What type of assessment is characterized by having students perform oral reports?

The correct answer is formative assessment. Formative assessments are designed to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to enhance their learning. When students perform oral reports, they engage in a process that allows teachers to assess their understanding of the content and their communication skills in real-time. This type of assessment encourages students to reflect on their learning and provides opportunities for immediate feedback and improvement.

In contrast, the other types of assessments serve different purposes. Informal assessments might include observations or casual checks for understanding, but they do not specifically require a structured performance like an oral report. Summative assessments, on the other hand, typically evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark, and they usually take the form of tests or projects rather than ongoing performance tasks. Biased assessments suggest an unfair advantage or disadvantage based on the nature of the assessment itself, which does not align with the objective of an oral report as a valid measure of student skills. Thus, formative assessment is the most accurate characterization for oral reports which facilitate ongoing learning and improvement.