This study aims to investigate Korean teachers’ beliefs and their practice with respect to classroom-based English language assessment; thus it examines the teachers’ current working principles of assessment and their practices. This study also sets out to uncover, and to gain an in-depth understanding of further issues which emerged from the dissonance between the teachers’ beliefs and their practice. Following a discussion of the English teaching and assessment context, the first part of the study examines mainstream theories of language testing or assessment; it then considers how closely classroom-based assessment in Korean primary schools conforms to these theoretical principles. The second part of the study presents a small-scale research project. Four stages in teachers’ classroom-based assessment were examined; planning, implementation, monitoring, and recording and dissemination. A questionnaire was developed reflecting these stages; its findings were analyzed statically and qualitatively. Further qualitative data was also collected and analyzed through interviews with volunteer participants. This is based on an analysis of teachers’ firsthand experience and their opinions of the assessment of English as a foreign language. The results of the study revealed that generally the teachers hold and exercise their own firm beliefs regarding classroom-based assessment, and have a good knowledge of assessment or testing principles; thus they carried out their assessment using appropriate procedures taking into account the context of English teaching and assessment in which they operate. However, there were a number of issues which emerged from their assessment beliefs and their practice. It became clear that they did not put some of their principles into practice; a number of important factors, which are normally outside the teachers’ control, were found to be responsible for this, these include: overcrowded classrooms, heavy teaching loads, the central bureaucracy of the education system which controls primary education, and a shortage of funding for foreign language teaching. Teachers were also affected by the rather complex relationship with other teachers, head teachers, and even the parents of the students. However, it is evident that the teachers are constantly developing their skills and knowledge regarding assessment in order to address any possible challenges or tasks given to them. In addition, certain areas needing further investigation were identified. Based on the literature review and the findings of the research, tentative implications and recommendations for the development of classroom-based language assessment are discussed.

The aim of this thesis is to promote a dialogue about constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996) with a particular focus on the use of reflective writing as an assessed task in courses of teacher education and the influence it has, or does not have, on teacher reflection and/or in improving practice. The work is set against a national context in which time to reflect is being written out of teacher education as a consequence of policy which locates ‘training’ to teach increasingly within the busy-ness of school life. Persuaded by principles of constructive alignment and, therefore, troubled by student teachers’ perceptions of complex assignments which appear to have little relevance to their practice as teachers, I have undertaken an action research study (McAteer, 2013; Norton, 2009; and Wells, 2001), beginning with a conviction that it is possible to design assessment tasks which truly integrate professional and academic requirements and influence the learning activity of student teachers in ways which are meaningful for their development as teachers. Using an adaptation of the Ward and McCotter (2004) ‘Reflection Rubric’ to locate characteristics of reflection within the reflective writing submitted for assessment, the study evaluated the relationship between written reflection and academic and professional attainment and found little evidence that engagement in the reflective writing assignment had contributed to the participants’ development as teachers. I conclude that the assessment strategies of students and of the course had been either not aligned or destructively aligned. The thesis narrates my journey to the adoption of a socio-constructivist perspective, leading to greater insight into the relationship between established assessment practice and the learning activity of student teachers, and a questioning of my practice. Crucially, the notion of a ‘framework for assessment’ is broadened to encompass all assignment-related activity, the people involved and the timeframe, in addition to the task and criteria. I conclude by identifying a desire to know more about the national view of assessment in teacher education, seeking a network of colleagues in order to explore ways in which counterparts in other institutions are supporting student teachers to develop reflective practice and assess reflective writing.

