Three Paradigms of Classroom Assessment: Implications for Written Feedback Research

ABSTRACT

Classroom assessment has always been an indispensable and integral part of any curriculum. In particular, assessment plays the role of reporting students’ learning summatively (assessment of learning), providing diagnostic and formative information for teachers to inform their instruction (assessment for learning); more recently, Earl (2013) proposed the notion of assessment as learning, which puts students at the center of assessment. Students in this assessment paradigm act as critical connecters between assessment and learning through self-reflection and self-regulation. The first section of this article reconceptualizes summative and formative assessments into three assessment paradigms: assessment of, for, and as learning through incorporating Serafini’s assessment models and Habermas’s three human interests. In so doing, our understanding of the three paradigms is consolidated and enriched to encompass not only the pedagogical implications but also their philosophical and epistemological underpinnings. The second section of the article focuses on one particular kind of assessment method commonly used in language classrooms, which is written feedback. I summarize and categorize recent written feedback research with reference to the three assessment paradigms and suggest directions for future research.

Acknowledgments

I thank the editors and the two reviewers who have generously given up valuable time to review and improve my article.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the article.

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Sin Wang Chong

Sin Wang Chong is currently a lecturer at the Centre for Language in Education, The Education University of Hong Kong. His publications have appeared in Assessing Writing and Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. He also writes for professional journals namely Modern English Teacher, English Teaching Forum, and The Teacher Trainer.