Learning to learn and assessment: Complementary concepts or different worlds?

ABSTRACT

Background: ‘Learning to Learn’ (L2L) is considered a key skill for the twenty-first century. It is understood here as a hyper-competence, which mobilises resources of the individual and/or groups in a sense-making effort to improve or update one’s own learning. By means of classroom assessment during the teaching-learning cycle, teachers can promote this competence in their daily practice. This paper focuses on the L2L–assessment relationship, presenting data from an international qualitative research project conducted in Brazil, Ecuador, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay from a comparative perspective.

Purpose: The study sought to explore the relationship between teachers’ L2L conceptualisations and their assessments in a sample of preschool, primary and secondary school teachers. Key questions addressed were: how did interviewed teachers define L2L? What, if any, was the connection between teachers’ assessment methods and their own L2L definition?

Methods: The analysis drew on data collected from 123 interviews with teachers, deploying a qualitative descriptive approach. L2L definitions were classified as broad or narrow according to Hounsell. A connection was assigned to each interview depending on whether teachers’ assessment and L2L responses included aspects related to L2L theory.

Findings and conclusion: Around one-third of interviewees provided a definition of L2L consistent with the intended purposes of assessments that contribute to the development of L2L. Approximately one-fifth was classified with partial connection and almost half was classified as showing no connection. The L2L–assessment relationship is explored in terms of similarities and differences between countries. Overall, the study draws attention to the need for increasing teacher awareness of the L2L–assessment connection during initial and in-service teacher education, in order for teachers to develop assessment practices conducive to L2L.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning to learn (L2L)
• teachers’ assessment practices
• qualitative international study
• teacher education
• twenty-first century competencies
• professional development

Acknowledgments

Our research partnership depends on in-kind contributions from each partner. We are thus grateful to the following colleagues for interviews, transcriptions and preliminary analyses and insights: Juan Cárdenas, UPS; Víctor Cárdenas, UAM; Agda Malheiro Ferraz de Carvalho, FCC; Fernando Moscoso, UPS; Glaucia Torres Franco Novaes, FCC; Fausto Sáenz, UPS; Fernando Solórzano, UPS. We thank Instituto Nacional de Evaluación Educativa of Uruguay (INEEd), as a member of the L2L project, for providing interviews carried out in Montevideo and for their review of educational legislation in Uruguay. Finally, we wish to thank participating schools and teachers for their opinions and insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For presentation in this article, these questions have been translated into English from the original interview guide in Italian.

Additional information

Funding

We wish to heartily thank INVALSI President Anna Maria Ajello and FCC President João Luís da Silva for generously supporting this study.