This paper aims to investigate students’ perspectives on the interplay between the formative and
summative functions of assessment. More specifically, it explores whether their learning can be
supported by a classroom activity informed by a formative strategy (i.e., student generation of test
materials) in a teacher education programme. Research methods included focus-group interviews,
classroom observations, student reflective journals, and text analysis of student-generated test papers,
and tutor feedback to these papers. Findings indicated that the formative strategy was generally wellreceived
as a practice to support learning for the summative evaluation, despite concerns about the
overall quality of some mock papers. Implications for building a positive link between formative and
summative assessment and promoting dialogic feedback processes in wider higher education classroom
contexts are discussed.