Teacher agency and ICT affordances in classroom-based language assessment: The return to face-to-face classes after online teaching

Abstract

Recent research on classroom-based assessment (CBA) during the COVID-19 pandemic has examined language teachers’ strategic responses to challenges in online teaching. However, there is still a paucity of empirical research on their CBA practices supported by information and communication technology (ICT) during the return to face-to-face (f2f) classes. Moreover, most studies on CBA during and after the pandemic have focused on secondary or higher education, leaving young learner contexts underexplored. Thus, this study investigated how two primary school English teachers in South Korea exercised their agency to implement ICT-afforded CBA to address challenges in returning to f2f classes, grounded in an ecological perspective. It further explored mediating factors that influenced their agency in both temporal and relational aspects. Observations, interviews, and reflection papers revealed four main themes regarding their agency enactment in identifying ICT affordances for CBA, which were linked to individual factors in their agency enactment, including their pedagogical beliefs, ICT use experiences, identity, and professional development. The cultural (e.g., national curriculum), structural (e.g., student wellness and parental voices), and material dimensions (e.g., institutional support of teacher training) also influenced their agency enactment. This study provides both theoretical and practical implications for ICT-afforded CBA in the post-pandemic era.