) entitled BResearch on the construction of
learning-centred assessment theory^.
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Towards A Learning-Oriented Assessment To Improve Students ' Learning-A Critical Review of Literature

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Educ Asse Eval Acc (2018) 30:211–250

Towards a learning-oriented assessment to improve

Wenjie Zeng 1 & Fuquan Huang 1 & Lu Yu 2 &

Abstract Learning-oriented assessment (LOA), a concept coined by Carless, has

Keywords Students’ learning . Learning-oriented assessment . Assessment for learning

2.1 Stage I: identification of publications

2.2 Stage II: updated search

2.4 Stage IV: deep analysis

Fig. 1 Flowchart of the selection procedure

2.5 Stage V: transcendental analysis

3.2 Why LOA developed?

Assessment is clearly of central importance in education (Taras 2005). It plays a major

Publication PT = Publication types ALOA = Approaches to LOA

1. Bloom et al. (1971) √ √ √

Publication PT = Publication types ALOA = Approaches to LOA

39. Pat-El et al. (2013) √ √ √

3.2.1 Development of AoL for providing evidence

AoL was the earliest approach to be developed. Assessment of students’ learning is a

3.2.2 Development of AfL for providing continuous effective feedback

3.2.3 Development of AaL for helping students become self-directed learners

3.3 What is LOA?

3.3.1 LOA consists of AfL and AaL as well as AoL

LOA is a holistic assessment methodology comprised of at the least three pre-

Items AfL AaL AoL

3.3.2 LOA as a balance of AfL, AaL, and AoL

Because assessment approaches have various purposes, LOA as a holistic methodology

3.3.3 LOA integrates AfL, AaL, and AoL

3.4 How to develop LOA?

Questions AfL AaL AoL

Stem from MECY (2006, p. 65)

This review indicates that mindset-changing is necessarily accompanied by capac-

4.1 Ideas for new concepts of LOA

4.1.1 The conceptual framework for LOA

In summary, LOA is by nature a new integrative and holistic methodology of assess-

AoL AaL AfL

Learning-oriented assessment (LOA)

Assessment tasks Student Feedback as

Innovative learning environment (e.g., ACL, SDL, RBL, PBL)

Fig. 3 Holistic framework for LOA

directed learning (SDL), research-based learning (RBL), and problem-based learning

4.1.2 Dynamic framework for developing LOA

4.2 Recommendations for practice and future research

Fig. 4 Dynamic framework for developing LOA

4.2.1 Implications for practice

Implications for innovative learning environment practices In recent years, many

Implications for teacher education practices A group of studies examined the

4.2.2 Implications for future research

As a relatively new educational practice, LOA is worth studying in the future. As

addressing three interrelated questions: what is to be researched, who is to do the

work of a predictable standard. We argued that the notion of assessment literacy is

meaningful in shaping their subsequent practice. Based on the findings of previous

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