Teacher‐pupil interaction in formative assessment: assessing the work or protecting the child?

ABSTRACT

Many claims are currently being made about the formative role that assessment can and should play in teaching and learning. Such claims derive from a variety of arguments but focus on questions of how children learn and how they can benefit from supportive questioning and constructive feedback. However, we have little empirical evidence with which to evaluate such claims. In particular we have few descriptions or analyses of the sorts of teacher‐pupil interaction which would constitute such formative assessment.

This paper reports on aspects of the work of an ESRC‐funded study designed to investigate teacher assessment at Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum in England (R000 23 4668). Two assessment incidents drawn from the substantial corpus of observational data which the project has collected, are analysed in detail, with a focus on the way that the teacher‐pupil interaction relates to contemporary theories of both formative assessment and achievement motivation. The paper seeks to put assessment theory to the test of practice in order to stimulate debate about what teachers can reasonably be expected to aim for and to achieve in their classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• assessment
• Key Stage 1
• National Curriculum
• formative assessment
• motivation