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1、Teachers Conceptions of Assessment: Overview, Lessons, & Implications Review Paper for the NQSF web siteDr Gavin TL BrownSchool of EducationUniversity of AucklandEmail: gt.brownauckland.ac.nz AbstractThis brief summary reviews research on teachers conceptions of assessment and provides ten key lesso
2、ns from the results of a survey of New Zealand primary school teachers conceptions. Implications for assessment policy and teacher professional development are outlined. DiscussionTeachers conceptions are structured systems or frameworks of meaning though which they view, interpret, and interact wit
3、h the teaching environment (Pajares, 1992; Thompson, 1992; Pratt, 1992; Marton, 1981). Teachers conceptions are socially and culturally shared (van den Berg, 2002) and the pattern of conceptions is not uniform and simple (Stamp, 1987); conceptions are multi-faceted and interconnected (Brown, 2002).
4、How teachers conceive of teaching, learning, and curricula influences strongly how they teach, what students learn or achieve, and how learning is evaluated (Asch, 1976; Calderhead, 1996; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Pajares, 1992; Tittle, 1994; Thompson, 1992). Lecturers and teachers conceptions of asse
5、ssment impact on their understandings about student motivation, curriculum content, student ability, and student learning strategies (Brown, 2002; Dahlin, Watkins, & Ekholm, 2001; Delandshere & Jones, 1999). It is especially important to understand teachers conceptions of assessment because teaching
6、 and learning is more often negatively affected by assessment (Crooks, 1988). Developing teachers assessment literacy and policies around assessment depend on making explicit the nature and structure of teachers conceptions (Borko, Mayfield, Marion, Flexer, & Cumbo, 1997). Assessment is any act of i
7、nterpreting information about student performance, collected through any of a multitude of means. All conceptions teachers may have about assessment appear to fall into one of four major categories: (a) assessment improves teaching and learning, (b) assessment makes students accountable for learning
8、, (c) assessment makes schools and teachers accountable, and (d) assessment is irrelevant to education (Brown, 2002; Heaton, 1975; Torrance & Pryor, 1998; Warren & Nisbet, 1999; Webb, 1992). Assessment to improve students learning and the quality of teaching (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Crooks, 1988) requ
9、ires accurate and valid descriptions of student performance (Brown, 2002). Assessment techniques, including informal teacher-based intuitive judgement and formal assessment tools, identify the impediments to learning and students strengths, with the explicit goal of improving the quality of instruct
10、ion and student learning (Philippou & Christou, 1997; Saltzgaver, 1983; Warren & Nisbet, 1999). Making students individually accountable for their learning through administration of high-stakes assessments or examinations is a widespread approach. There are many and usually significant consequences
11、for individuals, including retention in a year or grade level, graduation, and tracking or streaming (Guthrie, 2002). The student accountability conception is largely about placing the onus on the learner through high stakes consequences such as graduation, selection, or public reporting. “Test scor
12、es give evidence about how well or badly a school, or even a country is doing” (Firestone, Mayrowetz, & Fairman, 1998, p. 97). This conception uses assessment results to publicly demonstrate that teachers or schools are doing a good job (Butterfield, Williams, & Marr, 1999; Mehrens & Lehmann, 1984:
13、Smith, Heinecke, & Noble, 1999) and it requires that there be consequences for schools or teachers for reaching or not reaching required standards (Firestone, Mayrowetz, & Fairman, 1998; Guthrie, 2002). Rationales for the school and teacher accountability conception are two-fold; one rationale empha
14、sises demonstrating publicly that schools and teachers deliver quality instruction (Hershberg, 2002; Smith & Fey, 2000), and the second emphasises improving the quality of instruction (Linn, 2000; Noble & Smith, 1994). Finally, teachers have the option to reject or treat as irrelevant all assessment
15、. This conception argues that assessment has no legitimate place within teaching and learning because teachers know what students need and are learning (Airasian, 1997). Assessment is rejected also because of its pernicious effects on teacher autonomy and professionalism and because it distracts tea
16、chers from their real purposelearning (Cooper & Davies, 1993; Garcia, 1987; Saltzgaver, 1983).Brown (2002) has shown that New Zealand primary school teachers have four main, multi-faceted, inter-related conceptions of assessment. That research also showed how conceptions of assessment related to tea
17、chers conceptions of teaching, learning, and curriculum as four major conceptions. Key Points1. New Zealand Teachers agreed with the Improvement and School Accountability conceptions and disagreed with the Irrelevance and the Student Accountability conceptions. 2. The teachers viewed Improvement ass
18、essment as highly relevant and positively connected with School Accountability. In other words, they used assessment to improve education and demonstrate their own effectiveness. This positive connection of assessment to school accountability is attributed to the impact of self-management of New Zea
19、land schools.3. Teachers associated School Accountability assessment with Student Accountability and Improvement conceptions. This suggests that teachers conceive that school accountability may lead to a rising of educational standards and improved ability of students to receive qualifications and r
20、ecognition of achievement, along the lines argued by Resnick and Resnick (1989). However, it is worth nothing that this effect is found in a context where there are no externally mandated national tests, just a program of school-based policies on assessment for school-based management and informatio
21、n.4. Teachers connected Student Accountability with Irrelevance; perhaps through the impact of student centred, humanistic, or nurturing conceptions. 5. Teachers associated a surface (memorise facts and details) approach to learning to a technological view of curriculum, both accountability concepti
22、ons of assessment, and to their own ability to achieve student learning outcomes. This suggests that accountability oriented assessment is perceived as measures of surface learning at which teachers can ensure students achieve through the application of a systematic, technological approach to educat
23、ion. 6. Teachers associated a deep view of learning (e.g., learning something for oneself, or understanding things in a new way) with a caring approach to helping students develop as whole people. 7. Teachers conception of student-centred learning was not anti-intellectual in its understanding of st
24、udent development. Development was associated with an academic approach to curriculum that stresses (a) refinement of intellectual abilities, (b) the development of cognitive skills that can be applied to learning virtually anything, (c) the transmission of the best and the most important subject co
