Comparing apples with pears: Teacher knowledge about assessment and its impact on their practices

Abstract

The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative project described in this paper found that, even in successful schools, a lack of teacher expertise in assessment caused roadblocks for evidence-based improvement of teaching and learning. This New Zealand Ministry of Education funded research project (Great expectations: strengthening teaching and enhancing learning in schools with diverse student populations through action research) aimed to build the capacity of teachers to reduce inequalities and maintain high student achievement in schools with diverse student populations. An associated aim was to increase the research capability of the teacher researchers within each of the participating schools. There is no national testing of primary school children in New Zealand. Each self-managing school is responsible for setting its own achievement targets, monitoring achievement of its students against these targets and reporting achievement and any variance from the targets to the school community and the Ministry of Education annually. The teachers in the six primary schools involved in this project, in partnership with two university researchers, used a variety of standardised assessment tools for gathering this evidence. They used this assessment evidence to establish baseline data for their action research projects as well as for measuring student achievement for the reporting purposes explained above. Data was collected from each of the six schools about the tools they used to collect assessment evidence, the use of these tools, how the information that they gathered informed teaching practice, and issues that they confronted in the area of assessment during their project. Although most of the schools were able to use the tools, the data indicated that a lack of technical understanding about standardised assessment, issues related to the type of professional development and practical issues with some tools impeded assessment practices and led to some invalid and unreliable achievement results, particularly in the first year of this two-year project. This paper briefly overviews the project, explains how New Zealand primary schools are required to monitor and report achievement and briefly introduces the tools that these schools used most often to gather achievement evidence. Data collection methods for the research are described and the findings, in terms of teacher knowledge and use of these tools, are presented. The paper then focuses upon difficulties that arose for particular schools and teachers in respect of assessment processes, how these related to their assessment knowledge/expertise (or lack of it) and how these teachers solved these problems. Discussion regarding the level of assessment knowledge and expertise primary teachers require in self-managing schools in order to effect evidence-based improvement of teaching and learning concludes the paper.