Professional controversies between teachers about their summative assessment practices: a tool for building assessment capacity

Abstract

This article describes two collaborative research projects whose common goal was to explore the potential role of professional controversies in building teachers’ summative assessment capacity. In the first project, upper primary teachers were encouraged to compare their practices through a form of social moderation, without prior instructor input or theoretical preparation. In the second project, lower secondary school teachers were encouraged to compare their summative assessment practices with reference to a theoretical model of curriculum alignment, under the guidance of an instructor. The findings support the potentially constructive role of professional controversies in supporting teachers’ professional development for summative assessment. They highlight the status of references called upon in discussion of controversies, and their contribution to the construction of the subjects under discussion.

Keywords:

• Curriculum alignment
• professional controversies
• social moderation
• summative assessment
• teachers’ professional development

Notes

1. http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/list-oecd-member-countries.htm.

2. For more information, consult https://www.plandetudes.ch/web/guest/PG2-contexte. New common curricula have also been introduced into the German- and Italian-speaking regions.

3. This was the case at the time of this research (2012–2014). Recently, teachers in Geneva have been obliged to use a mark scale that includes half marks, as used in the Canton of Vaud.

4. The seminar described in this article is part of wider research which included classroom observation time before and after the seminars. This research was supported by the Swiss National Research Fund, subsidy n° n°100013–143453/1. Thanks to the teachers and to Lionel Dechamboux, Laurent Filliettaz, Fernando Morales Villabona and Walther Tessaro.

5. The seminar described in this article is part of wider research presented in Pasquini (2014) which included successive constructions of summative tests experienced in classrooms and discussed during several seminars.

6. In Project A, several trainers were involved, including the principal investigator who has co-authored this article. In Project B, the trainer was also the researcher and co-author of this article.

7. Pseudonyms.

8. In the Canton of Geneva, during the early 2000s, several schools, said to be ‘renovated’, gave no marks for summative assessments. Renovation took the form of novel teaching practices and innovative school organisation with an emphasis on collaborative projects. Marks were reintroduced in 2006.

9. Pseudonyms.

10. The VP stream is the most demanding in the Vaud education system.

11. Reminder, this was a Canton of Geneva requirement that did not apply in the Canton of Vaud.

12. The ‘federal scale’ is a standard way to fix the overall mark (or numeric grade) by applying the following calculation: ‘numeric grade = (marks obtained by the student/total marks available) × 5 + 1’.

13. We sincerely thank Sandra Johnson and the experts for their very formative comments.