Assessment Evolved: Rethinking Formative Assessment Together in the Age of Generative AI

Generative AI (GenAI) is no longer a distant prospect for education: it’s now a practical reality for schools. Pearson’s recently published research shows that 82% of secondary teachers in the UK say they’re at least ‘moderately familiar’ with GenAI, with the same proportion reporting the same for their students too. Understandably, such a landscape raises big questions about academic integrity, learning value, and what meaningful formative assessment should look like in the future.

For some teachers, the question is where to start. For others who are already experimenting with GenAI, it’s how to use it most effectively and responsibly in their classrooms. This wide range of experiences highlights the importance of the need and value of learning together – especially when it comes to evolving formative assessments.

With this in mind, we set out to better understand teachers’ perceptions of how GenAI is impacting assessment in the UK and across the world, and to develop tools that could support teachers, students and leaders in this time of significant change. So, our Assessment Evolved research is informed by insights from more than 1,000 school and university educators and global experts in AI and assessment. What it reveals is a desire to retain learning integrity and to see formative assessment as a tool for growth in the GenAI era. And as we navigate what this could look like, we can see it as a unique opportunity to enhance assessments, deepen learning and build students’ AI literacy.

The now: formative assessment is at a crossroads

Ensuring GenAI strengthens reflection, feedback, and understanding will enable it to become a partner, rather than a substitute, for learning.

Rethinking and redesigning formative assessment with GenAI in mind will reinforce learning integrity and help build genuine student understanding in the long run. Together, we can identify where existing practices can evolve and build AI literacy for students and teachers alike.

Making this a reality: from insights to action

Every teacher’s, school’s, and student’s journey with AI is different. That’s why Assessment Evolved is accompanied by practical School Educator Guide, which outlines a number of tangible steps teachers can take to reflect on and evolve formative assessment – regardless of their level of experience and confidence with GenAI.

• Step 1: Have a clear purpose in mind

Every formative assessment should be clear on the knowledge, skills or thinking students are meant to demonstrate.

• Step 2: Define the assessment measures

Traditional tasks often reward outputs that GenAI can easily produce. Shifting emphasis towards deeper skills – such as reasoning, sense making and application – makes learning harder to bypass and more meaningful to assess.

• Step 3: Focus on process over product

To achieve this, we can shift focus from solely the final answer a student reaches to how they got there. Asking students to share drafts, explain decision points or reflect on revisions and their use of GenAI makes thinking visible and enables teachers to assess understanding, not just polished final responses.

• Step 4: Diversify assessment formats and modes

Using a mix of written, oral, visual, and practical assessment activities gives students multiple ways to show their learning. It also reduces over-reliance on a single task type that AI can generate quickly.

• Step 5: Add social and collaborative elements

Grounding GenAI usage in tasks such as discussion, peer feedback and group work anchor learning in interaction and shared reasoning, making it less solitary and more authentic to the teamwork students will encounter throughout their lives.

• Step 6: Include higher-order skills and processing

When asking students to use GenAI, provide opportunities for students to evaluate ideas, justify choices or apply ideas in context. This showcases students’ judgement and understanding that GenAI alone can’t replicate.

These are starting points on a journey that we as a sector can and should navigate together. By strengthening formative assessment and building shared understanding of how GenAI can be used as a catalyst for deeper learning, educators can continue to protect integrity, nurture understanding, and support every student’s growth, equipping them for a future in an AI-driven world.