The study aims to investigate how teachers’ intentions with written feedback and students’ perceptions of it correlate. In total, three teachers and nine students from different study programs in an upper secondary school in Sweden participated in this study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. It emerged in the analysis that the teachers’ intentions and students’ perceptions correlated to some extent. However, there was a clear difference with regard to how the teachers intended the students to use the written feedback and how the students actually used it. The teachers wanted the students to use it to improve the development of their learning, whereas the students saw it as an evaluation of their results and rarely used it. If the teachers want to make sure that the students work with the feedback, they need to make it a planned activity.

As part of the increasing use of technology in society, one particular school in Sweden follows the same path. The chosen school for this study has integrated digital tools such as laptops and a web service called Google Classroom. Within the service, there is an additional document creator called Google Docs which has several functions such as, storage, document creation, editing and commenting on texts and allowing instructors and peers to view the process in real-time (Slavkov, 2015; Wiles, 2015). The integration of Google Docs is of interest in this paper and the aim is to investigate its advantages for the feedback process and students’ collaborative work, and the possible disadvantages. The methodology in this study is a qualitative semi-structured interview with two upper secondary teachers in one school in Sweden. Both participants are experienced in using digital tools in their EFL teaching. Therefore, they help create further understanding and the pedagogical values of Google Docs. On the one hand, earlier studies promote Google Docs as an effective tool when it comes to managing and monitoring students’ work (Chu & Kennedy, 2010; Kessler et al. 2012), and the potential to improve student collaboration (Seyyedrezaie et al, 2016; Ishtaiwa & Aburezeq, 2015). Results show both teachers express that Google Docs is flexible and easy to use and share similar views regarding the facilitation of the writing process and feedback process. Likewise, in terms of students’ collaborative work. On the other hand, both teachers express similar concerns regarding the feedback process. The students would often rather know the final grade for their assignment rather than follow up on the formative feedback. Also, there are concerns that during collaborative work the students with higher L2 proficiency tend to have more workload than the others and end up teaching the lower proficiency level students’ important information that they should have listened to. The results imply that teachers need further guidance on teaching methodology, strategies for formative assessment follow up and organization of groups within classes when working with Google Docs.

A rubric specifically for speaking skills was recently implemented and practiced in an English classroom for grade 6, in a school in the south of Sweden. The predetermined effected results of how the rubric works is debated among many schools and researchers, but no research have been done on the actually effects specifically in this area recently. Therefore, the overall aim for this study is to analyse how this specific tool for the spoken language learning works in practice. The study includes theory and previous research, which will be presented and moreover discussed in relation to the findings. Semi-structured interviews will be used and the participants are two teachers who teached year 6 at the same school in a city in the south of Sweden; both used the rubric in the English classroom. I investigated why and how it was implemented and used in the English classroom. Moreover, I answered the questions of what kind of rubric was used; and by comparing the rubric to the knowledge requirement in the syllabus, I determined how it outlined the knowledge requirements. In addition, by analysing the teachers’ answers, I investigated how the rubric affected the students’ learning and how it facilitated the learners’ self-awareness of their language development. The conclusion demonstrates that the rubric for speaking skills is beneficial for the majority of the students, but it has a negative effect on the students who are on a lower knowledge level than the rubric includes.

Reading competency is related to individuals' success at school and in their careers. Students who experience significant problems with reading may be at risk of long-term academic and social problems. High-quality measures that determine student progress toward curricular goals are needed for early identification and interventions to improve reading abilities and ultimately prevent subsequent failure in reading. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental ex post facto research study was to determine whether a correlation existed amongst student achievement scores on the Fountas and Pinnell Reading Benchmark Assessment and reading comprehension scores on the Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT). The item response theory served as the conceptual framework for examining whether a relationship exists between Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Instructional Reading Levels and the reading comprehension scores on the CRCT of students in Grades 3, 4, and 5 in the year 2013-2014. Archival data for 329 students in Grades 3-5 were collected and analyzed through Spearman's rank-order correlation. The results showed positive relationships between the scores. The findings promote positive social change by supporting the use of benchmark assessment data to identify at-risk reading students early.

This study investigated the interaction of mathematics teachers with learners’ mathematical errors. The teachers’ verbal interaction with learners’ errors during learning periods and their written interaction in assessment tasks were explored. The study was contextualized in grade 9 secondary school classrooms in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The investigation was epistemologically underpinned by constructivism/socio-constructivism. The investigation was qualitatively approached through four case studies. Structured and semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and learners’ written assessment tasks were employed as sources of data. The participating teachers were described in terms of their beliefs about mathematics, their beliefs about learners’ mathematical errors, their observed prevalent teaching approach and their professed and enacted interaction with learners’ mathematical errors. Within-case and cross-case comparisons ensued. The findings proposed that when teachers believed that the value of learners’ errors was vested in the corrections thereof, rather than employing these opportunities for discussion, valuable opportunities for learners to develop and improve their meta-cognitive abilities might potentially be lost. The findings further indicated that a focus on the mere correction of learners’ errors probably denied learners opportunities to develop a mathematical discourse. The results of the investigation illuminated that an emphasis on achievement during assessment, together with a disapproving disposition towards errors among teachers and learners, were hindrances. They acted as barriers to engendering a socio-constructivist learning environment in which interactions with learners’ errors could enhance learning and establish a negotiating mathematical community. A concurrence between the teachers’ prevalent teaching approach and their mathematical beliefs was confirmed. However, in two of the four cases, a dissonance was revealed between their prevalent teaching approach and their interaction with learners’ errors. Interaction with learners’ mathematical errors was hence identified as a separate and discrete component of a teacher’s practice. The findings suggest the explicit inclusion of error-handling in reform-oriented teacher-training and professional development courses to utilize learners’ mathematical errors more constructively. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

