On the interactional challenges of revealing summative assessments: Collaborative scoring talk among teachers and students in Swedish national tests

Marie Nilsberth,Erica Sandlund

doi:10.1016/j.linged.2020.100899

Abstract

• Collaborative assessment talk has become increasingly common in schools for teachers as well as students. • For students, making an evaluative claim entails navigating appropriate levels of self-praise and self-deprecation. • For teachers, revealing judgements challenges social and structural preferences about agreement and professional positions. • Great faith in collaborative assessment practices is challenged in terms of effectiveness by social and interactional norms.

Highlights

This study centers on the pedagogical activity of summative grade setting in interaction in two educational contexts: 1) Students in year 6 assessing their own performance in a practice test taken in class as preparation for a high-stakes national test, and 2) teachers assessing year 9 English speaking tests in collaborative assessment moderation meetings in a professional development workshop
Our analysis shows how participants treat the revelation of an assessment of student performance as delicate business, and the first professional judgement revealed is treated as an accountable action, where subsequent and divergent judgements are delayed
Even though research on assessment practices covers a broad spectrum of different activities and perspectives, there is a lack of knowledge on how assessments or grades are discussed, negotiated, delivered, and responded to at the micro-level, in situated interactions between students and teachers

Summary

Introduction

This study centers on the pedagogical activity of summative grade setting in interaction in two educational contexts: 1) Students in year 6 assessing their own performance in a practice test taken in class as preparation for a high-stakes national test, and 2) teachers assessing year 9 English speaking tests in collaborative assessment moderation meetings in a professional development workshop. Lingard, Martino & Rezai-Rashti, 2013; Ozga, 2009), such classroom preparations for high-stakes tests have become increasingly common assessment practices in schools – for teachers as well as students. Such practices can be understood from a perspective of assessment literacy development, a concept which Popham (2011) defines as “an individual’s understandings of the fundamental assessment concepts and procedures deemed likely to influence educational decisions”

Methods

Results

Conclusion