Abstract This study investigates three primary school teachers’ experiences of working with formative assessment intended to develop pupils’ writing development. The study applies a sociocultural perspective to examine how teachers in grades 1–2 reason about their use of formative assessment to develop pupils’ writing. The study seeks to ascertain how the teachers reason about pupils’ texts in relation to the text triangle. The results of the study show that the teachers, in their work with formative assessment and writing development, proceed from set goals for the term which apply to all the pupils in that year. The teachers make the pupils aware of these goals by returning to them several times during the term. The intention is to remind the pupils of the goals. The three teachers also work with individual goals for the pupils via the pupils’ individual development plans. The informants all reason in much the same way about formative assessment in writing instruction in relation to the text triangle. The teachers consider that they work with the different qualities shown in the different levels of the text triangle, based on the pupils’ prior knowledge and experience of writing.

Although formative assessment is fundamental to educational theory and practices, it is a widely misunderstood term for most educators. This qualitative study defines formative assessment as short-cycle assessments in which teachers adapt their instruction to meet the learners‟ immediate needs. This study focused on the transformation of teachers‟ practices and their perspectives of the critical pedagogical principles necessary to enact The Keeping Learning on Track Program® (KLT™) in their classrooms and in teacher learning communities. The participants in this study included 21 formally trained KLT teachers at the St. Johnsbury School. Over a one year period, I observed in classrooms, attended all KLT teacher learning community (TLC) sessions, collected field notes, attended KLT trainings and presentations, and conducted individual and focus group interviews. The primary area of transformation included: the regulation of learning, beliefs and attitudes, accountability, shared leadership, systemic supports, motivation, classroom culture, and teacher practices.

Increased state and federal accountability measures have made the assessment of student performance one of the most critical responsibilities of classroom teachers; yet, inadequate opportunities for preservice and inservice training leave many teachers feeling ill-prepared for this task. Adding to the complexity of building teachers’ assessment literacy is the relationship between assessment beliefs and classroom assessment practices. This quantitative study utilizes a validated, online survey to examine how elementary teachers’ (n = 79) define their assessment beliefs (conceptions) and how these beliefs influence which assessment practices are valued within the classroom. Findings suggest that despite teachers’ limited exposure to assessment training, four distinct assessment beliefs exist within the elementary classroom: assessment for school accountability, assessment for student certification, assessment for improvement of teaching and learning, and assessment as irrelevant. Assessment for the improvement of teaching and learning yielded the highest composite mean and was negatively correlated with the irrelevance belief and positively related to school accountability. An analysis of the importance of assessment practices revealed authentic assessments, short answers, teacher-made assessments, and performance assessments as the most valued, while publisher assessments and major exams had the lowest means. Significant relationships were identified between demographics and beliefs and practices, with the most practical findings related to exposure to assessment training and level of degree attainment. Significant relationships were also noted between all beliefs and the value of specific assessment practices, with the exception of the irrelevance belief. No significant relationships were noted between the irrelevant belief and value of assessment practices; however, many negative correlations were documented. Results are discussed in light of other research, indicating that a greater understanding of assessment beliefs and importance of practices can contribute to the development of relevant professional development aimed at the improvement of teachers’ assessment pedagogies and practices can contribute to greater educational success.

The purpose of this study is to examine what kindof formative assessments is used in the religious education at middle-schoolin Sweden. A further aim of the study is to examine whether any problems can be observed with formative assessment. Questions that will try to be answered are: What kindof formative assessment occurs in religious education at the middle school in a Swedish school? What problems can be observed with formative assessment in religious education at the middle school in a Swedish school? To answer these questions, six lessons in religious education were observedin total; three teachers held two lessons each which were observed. Earlier studies have showed that formative assessment was used by teachers to give feedback to improve pupils’ learning. In some cases, feedback was also givenwhich did not contribute to the improvement of pupils’learning. Earlier studies also conclude that formative assessment helped teachers to designfuture lessonsbased on pupils’ prior knowledge. Another conclusion highlights that teachers who made the goals of the lesson visible for pupils, resulted in an increased motivation and understanding of the purpose of the lesson. This study concludes that formative assessment has been usedby all three teachers, but in different ways. One conclusion is that when the goals of the lesson was not visible for the pupils, it affected the motivation of some pupils. Another conclusion is that teachers used formative assessment to modify lesson plans to meet the pupils’ current knowledge. Formative assessment was also used to encourage pupils to help each other by using peer-assessment. To improve pupils learning, teachers also used feedback as a strategy

