Fairness in language classroom assessment practices: what do EFL teachers underscore?

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Studies have confirmed that fair assessment practices in educational contexts affect learners’ motivation, self-regulation, and above all teacher credibility, yet the concept has been subject to educational stakeholders’ diverse outlooks and perspectives. On this basis, this study delves into the high school English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ understanding and perceptions of fairness of assessment practices in Iranian educational contexts. Thus, 105 conveniently selected EFL teachers of Junior/Senior high schools took the Classroom Assessment Fairness Scale (CAFS) consisting of 35 Likert scale items that tap into the five dimensions of the concept. The obtained questionnaire data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, the results of which revealed that Iranian English teachers were cognizant of different principles of fairness in classroom assessment, and they were quite conscious of the significance of its different components. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that there was no notable difference in the perceptions of EFL teachers in terms of their teaching context. The findings might have a couple of implications: First, classroom assessment fairness seems to be both an established concept in Iranian EFL contexts, and of the EFL teachers’ concern. Second, teaching contexts seem not to affect the EFL teachers’ conceptions of what constitutes a fair classroom assessment practice.