Developing an assessment pedagogy: the tensions and struggles in re-theorising assessment from a cultural–historical perspective

Abstract

As schools become living sites of evidence-based practice, teachers increasingly accumulate large quantities of observations and records. In these times of an overabundance of documentation, there is a need to find the unit of analysis that determines the essence of what matters for assessment. In drawing upon cultural-historical theory, this paper presents the outcomes of a study which examined how 11 teachers from one primary school used the concepts of the social situation of development, motives, the zone of proximal development and the relations between the real and ideal forms of development in order to change their assessment practices. Findings show the tensions and struggles that emerged as teachers worked against the discourses associated with traditional institutionalised assessment practices where age dominates, and again as they worked with key concepts to theorise new ways of conceptualising and enacting assessment for building a new assessment pedagogy for their school.

Keywords:

• cultural-historical theory
• sociocultural theory
• assessment
• primary
• elementary
• child development

Acknowledgements

Special acknowledgement is made of the staff and children from the school, the principal Dr Esme Capp and the architectural consultant Mary Featherston. Their ongoing contributions to discussions and their individual and collective inquiries into assessment provided a rich context in which to examine cultural-historical assessment.

Notes

1. The term cultural-historical theory has been used because this term is what features in the Russian literature. This paper draws primarily upon the collective works of Vygotsky to inform the theoretical concepts discussed. It does not use secondary sources to discuss key Vygotskian concepts. Many secondary sources use the term sociocultural theory, and this term was first introduced by James Wertsch in the North American context. Although this term has been taken up by some scholars in a range of countries, I have chosen to use the term cultural-historical theory because it is more strongly associated with the legacy of the Collected Works (Volumes 1–6).

2. Victorian Essential Learning Standards (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/support/Pages/ausvels.aspx). Within Victorian Essential Learning Standards, there are three major stages of learning: the Preparatory to Year 4 level, Years 5–8 and Years 9–10. A report card is prepared that is written in plain English, giving parents a clearer picture of their child’s progress against expected statewide standards (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/studentreports/default.htm). Standards by year level are explicitly stated for each of the learning domains (see http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/foundation10/curriculum/assessment.aspx).

3. See Fleer (2006). The assessable moment represents teacher professional judgement about the right moment in which to begin to document learning and development, typically when children are meaningfully engaged in a learning event, where motive orientation is high, and where performance is thought to be the highest. This contrasts with setting up an assessment task and time. The parallel concept that is widely understood and acknowledged is the idea of the teachable moment.