Tale of two science teachers’ formative assessment practices in a similar school environment

Formative assessment has proven to enhance student achievement for all types of students, at various grade levels and in any educational context worldwide (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Robinson, Myran, Strauss & Reed, 2014). The promises of positive outcomes of formative assessment have inspired many educational systems to reform their education system to embrace formative assessment. This is especially true for nations with high stake external examinations. These external examinations have constantly been associated with low level cognitive outcomes that are easily achieved through rote-learning and regurgitation of data and facts (Berry, 2011; MOE, 2013). This has led to students’ not developing higher order thinking and twenty-first century skills that are pivotal for their future (Baird, 2010; Bloxham & Price, 2015).

Formative assessment was defined by Black and Wiliam (1998) as ‘all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by their students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged’ (p. 7). Formative assessment is also referred to as Assessment for Learning (AfL) as this assessment is embedded and used during the learning process (Sach, 2012). The formative assessment framework suggests that teachers (a) clearly define the learning goals, (b) collect information about where students are currently in their learning and (c) identify the gap between their students’ current learning and desired learning goals and to take action to close that gap; but consciously involving students throughout this entire process (Bell & Cowie, 2001; Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004; Yin, Tomita & Shavelson, 2014).

Embedding formative assessment into daily practices would require substantial shift in teachers’ knowledge and skills and this process can be enhanced if a supportive school environment and infrastructures are present (Schneider & Randel, 2010). Features of the school environment such as school readiness to support and guide teachers, adequate resources (time and space for collaboration, availability of comprehensive materials), trust and positive working relationships with peers, classroom sizes, and student composition will influence teachers’ implementation of assessment practices (Miller & Cunningham, 2011; Nair, et al., 2014). For instance, school readiness to support teachers in implementing formative assessment in their classrooms would depend very much on their school principals. School principals act as gatekeepers in providing their teachers with beneficial and valuable resources (Smith, 2011; Stein & Nelson, 2003). If school principals are knowledgeable on assessment related matters they would play an influential role in establishing a supportive working environment for teachers to implement formative assessment (Pecek, Zuljan, Cuk & Lesar, 2008). Therefore, teachers who work in this kind of school environment are motivated and thus have a greater chance of successfully implementing formative assessment strategies in their daily classrooms.

This paper is part of a larger study that investigated five Year Five science teachers’ assessment knowledge and practices. These five teachers came from three different schools. In the original study, there were two teachers that taught in the same school, had very similar professional background and taught students of similar academic ability. It is these two teachers that the researchers would focus on in this paper. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine how these two teachers implement formative assessment strategies in their daily classrooms as they worked in similar school environment.

We took on an ecological perspective to define school environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). In this ecological perspective, school is placed in a system with many layers and these layers of the environment interact with teachers and have a significant impact on their practices. Since school environment influences teachers’ practices, different school environments would give rise to teachers exhibiting different practices. Thus, it could be said that teachers’ practices would perhaps lie along a continuum. In the context of this paper, the researchers would like to investigate whether if two teachers’ professional backgrounds were very much alike and if they worked in a similar school environment, would their formative assessment practices then lie closer along this continuum?