The assessment can help leaders determine how to proceed with the program or organization. They can modify existing tactics and strategies. At times, this second type of assessment can be conducted on an ongoing basis—as action learning (Argyris and Schon, 1992; Senge, 2006). The leaders or members of a team can gain ongoing insights about their program based on the impact and dynamics associated with the intervention they have engaged. In many ways this action learning model might be considered a “just-in-time” strategy—with “just-in-time” learning being the norm for the assessment-embedded processes of this team.
The third type of assessment is the one most often engaged. Or it is what we usually think of when considering the purpose of an assessment. The assessment is being done as an evaluation of a program’s or organization’s effectiveness. This assessment is often being conducted to determine the future funding for a program (the source of this funding being a government or philanthropic organization). This type of assessment, in turn, can be either formative or summative in nature and purpose. A formative assessment is conducted while a program is ongoing. It is intended as a source of information to improve the program’s functioning.
We might apply the term “meta-reflection” to this formative process, referencing the process of reflective practice that was described and advocated by Don Schon (Schon,1984; Schon, 1996). How do we keep monitoring and modifying our ongoing process? In this way, it is a bit like the ongoing meta-reflective process engaged by the traditional psychotherapist. Is transference operating right now? What about counter transference? In essence, we are stepping up and out of the program to get a better picture what is really going on and what is being accomplished. In many ways, a formative assessment is simply the second kind of assessment already mentioned. It is likely to be particularly successful if engaged in an action-learning setting.
By contrast, a summative assessment is conducted at the end of a specific period of time in the life of a program. This type of assessment is directed toward the complex and often elusive question of outcomes: has this program been successful? Have the stated outcomes been achieved? What type of impact has this program had in terms of the welfare of those for whom it was intended. The summative assessment can, in turn, be used to determine what we do in the near future or (if it is engaged when a program is at its end), the question might be framed as: “What do we do next time?”
