The construction of the teacher as expert assessor

Abstract

ABSTRACT Professional standards are increasingly being used internationally as the basis of teacher performance and as a mechanism to progress teacher quality. Concurrently, teacher assessment practices continue to be highlighted in many countries as an area in need of further professional development. In this paper, we analyse the assessment focus within the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs), as an example of one nation’s articulation of the expected performance and development of assessment literacies across a teaching career. Through a conceptual framework of proficiency progression based on the work of researchers such as Dreyfus and Dreyfus, we employ text analysis and a visualisation methodology to explore meanings and patterns in Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning. Using diagrammatic representations, we show the relationships between terms in the APST statements and how progression of expertise is constructed. The analysis identifies the areas of alignment between the APSTs and the proficiency framework, as well as the areas where the APSTs could be improved and could be more reflective of models of proficiency progression. We offer suggestions for advancing the description of professional standards to encapsulate models of proficiency in efforts to meet the expectations for assessment literate teachers.