The study, designed as a case study, aimed to explore an EFL teacher’s process of producing individualised written formative feedback to further the English language development of the diverse student body of one eighth-grade class in southern Sweden. The research questions were approached from a teacher’s perspective. (1) What are the characteristics of written formative feedback on the written performance of individual students in a diverse ELT classroom? (2) How does the teacher reason when adapting formative written feedback to the needs of individual students? The Quadrant model, applying aspects of sociocultural theory, helped interpret the data collected from the think-aloud protocol, follow-up interview, and the written feedback provided to the students. Two main characteristics were identified for the teacher’s written feedback comment. First, the teacher aspired to provide feedback within each student’s engagement zone, which was also found to be a vital part of the teacher’s reasoning when adapting his feedback to students. Secondly, the written comment consisted mainly of motivating and explanatory comments to encourage further development, which also mirrored the teacher’s reasoning when adapting feedback to each student’s needs. The reasoning reflected the teacher’s aspiration of balancing the amount of support and challenge each student needed to support their development within their Zone of Proximal Development.

Corrective feedback (CF) is regarded as a controversial topic when it comes to writing in the L2 classroom. Some researchers have found it to be both meaningless and harmful, while others have researched the effects of different types of CF and found it to be good for language development in several ways. This made us interested in conducting a study focusing on what attitudes grade 3-5 (age 9-11) teachers have concerning CF, and if they themselves use it for their L2 students’ writing. The study was conducted through five semi-structured interviews with teachers working in Lund, Sweden. The aim of the study was to investigate compulsory school teachers’ experiences of and thoughts on CF as a teaching method for improving young L2 learners’ writing. The results revealed that the teachers believe CF to be an irreplaceable part of language learning but that it should be adapted to each individual’s needs. Although all interviewed teachers acknowledged CF’s potential harm on learners’ motivation and willingness to write, no one believed that it could be left out completely.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur formativ bedömning genomförs i matematikämnet i grundskolans senare år och lärarnas upplevelser kring formativ bedömning under sina lektioner. Dessa undersökningar genomfördes och analyserats utifrån Dylan Wiliams fem nyckel strategier i formativ bedömning. Detta arbete är en kvalitativ studie. Arbetet baserades på intervjuer med fyra högstadielärare och klassrumsobservationer. Syftet med intervjuerna var att ta reda på lärarnas upplevelser om bedömningsprocesser och hur de tillämpar formativ bedömning under sina matematiklektioner. Som ett komplement till intervjuerna, utfördes klassrumobservationer för att se hur dessa processer sker i verkligheten. Resultatet visar att samtliga matematiklärare har en positiv syn på formativ bedömning som skall kompletteras med summativ bedömning. Vidare visar det sig att bedömning bör göras på ett strukturerat sätt bland annat genom att bedömningsprocesser ska tydliggöras för elever i den mån det går och baseras på styrdokumenten. Studien visar också att lärarna använder olika metoder bland annat snabba reflektioner, Exit Cards och digitala verktyg i form av formativ bedömning. Resultatet visar även att lärarna upplever att formativ bedömning kan användas för att granska elevers aktuella kunskapsutveckling samt att ge tillräckligt stöd till dem i fortsättning. Å andra sidan, lärarna upplever att elevers uppfattning om bedömning, tidsbrist, svårigheter med kamratbedömning kan vara en utmaning i formativ bedömning. Dessa kan vara samt att förhålla bedömningen till kunskapskraven. Ytterligare visar ett annat resultat att lärarens bedömning kan fokusera på olika processer som kan handla om olika nivåer av matematikinnehåll. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how the formative assessment takes place in the mathematic teaching in the elementary school later years and the teachers' experiences of formative assessment during their lessons. These investigations were conducted and analyzed based on Dylan Wiliam's five key strategies in formative assessment This work consists of a qualitative method that researches the human subjective experience within an area. The work was based on interviews with four high school teachers and classroom observations. The purpose of the interviews was to find out about the teachers' experiences of assessment processes and how they apply formative assessment during their math lessons. As a complement to the interviews, classroom observations were performed to see how these processes take place. The result shows that all math teachers have a positive view on formative assessment which must be supplemented with summative assessment. Furthermore, it is found that assessment should be done in a structured way, inter alia, by making assessment processes clear to students as far as possible and based on the control documents. The study also shows that teachers use different methods, including rapid reflections, Exit Cars and digital tools in form of formative assessment. The results also show that teachers find that formative assessment can be used to review students' current knowledge development and to provide adequate support to them in the future. On the other hand, the teachers feel that students' understanding of assessment, lack of time, difficulties with peer assessment can be a challenge in formative assessment. Another result shows that the teacher's assessment can focus on different processes that can deal with various levels of mathematical content.

Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur lärare resonerar kring hur de arbetar med formativ bedömning och individanpassad undervisning i matematikundervisningen i grundskolan. Vi har därför undersökt detta område närmare genom en empirisk enkätstudie. Vårt urval har bestått av respondenter som dagligen möter denna problematik och som har erfarenheter inom området d.v.s. grundskollärare.Hälften av respondenterna hävdade att de individanpassade matematikundervisningen i stor utsträckning, resterande i måttlig eller liten utsträckning. Gällande frågan om formativ bedömning svarade omkring hälften av respondenterna att implementeringen av formativ bedömning sker i stor utsträckning och resterande i liten eller måttlig utsträckning. Av resultaten framstod fem vanligt förekommande formativa strategier som användes i matematikundervisningen dagligen. Häpnadsväckande nog har även Wiliam (2013) betonat vikten av och behandlat samma strategier som förekom i den empiriska studien. / The aim is to examine how teachers reason about how they work with formative assessment and individualized instruction in mathematics teaching in primary schools. We have therefore studied this area in more detail by an empirical survey. Our sample consisted of respondents who daily face this problem and who have experience in the area i.e. primary school teachers.Half of the respondents claimed that they personalized mathematics teaching extensively, remaining in moderate or small extent. Regarding the issue of formative assessment about half of the respondents claimed to the implementation of formative assessment is done extensively and the remainder in small or moderate extent.In the result it appeared five common formative strategies used in mathematics instruction daily. Astoundingly, even Wiliam (2013) emphasized the importance of the same strategies that appeared in the empirical study.

Swedish school children's results have deteriorated in recent years and formative assessment is, in accordance with previous research, a way to develop students' learning and performance. A part of formative assessment is based on feedback that students should receive before, during and after a new assignment. In this study, we want to find out how students and teachers apprehend students' development in relation to feedback and what general attitudes towards feedback can be seen in both parties. The literature and theory discussed is linked to formative assessment, both at international and national level where many important aspects of formative assessment are essential in relation to pupils' further development. The theories are based heavily on human interaction and socio-cultural perspective as a concept. The empirical data process qualitative interviews held with 3 teachers and 26 students in fourth and sixth grade. Based on these results it was possible to see that the teachers were aware of the good effects of formative assessment but they had difficulties using this in practice. Many students did not feel that they received enough feedback to understand the meaning of the teaching, nor the specific tasks that they were meant to carry out. Verbal feedback was preferable from both teachers and students where the lack of time and tools was the reason for teachers not to use written feedback. The students wanted more of a dialogue with the teacher where they felt it was easier to understand the information when one could ask follow-up questions directly.

