Assessment Matters 3: 2011

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more