Samhället idag har på senare tid fått en förändrad syn på kunskap och i förlängningen vilka sorts kunskaper dess medborgare ska besitta. Idag efterfrågas medborgare besitta mer än bara kunskaper, samhället efterfrågar utbildning för att dess medborgare ska kunna agera i den snabba takt samhället utvecklas i. Detta har gjort att skolutbildningens roll har blivit större än att bara förmedla reproduktiva kunskaper till sina elever, den ska hjälpa eleverna utveckla färdigheter, verktyg samt producera ny kunskap som ska hjälpa dem i sitt fortsatta liv som samhällsmedborgare. Ett sätt för skolan att möta dessa krav är tillämpningen av formativ bedömning, där elevers lärandeprocess hamnar i fokus genom att utveckla verktyg och färdigheter snarare än bara faktabaserade kunskaper. Målsättningen med den här undersökningen är att bidra till förståelse för hur ämneslärarstudenter i samhällskunskap ser på formativ bedömning i förhållande till deras framtida läraruppdrag samt om de känner att de utvecklat färdigheter för att kunna bedriva formativ bedömning. Genom djupintervjuer i par samtalar sex respondenter om sina uppfattningar, upplevelser och färdigheter inför ovan nämnt syfte. Resultatet visar att respondenterna saknar en fullständig uppfattning om vad formativ bedömning innebär och hur det ska bedrivas, men att de ställer sig positiva till att tillämpa en sådan undervisningsmodell utifrån att sätta tydliga mål och ge återkoppling. Respondenterna vill använda sig av återkoppling som bedrivs som en kontinuerlig process genom läsåret som stödjer eleverna före, under och efter varje moment. Slutligen visar resultatet att respondenterna också ser sig ha utvecklat färdigheter för att bedriva formativ bedömning, men att det också finns en nervositet inför att genomföra den formativa samt summativa bedömningen. Detta då de känner att de inte fått möjligheten att öva på detta i tillräckligt stor utsträckning. / Society today has recently had a change of view on knowledge and, in extension, what kind of knowledge its citizens should possess. Today, citizens are asked to possess more than just knowledge, society is now asking for education to enable its citizens to cope with the rapid pace which society’s evolving in. This means that the role of the school education has become greater than simply conveying reproductive skills to their students, it is asked to help students develop skills, tools and produce new knowledge to help them in their continued lives as members of the society. One way for the school to meet these requirements is the application of formative assessment, where pupils learning process end up in focus by developing tools and skills rather than just factual knowledge. The aim of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how teacher students in civics view formative assessment in relation to their future task as teachers and whether they feel that they have developed skills in order to be able to conduct Formative assessment. Through in-depth interviews in pairs, six respondents discuss their beliefs, experiences and skills in the light of the above-mentioned purpose. The results show that respondents lack a complete understanding of what the formative assessment means and how it should be conducted, but that they are in favour of applying such a teaching model based on setting clear objectives and providing feedback. The respondents want to use feedback that is conducted as a continuous process through the school year that supports students before, during and after each moment. Finally, the result shows that respondents also see themselves having developed skills to conduct formative assessment, but that there is also a nervousness in the conduct of the formative and summative assessment. This is because they feel that they have not been given the opportunity to practice this to a sufficiently large extent.

