This third issue of Assessment Matters addresses a number of topics that span the complexity and nature of assessment as it is understood and practised in a range of educational settings, in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Through the papers one can see the multiple, often competing, roles that assessment plays in schools, and the complexity of teachers’ roles within that. There is no doubt that, to enact educational policies for effective pedagogy that integrates assessment for learning as well as for accountability, the onus of responsibility rests with school leaders and teachers.
Assessment Matters 3: 2011
publisher:
NZCER Press
This edition of Assessment Matters contains articles from educational settings in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. They explore the multiple and often competing roles that assessment plays in schools and the complexity of teachers’ roles as a result.
Contents
5
The purpose of this paper is to understand how teachers’ identities as assessors in a standards-referenced assessment system may be developed through their participation in online social moderation meetings. In these meetings, teachers negotiate and share their understandings of assessment standards and judgement decisions. In particular, the paper focuses on the relationship between the technology, the moderation processes and teachers’ development in this assessment system. This paper draws on sociocultural theories of learning to analyse the qualitative data collected through observations of 11 online moderation meetings and interviews with the teachers involved in these meetings. The results provide insights into the mediating role of the technology with regard to teachers’ development of shared meanings and common practices within a standards referenced assessment system.
28
Māori language education settings have resulted in teachers requiring efficient ways to identify the oral Māori language proficiency of students at the beginning of Māori-immersion schooling and throughout their participation as the basis for students’ ongoing learning. Accordingly, three assessment tools were developed using understandings from sociocultural perspectives on human learning that emphasise the importance of the responsive social and cultural contexts in which learning takes place. The researchers aimed to promote culturally responsive contexts in which students would talk about topics of interest. Once the tools and processes were found to have cultural legitimacy, further trials in a number of settings tested two of the assessments for measurement reliability and validity. This paper introduces the assessment tools and discusses the establishment of cultural legitimacy. It then discusses assessing the reliability of the tools using test–retest and internal consistency evidence, and assessing the tools for content validity.
45
The conceptions teachers have about assessment are assumed to influence their practices and to be consistent with the jurisdictional and policy frameworks in which they work. This paper compares two groups of teachers (i.e., New Zealand primary and secondary) in response to the Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment (TCoA–IIIA) self-administered survey inventory. The previously reported four-factor hierarchical model for primary teachers (i.e., improvement, irrelevance, school accountability and student accountability) was found to be statistically invariant with good fit characteristics across both groups using nested, multigroup invariance testing in confirmatory factor analysis. The only statistically significant difference was the mean score for the student accountability conception, which was more strongly endorsed by secondary teachers, consistent with their role in administering the New Zealand qualifications system. The study suggests that teachers develop or adopt conceptions of assessment that allow them to successfully function within their own policy or legal framework.
71
Using an interpretive, qualitative case study methodology, the current study investigated 20 primary school teachers’ beliefs and understandings about feedback, and the use of feedback to enhance student learning. The use of Sadler’s (1989) theoretical framework illuminated both similarities and differences among teachers. As teachers’ feedback discourse was examined in more detail, the influence of self-efficacy beliefs on the uptake and enactment of new ideas and practices associated with assessment for learning and feedback became apparent. This paper pays particular attention to the participating teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in regard to the scope of the discursive changes made to their feedback practice, the amount of effort teachers expended in moving toward mastery, their willingness to persevere in the face of difficulty and their apparent resilience when faced with self-doubt. The study concluded that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs will either enhance or impede their journey toward the enactment of the contemporary feedback discourse.
93
The introduction of a revised national curriculum for New Zealand has precipitated a subject-wide project to align requirements for high-stakes secondary school assessments (the National Certificate of Educational Achievement [NCEA] achievement standards) with curriculum aims and intentions. This article considers the process of revising NCEA standards and the potential for positive washback into classrooms in terms of enhancing pedagogical “good practice”. With a particular focus on the new learning area of Learning Languages, this article explores the revision from the perspective of two people who were centrally involved in the standards-writing process from beginning to end. Taking this perspective provides a unique and important opportunity to explore the NCEA alignment process for a new learning area from the inside and to describe, from this vantage point, the deliberations and considerations that went into the revised standards that are now being made available for consultation.
116
Since 1995, New Zealand’s National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) has been responsible for the national assessment of students’ achievement in each of the learning areas in the curriculum. One of the assessment approaches used by NEMP is the one-to-one student interview. This paper addresses variation within individual teacher administrators’ practice as they conducted interviews during the 2005 round of monitoring in social studies. An observation schedule was used to gather data from 12 randomly selected teacher administrators, across 10 categories, as they carried out three administrations for each of three selected social studies tasks. It is argued that the variations observed within individual teacher administrators’ practice were related to elements of the assessment tasks and teacher administrators’ interpretations of these tasks. In addition, teacher administrators’ subject knowledge, their understanding of the teacher administrator role and their understanding of the “standardised” one-to-one interview process also contributed to variations within individuals. Overall, the nature and levels of variation observed have the potential to pose threats to reliability and have an effect on the consequential validity of information.
140
The implementation of best practice models for assessment begins with teachers who are working in their own classes to integrate strategies into their teaching context. The effect of best practice strategies is greatly increased when there is a meeting of minds between teachers, students, school managers, academics, policy makers and, increasingly, educational consultants. This paper uses the findings of an observational case study to provide the beginnings of a baseline of information that can be used to plan for systematic evaluation of the effect of assessment innovations in classrooms and schools. It uses problem-based methodology to examine why teachers choose particular assessment practices, as well as describing what they do. This provides a useful basis for determining how professional learning should take place for real, sustainable change to be seen.
161
This study explored elementary and secondary school administrators’ perspectives on their attempts to build assessment literacy—an understanding of the principles and practices of sound assessment. Using a semistructured interview format, administrators were asked to share successes and challenges with various types of assessment. Transcripts revealed an imbalance between formative and summative assessment practices and a variety of attitudinal, structural and resource factors that constrain administrators’ ability to foster changes that align with recent assessment research. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to instructional leadership, capacity building and educational reform.
183
Assessment, much like learning, is interactive, social and contextual. New information and experience is understood and assimilated in relation to prior knowledge and experiences. While it is increasingly accepted that Māori learners have their own ways of understanding the world which are different from those of their non-Māori peers, teachers need to be careful not to promote a homogeneous approach to Māori learners. This article advocates the use of culturally responsive pedagogies that include assessment practices to meet the specific needs of the students. In association with the development of these understandings, there has grown a shift in focus from the deficiencies of the learner to a closer examination of the role of schools and schooling, the “system” itself and the production and implementation of culturally responsive models and quality teaching programmes that include formative assessment approaches.
| Product code | Product title | Price | Quantity |
|---|---|---|---|
| AM2011_3 | ASSESSMENT MATTERS 2011, VOL. 3 | $50.00 |
|
A well-established research resource for teachers.
Recent research in early childhood education.
Discussion, commentary and information about curriculum.
"Pushing" the thinking in assessment in education research, policy and practice.
AM2011_3
2011
NZCER Press
NZD$50.00 includes GST