Initial teacher education is an area of weakness within the Chilean education system. Yet it is highlighted as a crucial aspect of educational success. Success in educational improvement depends mainly on the teachers (because they enact a reform by putting it into practice), and teacher thinking is likely to influence teacher decision-making. How teacher conceptions and practice change, and how to facilitate this change, was the focus of this study. It explored to what extent peer assessment could facilitate change in pre-service science teachers’ conceptions and practices regarding conceptual explanations in science teaching.In a quasi-experimental design, a ten-session peer assessment intervention was carried out with thirty seven pre-service science teachers in three Chilean universities, each with an experimental and control group. The intervention sought to develop changes in teachers’ conceptions about the quality of explanations and in their skill of explaining scientific concepts. Teachers' thoughts were obtained through a peer assessment questionnaire, feedback sessions, focus groups and interviews. The quality of their explanations was measured at pre, post and follow-up in their eventual first job via video-recorded microteaching episodes using observational analysis. Inter-rater reliability was calculated on 5% of all qualitative data and all the videos were rated by two researchers in a blind process. Qualitative analysis indicated how teachers transformed their conceptions about the quality of explanations from general pedagogical knowledge into pedagogical content knowledge. A quantitative instrument was created to evaluate student teachers’ explanations in practice. Its reliability enables the assessment the skill of explaining based on ten elements (Cronbach’s alpha=.77). Results showed pre-service teachers significantly improved their explanations of scientific concepts in some practical aspects, although not all of them were transferred into real teaching contexts. The changes in student teachers’ conceptions and practice were analysed to indicate how the process occurred, to what extent peer assessment had a role on it, and which elements facilitated or made difficult the transference of the skill of explaining into real teaching. These results indicated that peer assessment can play a noteworthy role in teacher education to develop skills. There are implications for policy and practice in this study, not only for teacher education but also for in-service teacher professional development, not only for Chile but also for other countries.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-09-28T14:57:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 elviramariafernandesveras.pdf: 2246469 bytes, checksum: f71cb1cf26f9d3d6689212c1d1ca3e92 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-10-09T18:58:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 elviramariafernandesveras.pdf: 2246469 bytes, checksum: f71cb1cf26f9d3d6689212c1d1ca3e92 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-09T18:58:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 elviramariafernandesveras.pdf: 2246469 bytes, checksum: f71cb1cf26f9d3d6689212c1d1ca3e92 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-22 / A presente dissertação é desenvolvida no âmbito do Mestrado Profissional em Gestão e Avaliação da Educação (PPGP) do Centro de Políticas Públicas e Avaliação da Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (CAEd/UFJF). O caso de gestão estudado discute a avaliação de desempenho dos professores na Coordenadoria Regional de Desenvolvimento da Educação (CREDE 4) da Secretaria de Educação do Estado do Ceará (SEDUC). Nesse sentido, a questão norteadora desta pesquisa é: de que maneira a avaliação do desempenho docente está impactando a prática dos professores? Com base nessa pergunta, os objetivos definidos para este estudo foram: i) descrever o formato da avaliação de desempenho docente e sua implementação no âmbito da CREDE 4, ii) analisar as contribuições da referida avaliação na melhoria da prática dos professores das escolas estaduais da CREDE 4 e iii) propor ações com vistas ao aperfeiçoamento da avaliação a partir das questões identificadas na pesquisa. Assumimos como hipóteses que é necessário aperfeiçoar as etapas de planejamento, implementação e análise da avaliação docente. Para tanto, utilizamos como metodologia a pesquisa qualitativa e como instrumentos, a pesquisa documental, bem como, a realização de entrevistas e aplicação de questionários com os atores protagonistas desse processo, são eles: técnicos da CREDE 4, núcleo gestor das escolas estaduais da CREDE 4 e professores. / The present dissertation is developed in the scope of the professional master’s degree on Educational Management and Evaluation (in Portuguese, PPGP) of the Center of Governmental Policies and Evaluation of Education of Juiz de Fora Federal University (CAEd/UFJF). The focused case discusses the evaluation of the performance of the teachers located in the Regional Coordination of Educational Development, in Portuguese “Coordenadoria Regional de Desenvolvimento da Educação (CREDE 4)”, this coordination is supported by the Education Secretary of the State of Ceará, in Portuguese SEDUC. In this sense, the leading question of this research is: How is the evaluation of teacher’s competence affecting the teaching practice? Based on this question, the defined objectives in this work were: i) describing the procedure of the evaluation of teacher’s competence and its implementation in CREDE 4, ii) analyzing the contributions of the cited evaluation in the development of teacher’s practices who work in the schools located in CREDE 4 and iii) proposing actions in order to improve the evaluation, taking into consideration the data collected in this research. We also pointed out as our hypothesis that it is necessary to enhance the phases of planning, implementation and analysis of teacher’s evaluation. In order to test our hypothesis, we used as methodological procedure the qualitative research and as methodological instruments the documental research, interviews and questionnaire replies from the characters involved in this research: educational technicians and school coordinators of CREDE 4 and teachers.

Since 2006 Swedish compulsory school teachers are required to use individual developmentplans (IDPs) as part of their assessment practices. The IDP has developed through two major reforms and is currently about to undergo a third in which requirements for documentation are to be reduced. The original purpose of IDP was formative: a document containing targets and strategies for the student's future learning was to be drawn up at the parent-pupil-teacher meetingeach semester. The 2008 reform added requirements for written summative assessments/grade-like symbols to be used in the plan. This thesis aims to generate knowledge of the IDP as a tool in terms of what characterizes IDP documents as well as teachers' descriptions of continuous IDP work. It contains four articles. The first two are based on 379 collected IDP documents from all stages of compulsoryschool, and the last two build on interviews with 15 teachers. Throughout, qualitative content analysis has been used for processing data. The analytical framework comprises Latour's conceptual pair inscription – translation, Wartofsky's notions of primary/secondary/tertiary artifacts, and Wertsch's distinction between mastery and appropriation, which together provide an overall framework for understanding how the IDP becomes a contextually shaped tool that mediates teachers' actions in practice. Moreover, the activity theoretical concept of contradictionis used to understand and discuss dilemmas teachers experience in relation to IDP. In article 1, targets and strategies for future learning given to students are investigated and discussed in relation to definitions of formative assessment. Concepts were derived from the data and used for creating a typology of target and strategy types related either to being aspects (students' behavior/attitudes/personalities) or to subject matter learning. In article 2, the distribution of being and learning targets to boys and girls, respectively, is investigated. The results point to a significant gendered difference in the distribution of being targets. Possible reasons for the gendered distribution are discussed from a doing-gender perspective, and the proportion of being targets in IDPs is discussed from an assessment validity point of view. In article 3, teachers' continuous work with IDPs is explored, and it is suggested that IDP work develops in relation to perceived purposes and the contextual conditions framing teachers' work. Three qualitatively different ways of perceiving and working with IDP are described in a typology. Article 4 elaborates on dilemmas that teachers experience in relation to IDP, concerning time, communication, and assessment. A tentative categorization of dilemma management strategies is also presented. Results are synthesized in the final part of the thesis, where the ways in which documents are written and IDP work is carried out are discussed as being shaped in the intersection between rules and guidelines at national, municipal and local school level, and companies creating solutions for IDP documentation. Various purposes are to be achieved with the help of the IDP, which makes it a potential field of tension that is not always easy for teachers to navigate. Several IDP-related difficulties, but also opportunities and affordances, are visualized in the studies of this thesis. / <p>Svensk sammanfattning: s. 111-126.</p>