DeLucaa, C., & Klingerb, D. (2010). Assessment literacy development: Identifying gaps in teacher candidates’ learning. Assessment in Education, 17(4), 419-438.
Harris, L. R., & Brown, G. T. (2009). The complexity of teachers’ conceptions of assessment: Tensions between the needs of schools and students. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16(3), 365-381. https://doi.org/10.1080/09695940903319745
Klenowski, V., & Wyatt-Smith, C. (2014). Why teachers should understand standards. In V. Klenowski, & C. Wyatt-Smith. Assessment for education: Standards, judgement and moderation. London: SAGE Publications Limited.
Koh, K. H. (2011). Improving teachers’ assessment literacy through professional development. Teaching Education, 22(3), 255–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2011.593164
Leong, W. S. (2015). Teachers’ assessment literacies and practices: Developing a professional competency and learning framework. Advances in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2(2), 1−20.
Popham, W. J. (2011). Assessment literacy overlooked: A teacher educator’s confession. The Teacher Educator, 46(4), 265–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/08878730.2011.605048
Smith, C., Worsfold, K., Davies, L., Fisher, R., & McPhail, R. (2013). Assessment literacy and student learning: The case for explicitly developing students ‘assessment literacy’. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(1), 44-60.
Willis, J., Adie, L., & Klenowski, V. (2013). Conceptualising teachers’ assessment literacies in an era of curriculum and assessment reform. The Australian Educational Researcher, 40(2), 241-256.
Practicum poses great challenges for pre-service teachers who learn to assess because their conceptions of assessment (CoAs) may undergo dramatic changes. This multiple-case study reports on how three pre-service teachers' CoA changed over practicum at a primary school in China. Findings show that pre-service teachers' CoAs have experienced a rapid change from a superficial perception of assessment for academic achievement and moral character development to a more comprehensive understanding of varied assessment purposes, constructs in assessment criteria, feedback, fairness in classroom assessment, and students' involvement in and engagement with assessment. A range of factors are found to have exerted varying degrees of influence on these conception changes, such as personal factor (i.e., agency in assessment), experiential factors [i.e., school-based assessment practices, interactions with students, and (anti-)apprenticeship of observation about assessment], and contextual factors (i.e., mentoring, classroom reality, school assessment culture, and national assessment policy). These findings are discussed in terms of how these changes are diverse but limited, as well as how the mediating factors have exerted differentiated influences in positive or negative ways. This paper concludes with implications for research on teachers' CoAs and professional development for assessment literacy.
Looney, A., Cumming, J., van Der Kleij, F., & Harris, K. (2017). Reconceptualising the role of teachers as assessors: teacher assessment identity. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 1-26.
Teachers’ capabilities to conduct classroom assessment and use assessment evidence are central to quality assessment practice, traditionally conceptualised as assessment literacy. In this paper we present, firstly, an expanded conceptualisation of teachers’ assessment work. Drawing on research on teacher identity, we posit that teachers’ identity as professionals, beliefs about assessment, disposition towards enacting assessment, and perceptions of their role as assessors are all significant for their assessment work. We term this reconceptualisation Teacher Assessment Identity (TAI). Secondly, in support of this conceptual work, we present findings from a systematic review of self-report scales on teacher assessment literacy and teacher identity related to assessment. The findings demonstrate that such scales and previous research exploring teacher assessment practices have paid limited attention to what we identify as essential and broader dimensions of TAI. We share our reconceptualisation and analyses to encourage others to consider teacher assessment work more broadly in their research.
Leirhaug, P. E., MacPhail, A., & Annerstedt, C. (2016). The grade alone provides no learning: investigating assessment literacy among Norwegian physical education teachers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education, 7(1), 21-36.
This paper explores the four inter-dependent elements of assessment literacy proposed by Hay and Penney [(2013). Assessment in physical education. A sociocultural perspective. New York: Routledge] – assessment comprehension, assessment application, assessment interpretation and critical engagement with assessment. More specific, the study reported in this paper addresses how Norwegian physical education teachers reflected assessment literacy in descriptions and discussions of their assessment practice. Twenty-three physical education teachers from six upper secondary schools in Norway participated in focus groups. Analysis and discussion are informed by the four elements of assessment literacy. Findings demonstrate a general need to enhance assessment literacy among the teachers, with particular focus on dialogue with students and critical engagement with assessment. Acknowledging assessment literacy as an ongoing process, the study suggests that it may be more effective to consider ‘preconditions’ than ‘elements’ of assessment literacy for a physical education teacher to be considered as acting assessment literate.
DeLuca, C., LaPointe-McEwan, D., & Luhanga, U. (2016). Teacher assessment literacy: a review of international standards and measures. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 28(3), 251-272.
Assessment literacy is a core professional requirement across educational systems. Hence, measuring and supporting teachers’ assessment literacy have been a primary focus over the past two decades. At present, there are multitudes of assessment standards across the world and numerous assessment literacy measures that represent different conceptions of assessment literacy. The purpose of this research is to (a) analyze assessment literacy standards from five English-speaking countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and USA) plus mainland Europe to understand shifts in the assessment landscape over time and across regions and (b) analyze prominent assessment literacy measures developed after 1990. Through a thematic analysis of 15 assessment standards and an examination of eight assessment literacy measures, results indicate noticeable shifts in standards over time yet the majority of measures continue to be based on early conceptions of assessment literacy. Results also serve to define the multiple dimensions of assessment literacy and yield important recommendations for measuring teacher assessment literacy.
Willis, J., Adie, L. A., & Klenowski, V. (2013). Conceptualising teachers’ assessment literacies in an era of curriculum and assessment reform. Australian Educational Researcher, 40, 241–256.
Teacher assessment literacy is a phrase that is often used but rarely defined. Yet understanding teacher assessment literacy is important in an international curriculum and assessment reform context that continues to challenge teachers’ assessment practices. In this article situated examples of classroom assessment literacies are analysed using Bernstein’s (Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research and critique, theoretical tools of vertical and horizontal discourses, classification and framing. Drawing on a sociocultural view of learning, the authors define teacher assessment literacies as dynamic social practices which are context dependent and which involve teachers in articulating and negotiating classroom and cultural knowledges with one another and with learners, in the initiation, development and practice of assessment to achieve the learning goals of students. This conceptualisation of assessment literacy aims to make explicit some underpinning theoretical constructs of assessment literacy to inform dialogue and decision making for policy and practice to benefit student learning and achievement.