Studiens syfte var att granska hur grundlärare i årskurs 4–6 uppfattar och förhåller sig till begreppet formativ bedömning i arbetet inom ramen för svenskämnet. Syftet var även att ta reda på i vilken utsträckning lärare använde formativ bedömning i sin undervisning samt ifall den fortsatta undervisningen baserades på informationen om elevens nuvarande kunskaper. Utforskandet av lärares tankar kring den formativa bedömningens fördelar och utvecklingsmöjligheter var också en central aspekt som studien ämnade att undersöka.  Kvalitativa intervjuer med sex svensklärare som undervisade i åk 4–6 genomfördes, med strävan att uppnå studiens syfte. De intervjuade lärarna kom från tre olika skolor och resultatet visar att formativ bedömning inte används fullt ut i undervisningen av alla lärarna, men att de ändå anser att formativ bedömning gynnar elevernas lärandeutveckling. En samstämmig svårighet som lärarna upplevde med tillämpningen av formativ bedömning var att det är tidskrävande. Däremot anser lärarna att fördelarna som de upplever med formativ bedömning överväger nackdelarna, och därför ställer de sig positiva till användandet av bedömningsformen. / The purpose of the study was to review how primary teachers in years 4–6 perceives and relates to the concept of formative assessment in work within the framework of the Swedish subject. The aim was also to find out to what extent teachers used formative assessment in their teaching, and if the continued teaching was based on the information about the student's current knowledge. The exploration of teachers' thoughts about the benefits and development opportunities of formative assessment was also a central aspect that the study intended to investigate.  Qualitative interviews with six Swedish teachers who taught grades 4–6 were conducted, with the aim of achieving the purpose of the study. The interviewed teachers came from three different schools and the results show that formative assessment is not used fully in the teaching by all the teachers, but that they still believe that formative assessment benefits the students' learning development. A consistent difficulty teachers experienced with the application of formative assessment was that it is time consuming. However, the teachers believe that the advantages they experience with formative assessment outweigh the disadvantages, and therefore they are positive about the use of the assessment form.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a relationship between formative assessment and student engagement at Walters State Community College. Additionally, a secondary purpose examined differences in the in the dimensions of student engagement dimensions (skills engagement, emotional engagement, participation or interaction, performance) based on gender, school classification (freshman, sophomore), and age. Two hundred thirty-nine Walters State Community College students taught with face-to-face pedagogy comprised the population for the study. The survey instruments included a 15-item formative assessment survey selected from the Walters State Community College Student Opinion of Teaching and Course (WSCCSOTC) and the Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ) developed by Handelsman, Briggs, Sullivan, and Towler (2005) to ascertain measures of student course engagement. The primary finding of the study was that formative assessment had a positive relationship on student engagement at Walters State Community College. The study also offered some evidence that certain teaching strategies proposed in the literature could contribute to formative assessment and increase student engagement. In the context of student engagement dimensions, there were significant differences between female study skills engagement and male performance engagements results. The results for freshman and sophomore students on the student engagement dimensions yielded no significant difference. Interestingly, 24 year old students consistently had higher or equally as high scores on all of the student engagement dimensions.

Studien undersöker hur lärare för årskurs F-3 undervisar och ger återkoppling inom matematikundervisningen. För att undersöka detta användes semistrukturerade intervjuer med 8 lärare. Lärarna fick i början av intervjun ge återkoppling på två elevlösningar på ett matematiskt problem, en korrekt och en inkorrekt. När lärarna givit återkoppling på de båda elevlösningarna ställdes frågor för att komplettera materialet. Resultatet visar att några av lärarna väljer att tilldela strategier, medan majoriteten väljer att inte tilldela strategier eftersom de anser att syftet med problemlösning försvinner. Vidare visar resultatet att lärarna riktade sin återkoppling mot den felaktiga lösningen och gav därför förslag på framåtsyftande återkoppling. Återkopplingen till den korrekta elevlösningen handlade istället om att eleven löst uppgiften. Slutligen pratade majoriteten av lärarna om undervisning för problemlösning, vilket innebär att de lär ut procedurer och begrepp innan eleverna blir tilldelade problemlösningsuppgifter. / The study examines how teachers in years F-3 instruct and give feedback when teaching mathematics. To examine this, semi structured interviews was conducted with 8 teachers. In the beginning of the interview the teachers were asked to give feedback on two student-solutions to a mathematical problem, one correct and one incorrect. When the teachers had given their feedback on both of the student solutions, they were asked questions to complement the material. The result shows that some of the techers choose to assign strategies, while the majority chose not to since they believe the purpose of problem-solving would disappear. The result further shows that the teachers aimed their feedback towards the incorrect solution and suggested ways to improve in the future. The feedback aimed at the correct solution instead focused on the fact that it was correct. Finally, the majority of the teachers spoke about education for problem-solving, which means they teach procedures and concepts before giving the students problem-solving assignments. / <p>Matematikdidaktik</p>

