Classroom assessment, pedagogy and learning – twenty years after Black and Wiliam 1998

Twenty years ago Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam published their world-renowned review on classroom assessment and learning in this journal (Black & Wiliam, 1998). It has been on the list of the top-ten most read articles in this journal ever since, with more than 56,000 views as I am writing this editorial. In celebration of Assessment in Education’s 25th volume, I invited Professors Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam to present some thoughts on their 1998 article in a one-day conference in Oxford in February 2018. Among the highlights of the conference, was listening to reflections from Paul Black on how the review was made possible with support from this journal’s first lead editor, Professor Patricia Broadfoot. Black explained how the review came about as a result of Professor Mary James approaching him on behalf of the British Education Research Association Assessment Group (subsequently the Assessment Reform Group). They saw the need for a review of the literature on assessment and learning, and they had received a grant from the Nuffield Foundation to do so. Together with Wiliam, Black started the process of reviewing the field at a time when it involved sitting in the library and turning the paper pages in journals, unlike our current electronic data review searches. Their final article was published in March 1998, a text of 67 pages with 250 references and a list of all the journals consulted. As Lead Editor of the journal, Patricia Broadfoot adopted a new model where she invited researchers to write commentaries on the review. The first issue in 1998 therefore had important contributions from scholars such as Perrenoud (1998), Biggs (1998), Hattie and Jaeger (1998), Sadler (1998) Sebatane (1998) and Dwyer (1998). Their comments and reflections pushed the research field of assessment forward and offered important research themes on feedback, self-assessment and formative assessment processes for years to come. The model has since continued to be used in this journal, last seen in the two special issues on validity (Newton & Baird, 2016) and assessment and learning (Wiliam, 2017). It is a model I believe we need to continue using as we move forward. It opens up for important debates on controversial topics and reminds us of what has been achieved and where we still need to focus our research.

In times where information overload seems to challenge wisdom, the need to read in depth the classic and seminal pieces concerning core themes and to reflect on and contest the basic concepts that our research is based upon, is needed more than ever before. The whole issue of 1998 is worth re-reading – as is the new article by Black and Wiliam published in this issue, 20 years after their 1998 article.

In the first article of this issue, Black and Wiliam (2018) outline how they have tried to contribute to theorising formative assessment in previous work, still recognising that this work is incomplete. The new paper therefore takes up a suggestion by Perrenoud (1998) ‘that any theory of formative assessment must be embedded within a wider theoretical field, specifically, within a theory of pedagogy’. Black and Wiliam (this issue) outline a model where educational design and assessment is associated with theories of pedagogy, instruction and learning while also taking specific subjects into account. The article thoroughly discusses issues around policy, practise and implementation of formative assessment practices. More importantly, Black and Wiliam conclude with a reminder of how all practices can only be understood within the social, cultural and political context they are enacted upon:

Thus, children from working class families, who are only familiar with the restricted code of their everyday language, may find it difficult to engage with the elaborated code that is required by the learning discourse of the classroom and which those from middle class families experience in their home lives.

In the next 25 years of this journal, the emphasis on understanding students’ different lives and backgrounds, across cultures and contexts, will be of importance in enabling research in assessment to move forward. It includes researching assessment across different countries and circumstances, making sure all student groups are included in our work and not only in privileged parts of the world.

Since the 1998 review, researchers have debated the theoretical definitions of assessment for learning and formative assessment, and the claims made for the enhancement of students’ learning outcomes as measured on tests and reported as effect sizes. Simultaneously, as Black and Wiliam pointed out, even when researchers can agree on the theoretical definitions and differences between summative and formative assessment, it remains far more challenging for teachers in the classroom to understand the difference while teaching, and to know how to implement formative assessment practices in their instruction. In the following articles in this issue, we report on some of the recent studies from across the world, both theoretical and empirical, which attempt to tackle these issues from different perspectives.

Andersson and Palm (open access, 2018) rightly claim that formative assessment lacks a strong research base regarding how to support teachers to implement such a practise. With reference to Schneider and Randel (2010), they also claim there is lack of research on professional development programmes in formative assessment and their impact on both teacher practise and student achievement. Andersson and Palm report from a study following 22 Swedish Mathematics teachers participating in a Professional Development Programme (PDP) in formative assessment, based upon the framework by Wiliam and Thompson (2008). Data collection occurred before and after the programme was conducted through classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. Among the challenges detected in the implementation of formative assessment practices, are teachers who struggle with students’ different abilities, students interrupting teaching and time pressure. Equally, teachers expressed the need for further support and knowledge on how to continue the practise, the opportunity to work within networks and increased collaboration with more colleagues using the new approach. The empirical study adds to the knowledge of previous interventions that flag up some of the challenges teachers are facing when trying to transform theoretical knowledge into classroom practise. To move the knowledge of formative assessment forward, there is clearly a need for more empirical research and well-designed studies that take both teachers’ continuing learning as well as students’ learning into account.

One example of recommendations based upon previous work, is given in the systematic review by Hartmeyer, Stevenson, and Bentsen (2017). After screening 31 articles, the review included nine articles on formative assessment and concept mapping-based interventions in primary and secondary science education. Concept maps are visual representations of students’ thinking and understanding about learning, and are often used as part of teachers’ formative assessment practices. The interventions varied both in length and scientific topic, but most of them used a parallel controlled pre-test/post-test design, and all studies investigated students’ performance. Using the framework proposed by Black and Wiliam (2009), the authors discuss strategies for concept mapping-based formative assessment processes and how they can be used in the classroom. The review reports from studies where teachers have used technology allowing students to interact with agents. Hartmeyer et al. recommend that teachers include technology support when analysing students’ concept maps as a way of enhancing students’ learning.

