Assessment Matters 11: 2017

Assessment Matters 11: 2017

6   Grading policies in China: Are we assessing the learner or the learning?
Liying Cheng, Wei Yan, Yi Mei, and Christopher DeLuca

 

As one of the most high-stakes practices in education, grading has been the subject of significant debate and research over the years. However, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore the teaching and learning values embedded in grades by looking at grading policies. This study examined grading polices in China by focusing on the embedded teaching and learning values that could potentially influence teachers’ grading practices. Three main types of policy… Read more

6   Grading policies in China: Are we assessing the learner or the learning?
Liying Cheng, Wei Yan, Yi Mei, and Christopher DeLuca

As one of the most high-stakes practices in education, grading has been the subject of significant debate and research over the years. However, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore the teaching and learning values embedded in grades by looking at grading policies. This study examined grading polices in China by focusing on the embedded teaching and learning values that could potentially influence teachers’ grading practices. Three main types of policy documents were… Read more

32   Assessment for learning practices in Japan: Three steps forward, two steps back
Yasuko Shimojima and Masahiro Arimoto

The dichotomy between content knowledge and 21st-century skills (“zest for life” in the Japanese context) has been an issue since the early 2000s in Japan. Recently it has been evident in the demand for a high school–university connection. In spite of such a division, involving apparently incompatible or opposite principles, Japan can integrate such a duality. This can be achieved both top down (tatemae), through official policy documents, and through daily cultural practices (… Read more

53   Assessment of English language learners in New Zealand primary schools: Purposes, principles, and practices
Sue Edwards

It has been mandatory since March 2015 for New Zealand schools to use the English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP) (Ministry of Education, 2008) to determine English language learners’ eligibility for Ministry funding of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) programmes and support. Teachers are expected to “use a wide range of assessment tasks, activities and observations to make an OTJ (overall teacher judgment) with reference to the various descriptors on the ELLP… Read more

75   Shared understanding: Using a conceptual model to support the assessment of NCEA group composing
Vicki Thorpe, Hannah Gilmour, and Kathleen Walton-Roy

This article considers the assessment of individuals’ contributions to collaborative creative groups. It draws on research into collaborative group composing and its relationship to a secondary school qualification system, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). It explains how a conceptual model of group composing was used to support valid and successful NCEA music assessment. Following this, two Master of Teaching and Learning students explain how they used this model… Read more

99   Students’ use of online feedback in a first-year tertiary biology course
Amanda Harper and Gavin Brown

Students often report that feedback experiences at university are insufficient to make progress. The size of many large courses means the provision of personalised and timely feedback to individual students is challenging. Online systems have been promoted as a way students can receive feedback for learning. This study explores the extent to which students use feedback information when it is provided in a self-directed online homework system in a first-year biology course, and whether this… Read more

122   Personalised feedback and annotated exemplars in the writing classroom: An experimental study in situ
Donna Price, Jeffrey K. Smith, and David A. G. Berg

This research compares the relative effectiveness and efficiency of personalised feedback versus annotated exemplars as two approaches to providing high school students with formative feedback in the development of their writing skills. The study was a randomised experiment conducted in situ in two English classes in one high school in New Zealand. The primary researcher was the teacher in the study. The findings show that there was substantial growth in writing performance with… Read more

145   Investigating the use of a one-to-one technology programme on formative assessment practices in grades 7 to 9 classroom learning environments
Michelle J. Searle, Amani Elrofaie, Lori C. Kirkpatrick, Adrienne Saunder, and Heather M. Brown

This study involved a group of 61 teachers in Ontario, Canada, who participated in a case study about classroom assessment practices. The participants were part of a district one-to-one technology programme that provided an iPad to each student and teacher in all Grade 7 to 9 classrooms. As part of the programme and its evaluation, teachers who were using the iPads were invited to participate in a case study focused on classroom assessment with the iPads. The case study consisted of 8 weeks… Read more