Reasons for teachers’ successful development of a formative assessment practice through professional development – a motivation perspective

Abstract

Formative assessment has been shown to have the potential to significantly enhance student achievement, but a strong research base about how to support teachers to implement such a practice is lacking. This is particularly so for a conceptualisation of formative assessment as a unity of integrated formative assessment strategies. The aim of this study is to investigate why the mathematics teachers who participated in a successful professional development programme in formative assessment developed their formative classroom practice to such an extent that it had a significant impact on student achievement. An analysis of data from teacher questionnaires and interviews shows that the teachers' actions can be explained by expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Characteristics of the professional development programme that the teachers experienced as important for their development of a formative classroom practice are identified, and the characteristics' affordances for the development of the teachers' expectancy and value beliefs are discussed.

Expectancy-value theory as an explanatory theory for the effect of professional development programmes in formative assessment on teacher practice

“…In addition, they would have liked the available time for PDP-related work outside the university meetings to be more continuous (e.g., two to three hours in a row), which also would have facilitated their possibilities to collaborate with their colleagues, but their schedules made that difficult to achieve. The year-4 teachers suggested no improvements to the PDP (Andersson and Palm 2018). After the year of implementation, both year-4 and year-7 teachers mentioned some main conditions that made the development of a more formative assessment practice more difficult.…”

“…In the study, we investigated why year-7 mathematics teachers made some changes but not others in their classroom practice after participating in a PDP in formative assessment. We present this analysis and also compare the results with those of year-4 teachers (Andersson and Palm 2018) in the only study in the literature search above that used expectancy-value theory to explain effects of a PDP on changes in teacher practice. The PDPs were both led by the second author, and the design of both programmes included many of the characteristics identified in reviews (e.g., Desimone 2009;Timperley et al 2007) as important for bringing about teacher change.…”

Language Testing in China: Past and Future

“…The standard for language teachers' professional development is in need (Fulcher, 2012). More urgently needed is field research on how to help teachers internalize the theoretical knowledge into their instruction (Andersson & Palm, 2018), especially for them to implement classroom assessment appropriately (Brown, 2017) in the complex and conflicting educational context (Qi, 2005;Vandeyar, 2005).…”

Math and Science Post-basic Education School Teachers’ Use of As-sessment for Learning and Assessment of Learning Practices in Oman

“…AfL significantly enhances students' learning (Ozan & Kıncal, 2018), but its implementations need some prerequisites concerning the teacher, student, and the school context. Teachers should know how to interpret assessment data, students' involvement is vital, and assessment should provide both teachers and students with substantial and constructive feedback (Andersson & Palm, 2018;Heitink et al, 2016). Buhagiar and Murphy (2008) conclude that exploring assessment practices of math teachers could enhance students' learning by adapting effective practices that inform future teaching and learning activities.…”

“…Vlachou's (2015) work shows how the focus on AoL and the fear of accountability have urged teachers to evade creative practices for evaluating students' learning. In order to empower teachers for this role, educational systems and administrations should provide teachers with the required skills and competencies (Andersson & Palm, 2018), so they can transfer these skills to their lesson plans and narrow the gap between what the students know and the intended learning outcomes (Bugni, 2017).…”