In the third article, Van der Kleinj, Cumming, and Looney (2017) use Australia as an example to illustrate how recent policy decisions offer both expectations and support for teachers when implementing formative assessment practices in the classroom. Videos of what are considered to be best practise, are published online as resources for teachers, but the authors claim that the examples are limited, and do not always represent what is best practise of formative assessment. Instead, some of the videos show practices such as teachers giving praise without further comments, which previous research has demonstrated as less helpful for students’ learning. The article is a reminder of the challenge of transforming research evidence into practise, and the need for further critical work on policy and practise.

Yates and Jonston (2017) investigated teachers’ beliefs about assessment in New Zealand, using the Teachers Conceptions of Assessment Inventory. Participating teachers were mostly from the senior level of high schools and responsible for school-based assessment programmes, which according to the authors, accounts for 50% of students’ final grades. One of the main findings is that these teachers’ views on assessment are more in line with teachers in other countries where qualifications systems are based upon high-stake examinations, than with the more general sample of participants in previous studies in New Zealand. The authors discuss these findings also in relation to the tension between formative and summative views of assessment, and what is involved when teachers are responsible for parts of the national qualifications. The authors suggest that when teachers are working in contexts where there is tension between opposing purposes of assessment, they will likely adopt the views of the assessment policy that has the greatest impact on their work.

Jang and Sinclair (2017) give an overview of Ontario’s education and assessment policy, starting with a historical overview from 1846 until current practices. Canada is one of the countries that have succeeded well in international large-scale studies, and has attracted considerable interest worldwide also for their levels of performance and equity. One reason, the authors point out, is that the immigrant students who performed lower than domestic students in Canada in the PISA study at 15 years old, perform at the same level as the domestic students at the age of 24. Despite these success stories, the authors argue that the existing system, run by the Educational Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) which is responsible for Ontario’s province-wide literacy and numeracy assessments, is characterised by conflicting expectations and roles, and hence functions as a double-edged sword for teachers. Teachers end up focusing upon the EQAO data, which the authors claim do not always capture the richness of students’ learning. As these assessments are still in paper and pencil, the authors suggest a move forward would be to take advantage of technology and improve the assessments to be more in line with what is happening in the classroom. Another suggestion is to support teachers in their development of assessment competence.

Cheong (2017) has reviewed the book Assessment in Singapore: perspectives for classroom practice, edited by Poh-Guan Toh & See-Cheng Leong from the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB). Cheong explains it is written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of SEAB and is composed of 26 short chapters, all based upon skills and expertise within the board. It is written primarily for practitioners teaching at the primary, secondary and junior college levels in Singapore, and Cheong therefore suggests it will be a reference handbook for teachers. From Cheong’s perspective, the book could have been of interest to researchers if some more improvements had been made to it. Two of the chapters (2 and 3), draw upon the 1998 article by Black and Wiliam, with a particular focus on how to use planned questions and accurate feedback in classroom practise. It’s an example of how the Black and Wiliam (1998) review continues to influence policy around the world. The rest of the book covers themes such as how to assess achievement, assessment design, validity, language, testing of higher-order thinking, reporting and use of test scores as well as assessment in the Singaporean context. It’s recommended not only for its’ target audience, but academics and researchers interested in Singapore.

The second book review in this issue, is written by Dylan Wiliam (this issue) on Assessment for learning: meeting the challenge of implementation, edited by D. Laveault & L. Allal. The book is a result of a series of meetings between assessment scholars around the world, from 2001 to 2014. Wiliam claims that given the present strength of the evidence for the effectiveness of formative assessment, or assessment for learning, it is somehow surprising that the implementation of better classroom practises has not been more evident. Wiliam therefore welcomes the current book, as it offers chapters with knowledge on how to do it, written by scholars from around the world. Simultaneously, Wiliam flags up that most of the contributions have adopted a sociocultural perspective, which he argues might narrow the focus of assessment for learning. In fact, he argues that the strongest evidence for the effectiveness of assessment for learning is found in traditions such as data-driven decision-making and strategy-based formative assessment (Shepard, Penual, & Davidson, 2017).

The final book review, authored by Stobart (2018), concerns Developing feedback for student learning, by Ruth Dann . As Stobart writes, it is ‘an ambitious and provocative book’ which tackles feedback ‘by relating it to learning theories and to approaches to assessment’. Worth noting is that the author seeks to explore how you can go from theory to classroom practise, and what is particularly interesting, according to Stobart, is the chapters where Dann draws upon her own research and shows through case studies how young pupils act upon feedback in England. Her book is also a healthy reminder of the importance to include students’ voices in our research, when investigating what it takes to go from theory to practise with respect to assessment for learning. Dann’s book further challenges some of the current beliefs on assessment, and demonstrates how students’ different perspectives and backgrounds, their lived life, have different values not always aligned with the formative assessment approach. As we enter the next 25 years of this journal, I would welcome more empirical research on assessment and learning including students’ perspectives. Those we assess should also be given the opportunity to inform the assessors.