In Swedish schools the interest for formative assessment practices has increased during the last decade. This can partly be seen as a response to Sweden’s poor performance in international tests and rankings but it is also reflecting the advancement of knowledge within the field. This research paper aims to examine teachers understandings of the term formative assessment and what practices they associate to the term. It is carried out by semi-structured interviews of primary school teachers. The material has then been subjected to an inductive content analysis. To ensure reliability of the results teachers have been chosen from two different municipalities and four different schools. One of the municipalities has an explicit interest in formative assessment and has developed a local program for teachers to participate in. The results of the study show a vide range of varieties in how teachers comprehend the term formative assessment. The lack of a common understanding of the term creates consequences for the equality of education, both between classrooms and between schools. Furthermore the results show that there is a correlation between the time and support teachers are given to implement formative assessment in their teachings and the depth of their understanding of the term. If the results are confirmed by further research and causality is established, further steps should be taken to examine key factors for a successful implementation.

The aim of this study was to conduct an instrument test of the Canadian questionnaire Alberta Context Tool (ACT) version Long-Term care for Swedish conditions. ACT is designed in order to measure the context in the care environment and different behaviours related to the changes in clinical practice. In total, 159 Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) and Registered Nurses (RNs) within municipality care of the elderly were included in the survey. The test included the instrument's reliability and face validity.The reliability test was implemented through calculation of Cronbach´s Alpha, and showed internal consistency for five of the scales of the ACT-instrument with Cronbach´s Alpha values ranging between 0,728 and 0,873. However, three dimensions got lower values (0,558 - 0,683).The analysis was carried out with content analysis and carried out for LPNs and RNs in separate groups. The majority of LPNs expressed that it was easy to respond to the questions (56%), while nine percent considered it as difficult. Eleven comments were given about questions that were perceived to be unclear, complicated or contained difficult words. In the RN group only 30 percent considered that the questions were easy to respond to. One third of the RNs considered that part of the questions were unclear, and six RNs expressed also which questions they experienced as unclear. In general, the questions in the ACT were perceived as relevant. The instrument's relevance as a tool to measure contextual factors that influence the implementation of evidence based nursing can also be considered to be determined. By modifying the content in the questionnaire in accordance with what appeared in this survey and to implement yet another test, the instrument should be considered to be relevant for use within Swedish municipality care of the elderly. ACT can be used both as a tool in the work on improvement of clinical practice and as a tool for further research about implementation of evidence based nursing.