Identifying exemplary science teachers through their students’ perceptions of the assessment process

Abstract

This paper reports on part of a large‐scale study aimed at examining students’ perceptions of assessment. This paper will report on a study utilising mixed methodology in 150 Australian middle school classrooms. The purpose of the study described in this paper was to use the Students’ Perceptions of Assessment Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (SPAQ) to identify and describe exemplary science teachers. With a sample of over 3000 science students, the reliability of the SPAQ scales ranged from 0.62 to 0.82. The exemplary teachers were identified as those whose students’ perceptions were more than one standard deviation above the mean on three of the five scales of Congruence with planned learning, Transparency, Authenticity, Student consultation, and Diversity. The construct validity of the SPAQ to identify these exemplary teachers was confirmed through interviews with students and these views are reported in the article.

Keywords:

• students’ perceptions
• assessment
• mixed methodology
• classroom environment