The purpose of this study, But Assessment Equals Grades, is to understand how the phenomenon of assessment is constructed in conversations between secondary school pupils on the topics of assessment and rubrics. The analysis is based on the following research questions: What discourses about assessment emerge in pupils' talks about assessment and rubrics? How can these discourses be understood in relation to contradictory administrative and didactic purposes? The data collection was done through group discussions with pupils on study preparation programs at two secondary schools. The conversations have been transcribed and then analyzed using Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis model. Three discourses are examined through the survey: an administrative assessment discourse, a disciplinary assessment discourse and a pedagogical assessment discourse. In the administrative discourse, assessment is calculated as summative grades and as a selection tool for future studies. The disciplinary discourse of the assessment articulates the pupils' place within the school's institutional framework in the context of success in obtaining high marks, while the pedagogical assessment discourse represents the focus groups' reproduction of assessment for learning. The result of the study shows the hegemonic dominance of administrative and disciplinary discourses over the pedagogical assessment discourse. This is interpreted as an expression of the fact that several assessment traditions are executed in Swedish secondary schools and that an ideological market model, New Public Management, through an increasingly centralized performance management, affects school discursive practitioners, in this case the pupils' understanding of the phenomenon of assessment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-144398 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Arctaedius, Desirée |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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