Development of teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ understanding of formative assessment is quite essential for its implementation in everyday classroom practices [Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 140–145]. This study investigates the development of teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment when it is newly introduced into their teaching. A group of 18 science teachers participated in design-based research project in which they developed and enacted inquiry-based teaching units with embedded formative peer assessment instances. Teachers’ perspective on formative peer assessment was captured by means of group discussions and reporting tool at different stages of the project (before teaching the experimental units, after having taught the units and 20 months after that). Data were analysed by thematic analysis. The findings show that immersing teachers into this relatively new method, formative peer assessment, especially when they are co-investigating their own practice (in research project), may have significant impact on their conceptualisation and implementation of formative assessment in general.

KEYWORDS:

• Formative assessment
• peerassessment
• teachers’ perspective
• science and mathematics teacher

Acknowledgement

We thank all pre-service teachers for their participation and cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The moments of contingency are described by Black and Wiliam (2009) as moments in which the evidence from learning is used for adjustments of the next steps. Though pointing on the moments may seem to be narrow focused, the considerations which are taken into account for seizing the opportunity to regulate the learning are quite broad, comprising instructional design, curriculum, epistemology, psychology, pedagogy, etc.

2 usually related to time and resource demands (worksheets, assessment tools, teacher assistant time etc.), lack of collegial support and novelty of the assessment method.

3 FP7, SiS.2012.2.2.3-1 (2013–2016): Assess Inquiry in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (ASSIST-ME)

4 For example, primary biology unit consisted of six hours (2 per week) in which the students investigated germination. Students proposed hypotheses about the factors which influences germination, then designed an experiment. The experiment design was assessed by peers and refined. After its realisation, students summarised the outcomes and draw a conclusion. Other examples of teaching units, formative-peer-assessment activities and other materials are available at https://assistme.ku.dk.

5 The video was prepared for ASSIST-ME project by the University of Copenhagen and showed the inquiry-based lesson in which students experimentally investigated the dependence of pendulum time on its length and provided formative feedback to their peers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Commission [grant number FP7 Grant Agreement No. 321428 ASSIST-ME].