Joshua M. Silverstein (Arkansas-Little Rock; Google Scholar), A Critical Perspective on Formative Assessment Mandates, 47 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 189 (2025):

Formative assessment is a hot topic in legal education. Numerous commentators maintain that such assessment improves student learning of legal skills and content. Many law schools have adopted formative assessment requirements. And the American Bar Association recently proposed changing law school accreditation standards to mandate formative assessment in the first year. This essay challenges these trends. There is a paucity of evidence that formative assessment enhances learning among law students. Much of the broader assessment literature has limited relevance in legal education. 

And conducting formative assessment entails serious costs that are frequently overlooked by its proponents. In sum, the evidence supporting the use of formative assessment is plainly not sufficient to override the default rule of professor autonomy with respect to pedagogy. Accordingly, formative assessment mandates at the accreditation or institutional level are unjustified.

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