Changes in classroom assessment practices during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19

ABSTRACT

This study explores the effects of the shift to emergency remote teaching on assessment practices due to COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 936 Spanish teachers from all educational levels ranging from early childhood to university participated in this nationwide survey. Four aspects were explored: (1) changes in the use of assessment instruments (e.g. exams); (2) changes in assessment criteria, standards and grading; (3) changes in the delivery of feedback and use of rubrics; and (4) changes in students’ involvement in assessment (i.e. self- and peer assessment). In general, results are mixed, with some areas undergoing certain changes with the aim of adapting to the new situation (e.g. primary education teachers lowering their grading standards), whereas many other assessment practices have remained similar, especially among higher education teachers. Unfortunately, some of the assessment practices have worsened, such as students’ involvement in assessment which has decreased.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment practices
• emergency remote teaching
• COVID-19
• feedback
• rubrics
• self-assessment
• peer assessment
• online teaching

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Additional information

Funding

(1) Spanish National R+D call from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Generación del conocimiento 2020), Reference number: <#AWARD-ID;>PID2019-108982GB-I00</#AWARD-ID;>. (2) Universidad Francisco de Vitoria Call for Research in Educational Innovation 2020, project ‘Interdisciplinary and formative employment of rubrics in higher education’ UFV2020-46).

Notes on contributors

Ernesto Panadero

Ernesto Panadero is an IKERBASQUE Researcher at Universidad de Deusto (Spain). His research focuses on understanding how to employ educational psychology methods and theories to better understand the effects of educational assessment. He is the principal investigator of the Education, Regulated Learning and Assessment ERLA group.

Juan Fraile

Juan Fraile is an associate professor and researcher at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Spain). His research interests are self-assessment and self-regulation of learning processes in higher education and assessment tools.

Leire Pinedo

Leire Pinedo is a Ph.D. candidate at Universidad de Deusto (Spain) investigating the topic of students’ self-assessment.

Carlos Rodríguez-Hernández

Carlos Rodríguez-Hernández is an impact measurement research scientist at Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). His main line of research is on academic performance.

Fernando Díez

Fernando Díez is an associate professor at Universidad de Deusto (Spain) interested in leadership applied to education among other sectors.