Assessment Matters 13: 2019

Student voice makes a valuable contribution in the effort to evaluate the impact of Assessment for Learning (AfL) as it is the student learning that AfL practices seek to enhance. The authors report on a practitioner-led qualitative study involving 11 students’ perceptions of the impact of student-generated feedback practices. This study was conducted in a senior high-school English classroom in New Zealand and involved teacher-led development of students’ ability to evaluate and give… Read more

This article reports findings from a nationwide research project conducted in Norway to determine the impact of the national programme called Assessment for Learning (AfL, 2010–2014) on school practices and classroom practices when assessment is used as a tool for learning. Based on a conceptual mapping tool developed to analyse AfL communities, the findings indicated that there were four stages in the development of a school’s assessment culture. It was found that teachers must become… Read more

Formative assessment has been shown to have the power to positively affect student achievement, but professional-development initiatives for teachers to substantially develop their formative assessment practices have been frequently unsuccessful. In this study, a random selection of Year-7 teachers participated in a professional-development programme (PDP) in formative assessment. Classroom observations, questionnaires, and interviews were used to investigate the changes made in the teachers… Read more

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) has been used in several development studies, but few have used it for the purposes of formative assessment. This article reports from a study where the activity system was used to conduct a historical and actual-empirical analysis of the assessment culture at a purposively selected school. The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological aspects of interventionist research, based on a previously conducted empirical study. Mirroring was… Read more

The purpose of this study is to better understand the norms, processes, and implications of a standards-based assessment (SBA) system in a project-based, STEM-focused secondary school in the United States. The SBA system had both formative and summative components in relation to classroom teaching and grading, respectively. We focus on both teacher and student perspectives of the assessment system, and the potential impact of the system on their roles as teachers and learners. Results… Read more