Equity and teachers’ online classroom assessment literacy in China: insights from parental involvement during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

School teachers often involve parents to assist in online assessment, but parental involvement can violate equity principles when not carefully monitored. In this article, we analyse types of parental involvement in online classroom assessment resulting from teachers’ requests, and discuss how such requests may impact on educational equity. Our data sets are interviews with 45 teachers and 33 parents, supplemented by recorded online teaching videos and students’ written and oral works. The findings reveal that providing equal opportunities for students’ learning is not yet at the forefront of teachers’ minds when they make decisions regarding parental involvement. On that basis, we discuss the necessity and difficulties of incorporating the principle of equity into teachers’ online classroom assessment literacy in contemporary China.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity
• online classroom assessment
• assessment literacy
• parental involvement
• online teaching

Acknowledgments

We thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their critical and constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

All teacher and parent participants gave clear and formal consent to their participation in the study during our first contact. Official ethical approval has also been obtained from the authors’ institution.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by “Research on the Innovation of Foreign Language Education in China” (grant number: 22JJD740011), a major project of Key Research Institutes of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education. It was also supported by a BFSU World Class Research Project grant [number SYL2020ZX024].

Notes on contributors

Shi Pu

Shi PU is Lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research interests include foreign language curriculum and instruction, critical thinking, and academic literacy.

Hao Xu

Hao XU is Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. His research interests include second language acquisition and language teacher education.