Kamratbedömning kan ha en positiv effekt på elevers lärande. För att uppnå denna positiva effekt måste elever kunna ge återkoppling till sina kamrater och även ta emot återkoppling från sina kamrater. Elever måste också kunna använda den återkoppling som de får. Återkoppling kan ges på fyra olika nivåer, uppgiftsnivå, processnivå, självregleringsnivå och personnivå. Att använda elever som lärande resurser för varandra, är en av nyckelstrategierna inom formativ bedömning. Fokus på formativ bedömning och användning av den samma har ökat inom skolan. Det, tillsammans med att det inte finns många studier som undersöker formativ bedömning med ett ämnesinnehåll i svensk kontext, är exempel på vad som ligger till grund för studien. Det övergripande syftet med denna studie var att öka kunskapen om hur kamratbedömning genomförs i naturvetenskap på mellanstadiet. Fokus riktades dels mot hur lärare implementerar kamratbedömning, men framförallt mot hur elever ger varandra återkoppling. För att undersöka hur och på vilka nivåer som 11-åriga elever ger varandra återkoppling, genomförde elever kamratbedömning i mindre grupp efter att enskilt ha besvarat uppgifter med ett naturvetenskapligt innehåll. Insamling av data skedde i flera steg. När läraren gav eleverna instruktioner kring bedömningsmatrisen, uppgifterna och den kamratbedömning som de skulle genomföra, observerades och videofilmades detta. Elevernas kamratbedömningssamtal i grupp, videofilmades också. Därefter intervjuades eleverna enskilt.Studiens resultat visade att eleverna fick återkoppling på olika nivåer av sina kamrater. Den återkoppling som var mest förekommande, var på uppgiftsnivå. Det fanns exempel på återkoppling på andra nivåer också i materialet, samt exempel där det inte förekom någon återkoppling alls. När eleverna bedömde varandras svar, fokuserade de på mängden naturvetenskapliga begrepp i kamraternas svar. Slutsatser som dragits utifrån studiens resultat var bland andra att elever behöver träna både på kamratbedömning och på att ge användbar återkoppling, samt att lärare bör vara medvetna om att deras instruktioner är betydelsefulla när det gäller hur kamratbedömningen faller ut. En annan slutsats är att kamratbedömning med ämnesinnehåll, kräver både bedömarfärdighet och ämneskunskap. / Peer assessment may have a positive effect on student learning. In order to have these positive effect students have to be able to give feedback to their peer and also to receive feedback from their peer. The students also have to be able to use the given feedback. Using students as learning resources to each other is a key strategy within formative assessment. The feedback that is given can be directed at four different levels, task level, process level, self-regulation level and self-level. Using peers as learning resources, is one of the key strategies within formative assessment. Focus on formative assessment and the use of it, have increased within school. That, and the fact that there are not many studies that examines formative assessment with science content, are a part of the background to the conducted study.The overall purpose of the study was to contributed to the field concerning peer assessment in science with 11-year old students. The focus was partly how teachers implement peer assessment, but above all how students give feedback. In order to examine how and in what different levels student give each other feedback, students conducted peer assessment in small groups, after they had answered questions concerning science. Data collection was done in the following steps. At first, the teacher gave the students instructions about the tasks, the scoring rubric, how to assess and so on. While doing that, the teacher was observed and video recorded. Next step concerned the students. They answered the questions and then had peer assessment in small groups. This was also video recorded. Later on the students were interviewed. The students received different kinds of feedback, mostly at task level, from their peer. Some examples of feedback at other levels were also discovered. When students assessed each other’s answers, they looked at the amount of science concepts that were used in their peer’s answers. The results suggest that students need to practice peer assessment, how to give useful feedback and that the teacher need to be aware of that given instruction may turn out differently from what is expected. The results also show that students believe that peer assessment is useful and that feedback is given. This was contradictory from what was seen in some of the observations of the peer assessment. Conclusions are for example that students need both assessment skills and scientific knowledge.

This research paper looks at teachers’ views, and use, of formative assessment in the subject of English 6. It also highlights students understanding and processing of feedback and their opinions of eight assessment tools. The study was carried out using mixed methods research with individual teacher interviews, a student focus group interview, and a questionnaire. My finding shows the difficulties with identifying formative assessment and working with this in a way that helps students in their development of English 6, and the need for tools to make feedback and guidance clearer for students. Furthermore, this study identifies the need for guidance from the Swedish national agency of education regarding how teachers should incorporate formative assessment in their classroom.