MEd thesis / Abstract This study explores teachers’ understanding about ways in which assessment supports learning and teaching within the context of grappling with the new curriculum. It argues that formative assessment, supports a socialconstructivist view of learning and teaching. It suggests that formative assessment functions in a fundamentally different way to summative assessment, and could assist teachers in moving towards a more conceptual approach to learning and teaching. Teachers’ views are explored in focus groups in which teachers discuss their choice and use of either traditional or alternative assessment tasks, in their mathematics lessons. The findings suggest, however, that teachers’ ability to use assessment in this way is influenced by their own views of mathematics learning, their current views of assessment, the amount of support provided in the assessment materials, and the practices of the school. Key words Formative assessment Social constructivist Focus groups Phenomenography Primary school Mathematics Assessment Investigations

This study assessed the knowledge structure of undergraduate participants related to previously determined critical concepts of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) by using Pathfinder networks. Three domain experts’ knowledge structures regarding the same concepts were also elicited and averaged to create a referent knowledge structure. The referent knowledge structure served as a basis for formative feedback. Then, each participant’s knowledge structure was compared with the referent structure to identify common, missing, and extraneous links between the two networks. Each participant was provided with individualized written and visual, and multi-media feedback through an online Concept Mapping tool based on the principals of formative assessment and feedback in an attempt to increase their conceptual knowledge of ANOVA. The study was conducted with 67 undergraduate participants from a mid-size university in the United States. Participants completed two data collection tools related to the critical concepts of ANOVA. Later, three different types of feedback around the critical concepts were given to participants in three stages. First, each participant was given visual feedback as a result of the comparison between their own knowledge structures and the referent knowledge structure to highlight similarities and differences between the two. Then, participants were provided with individualized written and multi-media feedback to emphasize conceptual understanding behind ANOVA procedures. This procedure was followed by the re-assessment of participants’ reasoning ability related to ANOVA and knowledge structures related to critical concepts to measure the effect of the intervention. Results suggest that participants both in control and intervention groups had the same level of statistics experience and anxiety before this study indicating that randomization of participants into two different groups was successful. Moreover, women participants reported a statistically significant higher level of statistics anxiety than men, however, it seems that this small difference did not limit their ability to perform required statistical tasks. Further, findings revealed that participants’ conceptual knowledge related to critical concepts of ANOVA increased significantly after the individualized feedback. However, the increase in the conceptual understanding did not help participants to transform this knowledge into more formal understanding related to procedures underlying ANOVA. Moreover, even though, previous similar studies suggest that participants are consistent in using a single strategy for making inferential reasoning across datasets, in the present study, qualitative data analysis revealed that statistics learners demonstrate diverse patterns of inferential reasoning strategies when they were provided with different size of datasets each with varying amount of variability. As a result, findings support the use of an extended framework for describing and measuring the development of participants’ reasoning ability regarding consideration of variation in statistics education.

nÃo hà / Esta atividadeacadÃmica tem como objetivo propor programa e metodologia inovadores para o ensino de Direito BancÃrio. Ela faz um retrospecto histÃrico do ensino jurÃdico desde a chegada de Dom JoÃo VI ao Brasil,em 1808, pontuando as mudanÃas ocorridas ao longo de dois sÃculos. Foca a atenÃÃo sobre a Teoria dos Bancos Centrais, discorre sobre a necessidade de um banco central terautonomia ou independÃncia, alÃm de apreciar o exercÃcio de suas funÃÃes, o que sugeriria competÃncia e legitimidade para propor regras estÃveis para o funcionamento do mercado.Em decorrÃncia, expÃe questÃes norteadoras e enuncia, como pressuposto que os atuais programas de Direito BancÃrio nÃo se coadunam com o rigor cientÃfico exigÃvel nem com as necessidades do mercado, por nÃo serem capazes de ensinar regras estÃveis que tornem o mercado confiÃvel.PropÃe, tambÃm, que a metodologia de avaliaÃÃo adequada ao processo de lecionar o conteÃdo definido para a disciplina seja a avaliaÃÃo formativa, capaz de aferir o grau de desconhecimento dos assuntos propostos em novo programa para a disiciplina. A pesquisa empÃrica, de natureza qualitativa, emprega fontes primÃrias e secundÃrias. Foi utilizada uma amostra de dezesseis ex-alunos da disciplina de Direito BancÃrio da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Federal do CearÃ. Embora o entendimento geral denote que haja abordagem cientÃfica dos temas, a conclusÃo revela que a metodologia empregada se mostra inadequada à compreensÃo dos temas que envolvem, atualmente, o DireitoBancario.Isso pode ser verificado pela pesquisa direta efetuada em vÃrios programas que adotam essa disciplina em alguns paÃses,os quais demonstram estar defasados para a preparaÃÃo do futuro profissional de Direito que và atuar no campo do Direito BancÃrio.Resulta, entÃo, num novo programa a ser executado com o emprego da avaliaÃÃo formativa, como validaÃÃo do pressuposto. Palavras-chave: AvaliaÃÃo formativa. Direito BancÃrio. Ensino Superior. / This doctoral research aims to propose an innovative teaching methodology for the banking law discipline. It is made a historical retrospect about legal education since the arrival of Dom JoÃo VI in Brazil in 1808, highlighting the changes over time. Focuses attention on the Theory of Central Banks and debates about the necessity of a central bank to have full autonomy, independence to develop its functions in order to be free to propose stables rules for the operation of market as a condition sine ne qua non.As a result of this premises, puts guiding questions to this study and states as a working hypothesis that current programs of Banking Law are inconsistent with the required scientific rigor and the needs of the market by not being able to teach stable rules that make the market reliable. It proposes a new content program for the discipline and suggests thatthe appropriate methodology for teach the necessary content is formative assessment that is capable of diagnose the deficiencies of the students and propose strategies to address them. The research is qualitative and empirical, uses primary and secondary sources. A sample of sixteen former students of the discipline Banking Law of the Federal University of Cearà took part in the study. Although the overall finding is that there is relevant scientific approach to the themes, the conclusion is that the methodology is inadequate understanding of the issues are outdated for the preparation of future professionals of banking law that go act in the market. This could be verified by direct research in various programs adopted in many countries. As conclusion, the hypothesis has been validated. Then, a new program is proposed by this study to be evaluated with the use of formative assessment. Key-words:Formative assessment, Banking Law , Higher Education