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Several decades of research into the effectiveness of corrective feedback on ESL writing have resulted in the emergence of a consensus on a number of best practices. This study aims to investigate what recommendations the Swedish National Agency for Education provides upper secondary English teachers to use when responding to students’ writing, and if these recommendations are aligned with current research on corrective feedback. Through a content analysis, I examine four support resource materials from the Swedish National Agency for Education explicitly aimed at helping teachers with using feedback. The findings of this study show that the four resources from Skolverket depict a unified perception of what type of feedback teachers should provide: the feedback needs to be didactically considered, taking the learning goals of the syllabus, the individual student’s learning needs, and the level of detail it should contain in consideration both before and during the responding. It also needs to be indirect so that it does not constrain students’ writing style, yet it needs to provide constructive explanations so the students are not left confused by the feedback. The findings further show that for the most part, the four resources and the research are aligned when it comes to the content and the focus of the feedback, however, they differ in areas regarding how extensive and explanatory the feedback needs to be.

This action research thesis was performed to explore the research questions: How did the use of formative assessment affect student performance data in understanding the concepts of the Sun-Earth-Moon system?, How did the use of learning scales as formative techniques impact student self-assessment of their knowledge of the Sun-Earth-Moon system?, How did the implementation of formative assessment techniques affect student discourse on the topic of the Sun-Earth-Moon system? Formative assessment techniques including "talk-friendly" probes, sticky bars, and agree-disagree statements were used in the classroom to expose gaps in knowledge, to facilitate discourse, and promote self-assessment. A triangulation of data included a district-provided pre/post-test, teacher observation, written and oral student responses of formative assessment, self-assessment, discourse, and student self-assessment on a learning goal tracker. Data gathered from student responses to formative assessment techniques given during discourse, lab experiences, in written responses, and from the student learning scale tracker were analyzed to expose misconceptions and gaps in knowledge and guide classroom instruction. Data showed that student performance data improved overall and students narrowed gaps in knowledge of the Sun-Earth-Moon system. Improvement in student participation and skill of discourse was evident; however students needed more practice developing written explanations for phenomenon within the Sun-Earth-Moon system. Through the use of self-assessments students showed improvement in ability to self-assess and realized gained knowledge toward their learning goal.

School leaders in the United States live in an educational era characterized by a desire for and expectation that all students attain high levels of academic proficiency. There is an increased reliance on all types of educational assessment as a key component to help school leaders attain that goal. The purpose of this study is to understand how school administrators can foster a balanced system of assessment at the local level to genuinely harness the power of assessment to enhance student learning. The significance of the study rests in the fact that there is a general failure of states and school districts to conceive of educational assessment as a system that operates at all levels of the educational system from the classroom up to the district and state level. The findings of this study support the efforts of a group of administrators to develop a balanced system of math assessments in their school district.

In order to provide effective social, emotional, and behavioral supports to all students, there is a need for formative assessment tools that can help determine the responsiveness of students to intervention. Schoolwide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is one framework that can provide evidence-based intervention within a 3-tiered model to reach students at all levels of risk. This dissertation begins the process of developing a brief, teacher-completed rating scale, intended to be used with students in grades K-8 for the formative assessment of positive classroom behavior. An item pool of 93 positively worded rating scale items was drawn from or adapted from existing rating scales. Teachers (n = 142) rated the importance of each item to their concept of "positive classroom behavior." This survey yielded 30 positively worded items for inclusion on the pilot rating scale. The pilot scale was used by teachers to rate students in two samples drawn from general education K-8 classrooms: a universal tier group of randomly selected students (n = 80) and a targeted tier group of students with mild to moderate behavior problems (n = 82). Pilot scale ratings were significantly higher in the universal group than the targeted group by about one standard deviation, with no significant group by gender interaction. Strong results were found for the split-half reliability (.94) and the internal consistency (.98) of the pilot scale. All but two items showed medium to large item-total correlations (> .5). Factor analysis indicated a unidimensional factor structure, with 59.87% of the variance accounted for by a single factor, and high item loadings (> .4) from 26 of the 30 factors. The unidimensional factor structure of the rating scale indicates its promise for potential use as a general outcome measure (GOM), with items reflecting a range of social, emotional, and behavioral competencies. Future research is suggested in order to continue development and revision of the rating scale with a larger, more diverse sample, and to begin exploring its suitability for screening and formative assessment purposes.