Kelvin Tan

Multi-level model of contextual factors and teachers’ assessment practices: an integrative review of research

We present a multi-level model of contextual factors that may influence teachers’ assessment practices, and use this model in a selected review of existing literature on teachers’ assessment knowledge, views and conceptions with respect to these contextual factors. Adapting Kozma’s model, we distinguish three levels of influence on teachers’ practices: micro, meso and macro. We searched for relevant articles in EBSCO, JSTOR and other databases, and review selected articles with a focus on the complex relationships within and across these levels. Findings reveal a large body of research at the micro-level (teacher), such as on teachers’ values, conceptions and knowledge. However, there is relatively less research at the meso-level (school) or connecting it with the micro- or macro-levels. Implications for future research are also discussed.

Assessment for Learning Reform in Singapore – Quality, Sustainable or Threshold?

The education system in Singapore has been transformed since its independence from colonial British rule in 1965. Reforms have occurred in three distinct phases: the survival phase from 1959 to 1978; the efficiency phase from 1979 to 1996; and the ability-driven phase from 1997 to the present. This chapter concentrates on assessment reform in Singapore in the third phase, and examines its impact on the nature and quality of students’ learning, with particular reference to assessment for learning initiatives in schools. It argues that assessment reform in Singapore tends to emphasize and perpetuate structural efficiency at the expense of the quality of learning. It suggests that the notion of a threshold level of reform (Trafford & Leshem, 2009) could be a useful way of framing assessment reform in order to achieve a sustainable level of transformation.

How Teachers Understand and Use Power in Alternative Assessment

“Alternative assessment” is an increasingly common and popular discourse in education. The potential benefit of alternative assessment practices is premised on significant changes in assessment practices. However, assessment practices embody power relations between institutions, teachers and students, and these power relationships determine the possibility and the extent of actual changes in assessment practices. Labelling a practice as “alternative assessment does not guarantee meaningful departure from existing practice. Recent research has warned that assessment practices in education cannot be presumed to empower students in ways that enhance their learning. This is partly due to a tendency to speak of power in assessment in undefined terms. Hence, it would be useful to identify the types of power present in assessment practices and the contexts which give rise to them. This paper seeks to examine power in the context of different ways that alternative assessment is practiced and understood by teachers. Research on teachers’ conceptions of alternative assessment is presented, and each of the conceptions is then analysed for insights into teachers’ meanings and practices of power. In particular, instances of sovereign, epistemological and disciplinary power in alternative assessment are identified to illuminate new ways of understanding and using alternative assessment.

Relationships among Singaporean secondary teachers’ conceptions of assessment and school and policy contextual factors

Abstract This study examines teachers’ conceptions of assessment and related contextual factors at the classroom, school and national levels. A representative survey of Singaporean secondary school teachers resulted in a final sample consisting of 229 teachers from 9 secondary schools. Findings on that, teachers endorse views of assessment for school accountability, student accountability and student improvement, but little endorsement of assessment as irrelevance. Teachers report feeling capable and qualified to use assessments, but concerned about how much they are trusted as assessors at school and national levels. Follow-up latent class analysis identified groups of teachers based on their responses to the irrelevance of assessment; teachers who found assessment irrelevant were present across all schools and subjects, but showed lower sense of preparation for assessment, school-level support and importance of academic success in society.