Influence of teachers’ perceptions of teaching and learning on the implementation of Assessment for Learning in inquiry study

Abstract

Assessment for learning is a worldwide initiative. With the aim of learning about the influence of teachers' attitudes and perceptions of assessment for learning on daily teaching practices, this study investigated the implementation of assessment for learning using rubrics as a tool for inquiry study. Nineteen secondary school teachers using rubrics were interviewed. The findings show that a narrow perspective of rubrics as a tool for current teaching practice limits teachers' creativity in extending the possibilities of assessment for learning to improve the teaching and learning of inquiry study. The paper draws attention to the influence of teachers' prior perceptions, and provides suggestions for expanding teachers' perspectives of assessment for learning and utilising rubrics as an integral element of the teaching and learning of inquiry study.

A systematic review on factors influencing teachers’ intentions and implementations regarding formative assessment

“…Under the framework of the TPB, instrumental attitude demonstrated significant effects on teachers' intentions to implement formative assessment. Similarly, a number of other studies echoed that the more positive attitude teachers held regarding the desirable consequences of practicing formative assessment, the more willingly they were to implement formative assessment (*Dixon & Haigh, 2009; *Sezen-Barrie & Kelly, 2017; *So & Lee, 2011;*Wong, 2014). In particular, teachers valued the merits of formative assessment as a useful tool to identify students' learning *Hui et al, 2017).…”

“…The success of implementing formative assessment in classrooms depends on personal factors related to teachers' beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and skills (Yan, 2014;Black & Wiliam, 1998;Heitink et al, 2016) because teaching is an activity where teachers enact their conceptions about teaching and learning (Harrison, 2013;Yan, 2018). For example, teachers' positive perceptions of the usefulness of formative assessment are positively related to teachers' intentions to implement formative assessment (*Karaman & Sahin, 2017;*So & Lee, 2011;*Yan & Cheng, 2015). Similarly, teachers with higher self-efficacy are more likely to carry out formative assessment (* Yan & Cheng, 2015), while a lack of confidence will result in less implementation of formative assessment (*Crichton & McDaid, 2016).…”

“…*Dixon and Haigh (2009) study found that professional development programmes improved teachers' knowledge about formative assessment and influenced their perceptions regarding the difficulty and effectiveness of formative assessment. *So and Lee (2011) also reported the possibilities to optimise teacher's perceptions and understanding of formative assessment by expert-supported inquiry learning. Their findings suggested that a narrow understanding of the use of formative assessment limited teachers' creativity when applying this tool in their classrooms.…”

“…The instrumental attitude generally refers to one's opinion about the effectiveness or consequences of something (Ajzen, 1991), and hence, in the current study, it refers to teachers' view on formative assessment's value in teaching and learning. As teachers acknowledge the benefits of formative assessment in tracking student' learning progress, informing instruction adjustments, and promoting effective classroom activities, their implementation frequency increased ( *Brink & Bartz, 2017;*Dixon & Haigh, 2009;*Lock & Munby, 2000;*MacDonald, 2007;*Sezen-Barrie & Kelly, 2017;*So & Lee, 2011). Negative attitude towards the usefulness of formative assessment may constrain teachers' formative assessment practice to a superficial level, such as only using the rubrics for a basic understanding check in classrooms but do not analyse the results further (*Brown & Gao, 2015;*Tebeje & Abiyu, 2015).…”

“…* Crichton and McDaid (2016) reported that, although many teachers conceptualised formative assessment as a useful tool, their implementation were still random because there was a lack of guidance on implementation. Some researchers argued that professional learning programmes can not only equip teachers with necessary skills, but also enhance their positive instrumental attitude that, in turn, facilitate their implementation of formative assessment (*Crichton & McDaid, 2016;*DeLuca et al, 2019;*So & Lee, 2011;*Ahmedi, 2019).…”