25、ntent, (d) students acquiring the most important products of humanitys intelligence, and (e) developing students rational thinking. 8. Teachers excluded assessment from the student-centred, academic learning and teaching conception. It is supposed that teachers believe that deep learning is so intan
26、gible and wrapped up in the subjectivity of teacher-student relationships and modelling that it cannot or ought not to be measured or assessed at all. In other words, teachers believe external accountability assessments dont measure deep transformative learning. 9. New Zealand teachers were opposed
27、to a social reconstruction conception of curriculum and the social reform role of teaching. This may not be unexpected given the socially conservative role of schools as agents of social reproduction not transformation (Bourdieu, 1974; Harker, 1982).10. Teachers rejected the conception that educatio
28、n is about the direct transmission or banking of knowledge (Barnes, 1976) and they associated it with social reconstruction, rather than accountability. This suggests that allowing children to be the centre of education circumvents the need to grapple with or challenge current constructions of socia
29、l or political reality.Implications for Practice and for School learning Environments A number of implications can be drawn from this research related to assessment policy implementation and the design of teacher professional education and development. Two-fold models of how teachers conceptions of
30、assessment, learning, teaching, and curriculum are not uncommon (e.g., Delandshere & Jones, 1999; Kember & Kwan, 2000), but they are inadequate to describe the complexity of teachers conceptions. Policy InitiativesThe introduction of assessment innovation policies should act to minimise association
31、with external accountability dimensions (especially those at the student level) and instead maximise association with teachers individual capability to improve their own instruction and the learning of their own studentsat least if the aim is to improve student learning outcomes. Externally mandated
32、 assessment projects or programs, if divorced from student-centred development, deep learning, or intellectual growth conceptions, will likely be perceived as irrelevant. Externally mandated assessments can be implemented but teachers will have to be persuaded that the assessments relate to deep lea
33、rning and educational improvement. Disassociating assessment systems from accountability purposes may, in any event, be the approach most likely to raise standards and performance. By helping teachers implement an improvement practice of assessment, by associating assessments with a deep learning, s
34、tudent-centred philosophy, and by making teachers accountable for the process within their own institutions rather than to some outside agency, it may be possible to connect with teachers dominant conceptions effectively. Emphasis on a school-based, and managed process of improvement-oriented evalua
35、tion of student assessment results is likely to result in educational improvement in the quality of teaching and the quality of student learning outcomes (Timperley & Robinson, 2002). The focus in assessment policy should not be on compulsion but rather on identifying and responding to teachers conc
36、eptions because no matter what policies are put in place, unless teachers conceptions are addressed, the policy will be ineffective. Professional DevelopmentThe implementation of any new assessment policy, tool, or practice, whether at the national or local school level, needs to take account of the
37、 complex structure of teachers conceptions of assessment to ensure success. Teachers assimilate new assessment practices (e.g., constructivist, deep) into long-standing transmission, teacher-oriented, accountability type assessment and learning frameworks (Kahn, 2000). New educational standards from
38、 professional bodies or state authorities may be relatively ineffective if teachers conceptions of assessment remain unchanged or unchallenged, or if teachers remain unaware of their own conceptions. Likewise, teacher professional pre-service preparation and in-service development in the area of ass
39、essment needs to take account of teachers pre-existing conceptions, if it is to be effective in moving teachers toward a preferred structure of conceptions. There is a need to make explicit the different understandings teachers may have of assessment to ensure that participants within schools do not
40、 miscommunicate with each other. Browns (2002) Conceptions of Assessment instrument may be useful in making more explicit the conceptions teachers have about assessment and trigger discussions and change. Pre-service instruction in assessment should make explicit varying conceptions of assessment, t
41、heir rationales and consequences, and attempt to move future teachers and managers away from a simplistic dichotomy of formative assessment goodsummative assessment bad.ReferencesAirasian, P. W. (1997). Classroom assessment (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.Asch, R. L. (1976). Teaching beliefs & eval
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43、bo, K. (1997). Teachers developing ideas and practices about mathematics performance assessment: Successes, stumbling blocks, and implications for professional development. Teaching & Teacher Education, 13(3), 259-278.Bourdieu, P. (1974). The school as a conservative force: scholastic and cultural i
44、nequalities. In J. Eggleston (Ed.) Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education, (pp. 32-46). London: Methuen.Brown, G. T. L. (2002). Teachers conceptions of assessment. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.Butterfield, S., Williams, A., & Marr, A.
45、(1999). Talking about assessment: mentor-student dialogues about pupil assessment in initial teacher training. Assessment in Education, 6(2), 225-246.Calderhead, J. (1996). Teachers: Beliefs and knowledge. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 709-725). New
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47、achers thinking and classroom practice in English secondary schools. Teaching & Teacher Education, 9, 559-570.Crooks, T. (1988). The impact of classroom evaluation practices on students. Review of Educational Research, 58(4), 438-481.Dahlin, B., Watkins, D. A., & Ekholm, M. (2001). The role of asses
48、sment in student learning: The views of Hong Kong and Swedish lecturers. In D. A. Watkins & J. B. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives. (pp. 47-74). Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Comparative Education Research Centre.Delandshere, G., & Jones, J
49、. H. (1999). Elementary teachers beliefs about assessment in mathematics: A case of assessment paralysis. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 14(3), 216240.Firestone, W. A., Mayrowetz, D., & Fairman, J. (1998). Performance-based assessment and instructional change: The effects of testing in Maine and Maryland. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20(2), 95-113
