Introduction of Formative Assessment Classroom Techniques (FACTs) to School Chemistry Teaching: Teachers’ Attitudes, Beliefs, and Experiences

Abstract

This paper presents teachers’ perspectives and experiences with the implementation of formative assessment (FA) into chemistry lessons at the secondary school level through Formative Assessment Classroom Techniques (FACTs). The research had a qualitative character and was based on semistructured interviews focused on: the definition and previous use of FA, implementation experience, and teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and abilities. The research describes five caseschemistry teachers participating in a professional development program. The 2 year-long training was focused on the theory of FA, practical exercises, and extended support during in-school FACTs implementation. The results showed that using FACTs during secondary school chemistry lessons emphasizes students’ strengths and weaknesses, encourages them to perform truthful self-assessments, and engages them. Moreover, using FACTs opens new areas for parents’ involvement in the assessment and learning process that can be especially valuable for students with special educational needs. The main challenges cited by teachers were time management, policy support, and the need for further assistance during FACTs implementation.

Exploring Formative Assessment Strategies in the Chemistry Classroom in Secondary School: A Systematic Literature Review (SLR)

“…Alternatively, inquiry-based teaching incorporates formative assessment methods (Bernard et al, 2019;Babinčáková et al, 2020;Babinčáková et al, 2023). Students actively participated in their designed experiments within self-created groups.…”

“…The best practices in the formative assessment conducted properly through teacher collaboration would support problem-solving aptitude (Abell & Sevian, 2020). Giving useful feedback is seen as beneficial in implementing FACTs in the classroom, which supports these skills (Babinčáková et al, 2020;Babinčáková et al, 2023). Furthermore, the teachers also suggested that a crucial part of problem-solving skills is that students must be able to make a self-assessment and identify their weaknesses.…”

“…They used SMART notebook with software integration to motivate and promote independent learning. Formative assessment also promotes self-assessments as mentioned by (Babinčáková et al, 2023). The combination of student's autonomy and meaningful tasks also contributes to students' motivation, like the uses of Scrum methodology (Vogelzang et al, 2021).…”

“…Identifying students' thinking is also a complex task, which makes it more challenging to integrate formative assessment (Orduña Picón et al, 2020). Additionally, time constraints can make it difficult to provide students with extra time to complete assessments and prepare materials such as digital badges and FACTs (Boesdorfer & Daugherty, 2020; Babinčáková et al, 2023). Moreover, addressing issues and problems in formative assessment strategies is crucial to ensure the practical implementation of formative assessment in chemistry education and assessment plans (Babinčáková et al, 2023;Hagos & Andargie,2022).…”

“…Additionally, time constraints can make it difficult to provide students with extra time to complete assessments and prepare materials such as digital badges and FACTs (Boesdorfer & Daugherty, 2020; Babinčáková et al, 2023). Moreover, addressing issues and problems in formative assessment strategies is crucial to ensure the practical implementation of formative assessment in chemistry education and assessment plans (Babinčáková et al, 2023;Hagos & Andargie,2022). Teachers also need support to use data to inform the instruction, make modifications to teaching strategies and improve the learning area (Schafer & Yezierski, 2020).…”