Teacher scoring of large‐scale assessment: professional development or debilitation?

A classroom data literacy intervention for pre-service teachers

“…Data literacy can assist teachers in moving from an intuitive, disorganized, undocumented, "in the head" process of assessing their students to a systematic, consistent way of monitoring student progress. Research suggests that data literacy has a positive impact on teachers' instructional practices (Falk & Ort, 1998;Gambell, 2004), allowing teachers to increase the specificity of instructional goals, refine their own assessments, and use assessment to try to improve instruction and increase student feedback (Gambell & Hunter, 2004;Gearhart & Osmundson, 2009). Moreover, interventions intended to promote teacher data literacy positively affect student math achievement (e.g., Carlson, Borman, & Robinson, 2011).…”

An Alternative Vision for Large-scale Assessment in Canada

“…This is in stark contrast to the United States, where large-scale assessments are typically norm-referenced and are run primarily by commercial organizations outside of the education system. This distinction is important and may account for the fact that Canadian testing programs tend to account for greater linkages with classroom practice than their American counterparts (Gambell & Hunter, 2004). The reliance on criterionreferenced testing also suggests that Canadian testing programs tend to be more aligned with mandated curricula.…”

“…Indeed, the term "high-stakes achievement tests" has been defined as including either mandated norm-or criterion-referenced tests where the aggregated results are used for summative purposes such as student promotion, graduation, and/or judging the effectiveness of schools (Burger & Krueger, 2003). Conversely, low-stakes a ssessments aggregate scores for provincial, national, or international trends and profiles, but not individual marks for promotion or graduation purposes (Gambell & Hunter, 2004). Using the previous descriptions of high-and low-stakes assessment, it is easy to see how virtually every province administers high-stakes tests because they comprise a significant percentage of students' final grades (i.e., typically between 30 and 50%) and in some cases are a graduation or compulsory requirement for postsecondary attendance (i.e., New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec).…”

“…• identify the most successful teaching practices and proficient teachers (Cizek, 2001;Sanders & Horn, 1998), • enhance teachers' reflective and critical thinking when planning instruction (Goldberg & Roswell, 2000), • lead to positive increases in educators' knowledge about testing and of testing issues (Earl & Torrance, 2000;Runte, 1998), • improve teachers' assessment and instructional practices, particularly when they are involved in marking these assessments (Gambell & Hunter, 2004;Green, 1998), • stimulate action research that serves as a basis for school improvement (Wideman, 2002), • provide schools with valuable information about the consequences of their past practices and program effectiveness (Anderson & Postl, 2001;Taylor & Tubianosa, 2001). …”

Educational assessment in Canada

“…The latter is an important consideration and may account for the fact that Canadian testing programmes tend to have close linkages with classroom practice (Gambell and Hunter 2004). The reliance on criterion-referenced testing also suggests that Canadian testing programmes tend to be more aligned with mandated curricula then their American counterparts (Volante 2006).…”