The study focuses on assessment and specifically the formative part, therefore the purpose of this study is to examine how some primary school teachers perceive formative assessment. Building blocks for my study are three research questions that contribute to studying the phenomenon from different aspects. Formative assessment has become a familiar subject that gets incorporated more and more in the schools therefore it is necessary to study how teachers perceive the difference between the formative and the summative part of the assessment. I use a sociocultural perspective in my study. I choose to examine the teacher’s perception on the subject by carrying out focus group interviews that gets summarized with a group of teacher’s that conversed about a specific subject which in my case was assessment. I have carried out two group interviews, thereafter analysed the collected data through a couple of main categories as well as some part categories on subject of assessment. The results of the study showed that teacher’s perceives formative assessment in different ways, though they join each other in expressing that formative assessment benefits teaching. They explain their thoughts through describing their ways of using formative assessment. It also showed that they deliberately work with the formative part of assessment because they explain the purpose with each activity they carry out.

Formative assessment is an integral part of teaching, not only as a tool for monitoring student-development, but also as basis for potential adjustments of pedagogical strategies. Therefore, this research paper examines how upper secondary students perceive, and report acting on different forms of formative assessment on writing in the subject of English 6. It also highlights what teachers perceive as key strategies in formative assessment, and how they report applying these strategies for improving students writing when teaching English 6. How teachers report clarifying, sharing, and explaining learning goals and criteria for success to their English 6 students is also discussed. The study was carried out by using mixed methods research and included a student questionnaire, a student focus group interview, and individual teacher interviews. Our results show important similarities and crucial differences in how students and teachers perceive different forms of formative assessment on writing, as well as how they perceive the learning goals and criteria for success in the subject of English 6. Moreover, our study identifies the need for further research on the perceptions of formative assessment on writing from a student viewpoint. In addition, we present ideas on how teachers could work with different forms of formative assessment to better meet the students’ needs.