Where it is used
Each entry identifies the volume, edition, chapter or appendix in which the work appears.
The evidence behind the series
Browse the scientific research and professional literature used across all seven volumes of The Science of Learning for Educators.
Search the collection
Choose an author range, search a title or concept, or narrow the collection by source type. Open any result to see where it appears in the books, read its evidence summary and follow available source links.
2 references
Banihashem and colleagues systematically review 93 studies published from 2011 to 2023 to examine how learning analytics supports formative assessment.
Their coding framework combines three actors—teachers, peers, and learners as self-assessors—with three questions: where learning is going, where it is now, and how to move forward. The review finds that analytics can clarify goals, diagnose current understanding, and support feedback or instructional action, but coverage across the framework is uneven. A central concern is alignment: dashboards or predictions are useful only when their outputs connect to a defensible model of formative assessment and can be interpreted and acted upon.
For educators and designers, the study recommends building analytics around learning intentions, evidence elicitation, feedback processes, and concrete decisions rather than treating data visualisation as formative assessment by itself.
Black and Wiliam review research on classroom formative assessment and find consistent evidence that strengthening feedback processes can improve learning. Assessment becomes formative when evidence about understanding is used to adapt teaching and learning, not simply when a task is labelled informal or frequent.
The review examines teacher questioning, feedback, self-assessment, peer processes, mastery learning, and the effects of grades and comparison. Productive feedback helps learners recognise a goal, compare their current state with it, and take action to close the gap. Students' beliefs, motivation, and active role are therefore central. The authors also stress that implementation demands substantial changes in classroom practice.
For educators, the review supports eliciting thinking, interpreting evidence, giving information that guides next steps, and involving students in criteria and self-regulation rather than relying on marks or praise alone.
A transparent research trail
Each entry identifies the volume, edition, chapter or appendix in which the work appears.
Evidence summaries explain the central idea and why the source matters to educators.
Entries link to lawful full text where available, or to a publisher, library or purchase page.
References are checked against publisher records, scholarly indexes, DOI or ISBN metadata, repositories and author records where available. An entry marked [Citation not verified] preserves the wording found in the relevant volume without attributing findings to an unconfirmed work.
From sources to a coherent pathway