Short Abstract:

Dialogue into the paradigms and practices of educational assessment is of paramount importance if it aims at meeting the challenges of these times and embracing a focus on equity/fairness, ethics and humanization. After a phase of Public Engagement, panel discussions and interviews with pre- and in-service teachers have been implemented in order to imagine a relational and fair assessment process.

Long Abstract:

Research context

The research aims to promote a social justice approach to educational assessment as a “values-based whole-context approach” that posits learners as agentive co-creators of knowledge (Hanesworth et al., 2018; McArthur, 2016) and involves ‘expanding both student opportunities for individual well-being, but also the formation of agency commitments to advance the common good’ (Nguyen and Walker 2015, p. 243).

Thus, as argued by Boud and Soler (2016, p. 403), teachers need to ‘shift discourse away from the notion that assessment is a unilateral act done to students, to assessment that is mutually constructed between learners and assessors/teachers’, honouring and empowering learner experience, giving life to a relational assessment process (Gergen & Gill, 2020).

Dialogue into the paradigms of assessment is of paramount importance if it aims at meeting the challenges of these times and embracing a focus on equity/fairness, ethics (Tierney, 2013) and humanization (Hadji, 2023) moving towards a flourishing school where everyone is able to fulfil their potential and expand their opportunities of growth and well-being. A paradigm shift was initiated many years ago, moving from assessment of learning towards assessment for learning (Sambell et al., 1997; Black & Wiliam, 1998), giving greater attention to the role of learners (opening the way to participatory approaches connecting school and community), to a shift from product to process and to a view of learning as a lifelong process. AfL can be conceptualised as “part of everyday practice by students, teachers and peers that seeks, reflects upon and responds to information from dialogue, demonstration and observation in ways that enhance ongoing learning” (Klenowski, 2009) where the focus is directly on the learner’s developing capabilities, while these are in the process of being developed (Black et al., 2011; Swaffield, 2011).

Although these changes have been partially incorporated into the debate about educational assessment, work remains to be done to ensure the necessary attention to the issue of diversity among learners moving away from a model of adjustments, which makes specific reasonable accommodations for some students towards assessment models that allow all students to fully participate and learn in the most equitable and fair way. Such an approach would strengthen the value and enlarge the potential of the assessment process towards the promotion of all students’ learning, well-being and growth opportunities and responsibility toward and within society.

Methodology

The research design addresses the importance of engagement, participation and opportunities for access, choosing a community-based participatory approach interconnected with the appreciative one. The focus on participation is at the basis of the bottom-up movements for innovation for the transition towards more just and sustainable societies (Boni et al., 2020; Eckersley, 2020). The research path is articulated into two main steps, as follows.

STEP 1: Discovering & identifying the community: an initial phase consisting in different activities of Public Engagement (PEa, webinar, initiatives specifically oriented to schools, a blog) aimed at raising awareness and mutual understanding and developing a shared assessment literacy about inclusiveness and diversity: PEa represented the ground on which a Call to Action (CtA) will be opened as a strategy for constructing the community of research.

STEP 2. Dreaming & Co-creating shared images of a preferred future. Based on the results of the CtA, The aim of the step 2 is collaborating for identifying and fostering the capacity to aspire and imagine possible and future actions by asking themselves How might we shift assessment practices toward equity and fairness? How might we assess for learning and growth of all students? How assessment practices meet the diversity of the students?

Instruments used are: 7 panel discussions with in-service teachers (for a total of 60 teachers); 4 panel discussions with 50 students enrolled in teacher education degree programs from 5 different countries -UK, Turkey, Lithuania, Netherlands and Portugal); written interviews administered to 180 prospective general teachers and to 250 prospective support teachers.

Analysis & Conclusion

Collected answers allow insights about a possible dialogue between assessment and the issues of equity and fairness as well as practical implications of introducing these dimensions in the assessment discourse and procedure.

First analyses from the panel discussions and written interviews show that assessment is fair when the following aspects become relevant: assessment as an integral part of the teaching process (use of assessment by the teacher to make teaching decisions and the consequent need to consider changes in teaching and assessment jointly and reciprocally); the “pedagogical” process as distinct from the “administrative” process (the process of reflection and use of evaluation criteria not confused with the attribution of the mark/grading); communication (need to pay attention to communication -in progress and final-, both to the students and their families); need to act for change from an intersectional perspective (student, family, teachers, school head and community).

Alternative assessment practices (self- and peer-assessment, essay, portfolio) are perceived as helpful both to learn in a more in-depth way and to reduce feelings of injustice (the feeling is that traditional examinations are an unfair measure of learning) (Struyven et al., 2005). Moreover, two factors seem related to a perception of fairness in assessment: quality feedback and transparency of the assessment process (above all in the phase of constructing and sharing criteria). Another issue is the connection between fairness and the discourse about the students’ rights: assessment practices are fair if able to protect students’ rights as having the opportunities to participate in the learning process, to express learning and to raise awareness and responsibility towards growth. This is in line with Elwood and Lundy (2010) sustaining that an equitable assessment is a right that implies “equality of opportunity for all, without discrimination on any grounds” (p. 345).

Further analyses are expected to reveal useful aspects to be shared and then implemented in schools in order to enhance the role of assessment in nurturing the forms of learning that will promote greater social justice within society.