All terms in this list:

Formative: when the feedback from learning activities is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet the learner's needs (Black and Wiliam 1998)

Summative: "A judgement which encapsulates all the evidence up to a given point" (Taras 2005)

Validity: Assessment which measures what it is supposed to measure. It covers as much of the assessable material as practicable, not relying on inference from a small and arbitrary sample (and here it spills over into reliability). (Atherton 2011)

Reliability: The quality of a measurement indicating the degree to which the measure is consistent, that is, repeated measurements would give the same result (See validity).

Atherton, J. S., (2011): Atherton J S (2011) Teaching and Learning; Assessment [On-line: UK] retrieved 25 July 2011 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/assessment.htm

Criterion: Assessment against fixed criteria.Theoretically, it can mean that everyone who undertakes a given assessment may pass it, or no-one might. (Atherton 2011)

Norm reference assessment: "It is a ranking exercise. Out of any given group, the top 5% get "A"s, the next 10% get "B"s, etc. and the bottom 50% fail". (Atherton 2011)

ipsative assessment: "Assessment against yourself, or more particularly against your own "personal best" performance. It is more relevant to performance coaching, special needs education and therapy than to most mainstream teaching". (Atherton 2011)

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998): Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998), Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2): 139-149

TARAS, M. (2005): TARAS, M. (2005) ASSESSMENT – SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE – SOME THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol.53, No.4, pp 466–478 , University of Sunderland