Formative assessment has increasingly shifted from being viewed merely as a mechanism for monitoring achievement to a pedagogical process through which teachers and learners use evidence of learning to improve subsequent performance. This study examined the relationship between formative assessment practices, teacher feedback methods and students’ academic self-efficacy in Junior Secondary Schools. The study adopted a mixed-method, quasi-experimental design. The quantitative component used a pre-test/post-test non-equivalent control-group design, while qualitative evidence was obtained through teacher interviews and classroom observations. A sample of 360 Junior Secondary School students were selected from six public schools North East Nigeria. Students in the intervention group received structured formative assessment involving immediate corrective feedback, elaborative feedback, feed-forward comments, self-assessment and peer-assisted feedback for 12 weeks, while the comparison group received conventional assessment practices. Data were analysed using means, standard deviations, Pearson correlation and analysis of covariance. The results indicate that students exposed to structured formative feedback recorded higher post-test self-efficacy and learning achievement than students in the comparison group. Elaborative and feed-forward feedback showed the strongest perceived contribution to students’ confidence and learning improvement. The findings are consistent with contemporary evidence that formative assessment can improve K –12 learning and that the effectiveness of feedback depends substantially on how learners interpret and use it. The study concludes that formative assessment is most educationally valuable when feedback is timely, specific, actionable and integrated with opportunities for students to revise their learning.

Keywords: Formative Assessment, Teacher Feedback, Student Self-Efficacy, Junior Secondary Schools, Feedback Literacy, Learning Achievement, Nigeria.