Swedish and Finnish Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Summative Assessment Practices

Raili Hilden,Ali Yildirim,Birgitta Fröjdendahl,Anne Dragemark Oscarson

doi:10.3390/languages7010010

Abstract

Summative assessments are an exercise of authority and something that pupils cannot easily appeal. The importance of teachers being able to assess their pupils correctly is consequently both a question of national equivalence and individual fairness. Therefore, summative assessment is a paramount theme in teacher education, and we aimed to investigate the perceptions and competence of student teachers regarding common summative assessment practices. The study was conducted at three universities, two in Sweden and one in Finland involving prospective language teachers responding to an online survey (N = 131). In addition, interviews were carried out with 20 Swedish and 6 Finnish student teachers. The analysis of the data indicates that student teachers value practices that enhance communication and collaboration as well as the curricular alignment of summative assessments. With respect to perceived competence, the respondents in general felt most confident with deploying traditional forms of summative assessment, while they were more uncertain about process evaluation and oral skills. Regarding significant differences in the participants’ perceptions of competence among the three universities, Finnish university students reported higher levels in all variables. However, room for improvement was found at all universities involved.

Highlights

We first reflect on the findings in the light of the Pastore and Andrade (2019) triadic model as a prerequisite for our first goal to map the strengths and challenges of the student teachers’ assessment literacy
The results in the present study mapped intended practices, rather than the real experience or frequency of implementation, and it is the student teachers’ perceived knowledge and approaches to issues about summative assessments (SA) and to how they evaluate their own knowledge that is in focus
The responses reveal that informants in this study believed in the vital role of SA and of being competent in the field

Summary

Introduction

The main function of summative assessments (SA) is, in essence, to sum up development and achievement and determine the level of students’ knowledge These assessments are often the basis for decisions teachers make both regarding further teaching strategies and individual help to learners. Teachers need to be able to make ethical decisions as these assessments most often have a crucial impact on the future lives of learners, being the basis for further education and future career choices (Yildirim et al 2021) This exercise of authority in the form of, for example, setting final grades, is something which pupils cannot appeal and teacher assessment literacy (TAL) is of vital importance both for national equivalence and individual fairness

Objectives

Results

Conclusion