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a relationship between the TCAP test and Pearson Benchmark assessment in elementary students’ reading and language arts and math performance in a northeastern Tennessee school district. This study involved 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. The study focused on the following subgroups: gender, Title I school status, and socioeconomic status as determined by free and reduced-price meal benefits. Test scores of students taking the Pearson Benchmark assessment in the fall, winter, and spring of the 2011-2012 academic school year and the TCAP in the spring of the 2012 academic school year were compared. Test scores were collected from 5 elementary schools. A total of 1,069 students were included in this study. The analysis focused on 10 research questions. Data collected for this study were entered into an Excel data file for analysis using IBM-SPSS. The research questions were examined using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, the t test for independent samples, and the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to account for differences in a set of 2 dependent variables. Based on the analyses and findings of this study, there appears to be a positive relationship between the TCAP test and Pearson Benchmark assessment in elementary students’ reading and language arts and math performance in a northeastern Tennessee school district. This relationship extended across students’ gender, Title I school status, and socioeconomic status as determined by free and reduced-price meal benefits. Major recommendations from this study included the use of formative assessment benchmark tools to generate timely data aimed at the improvement of student learning and achievement, tracking the time spent on benchmark testing and carefully evaluating whether this is the optimal use of student academic time, analyzing the use of formative assessment and the relationship to teacher growth and development, and considering the development of the whole child as opposed to strictly focusing on quantitative academic measures to define student success.

This study evaluated whether significant differences in statistical reasoning abilities exist for completers of short online instructional videos and formative quizzes for students in undergraduate introductory statistics courses. Data for the study were gathered during the Fall 2013 semester at a community college in Northeast Tennessee. Computer-based pedagogical tools can promote improved conceptual reasoning ability (Trumpower & Sarwar, 2010; Van der Merwe, 2012). Additionally, prior research demonstrated a significant relationship between formative quiz access and student achievement (Stull, Majerich, Bernacki, Varnum, & Ducette, 2011; Wilson, Boyd, Chen, & Jamal, 2011), as well as multimedia object access and student achievement (Bliwise, 2005; Miller, 2013). Four research questions were used to guide the study. A series of analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical procedures was used to analyze the data. Findings indicated no significant differences in statistical reasoning abilities between students who were provided access to supplemental online instructional videos and formative quizzes and students who were not provided access. Moreover, statistical reasoning abilities did not differ significantly based upon number of quizzes successfully completed, average number of quiz attempts, or number of videos accessed.