willis j. et al_2013_conceptualising teacher assessment literacies in an era of
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Conceptualising teacher assessment literaciesTRANSCRIPT
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This is the authors version of a work that was submitted/accepted for pub-lication in the following source:
Willis, Jill, Adie, Lenore E., & Klenowski, Valentina (2013) Conceptualisingteachers assessment literacies in an era of curriculum and assessmentreform. Australian Educational Researcher, pp. 1-16.
This file was downloaded from: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/58342/
Notice: Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such ascopy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this document. For adefinitive version of this work, please refer to the published source:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13384-013-0089-9
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Conceptualising teacher assessment literacies in an era of
curriculum and assessment reform.
published (2013) Australian Educational Researcher, pp. 1-16.
Jill Willis
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. phone 3138 3798 [email protected]
Lenore Adie
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. phone 3138 8552 [email protected]
Val Klenowski
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. phone 3138 3415 [email protected]
Teacher assessment literacy is a phrase that is often used but rarely defined. Yet understanding
teacher assessment literacy is important in an international curriculum and assessment reform
context that continues to challenge teachers assessment practices. In this article situated examples
of classroom assessment literacies are analysed using Bernsteins (1996, 1999) theoretical tools of
vertical and horizontal discourses, classification and framing. Drawing on a sociocultural view of
learning, the authors define teacher assessment literacies as dynamic social practices which are
context dependent and which involve teachers in articulating and negotiating classroom and
cultural knowledges with one another and with learners, in the initiation, development and practice
of assessment to achieve the learning goals of students. This conceptualisation of assessment
literacy aims to make explicit some underpinning theoretical constructs of assessment literacy to
inform dialogue and decision making for policy and practice to benefit student learning and
achievement.
Keywords: assessment literacies; assessment reform; sociocultural theory
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Introduction
Australian teachers are experiencing considerable change to their
curriculum and assessment practices as the first stages of the Australian
Curriculum are implemented in schools in 2012 and beyond (ACARA 2010). This
climate of curriculum and assessment reform is a shared international experience
(Darling-Hammond 2011) and in Australia is providing opportunities for national
conversations about the future of learning in schools (Yates, Collins, and
O'Connor 2011). It is timely to revisit the meaning of assessment literacy in terms
of the message systems of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, and the
relevance for contemporary educational contexts. This paper argues that teacher
assessment literacy needs to be positioned within a discussion about learning
theory, and understood as an ethical practice that is social, dynamic and layered.
Assessment literacy is a term that is often used yet rarely defined by those
who use it, reflecting an assumption that the term is self-explanatory (Criswell
2006). In this paper, we apply a sociocultural lens to an explanation of assessment
literacy to highlight it as a social practice, within which negotiation and cultural
knowledge are seen as significant. The following definition is offered:
Assessment literacy is a dynamic context dependent social practice that
involves teachers articulating and negotiating classroom and cultural
knowledges with one another and with learners, in the initiation,
development and practice of assessment to achieve the learning goals of
students.
Schools, through the three interrelated message systems of curriculum, pedagogy
and assessment (Bernstein 1971) regulate access to increasingly diverse social
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discourses, and the learning opportunities students can access (Lingard 2007;
Zammit 2011). To provide a common language to discuss how students can
become full participants in the multiplicity of schooling discourses in our diverse
and increasingly globalized society, the New London Group (1996) developed the
theory of multiliteracies. Teachers and students are multi-literate when they have
the capacity to speak up, to negotiate, and to engage critically (p. 67) in the
various modes of meaning that are dynamic representational resources,
constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various
cultural purposes (p. 64). Different literacies are needed for different
communities of practice as they are distinct social groups, each with their own
repertoires (Hipwell and Klenowski 2011;Wenger 1996). Yet the complexities of
the capabilities and knowledges teachers draw on in their assessment communities
of practice are hidden by the phrase assessment literacy. The verb assess has
been nominalised to become a concept, and the adjective literate has been
nominalised to create a noun, so teachers can be described as possessing
assessment literacy. Nominalisation is a linguistic feature used to compact
information whole conversations that we assume people (or at least experts)
are up on (New London Group 1996 p. 79). To open up the conversation, and
emphasise the complexity of teacher work within multiple assessment discourses,
the phrase assessment literacies will be used in the remainder of the article.
The concept of assessment literacies explored in this paper assumes that
discourses within various assessment practices, such as peer assessment,
classroom performances, state tasks or national tests, are representational
resources through which teachers and learners can shape their identity through
participation and through interactions in their various assessment communities of
practice (Gipps 2008). As Gee (2003) notes, all learning is learning to read,
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which includes reading words and social and cultural signs within specific
semiotic domains. In this paper, assessment is understood as a specific semiotic
domain. Bernsteins (1996, 1999) concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse are
drawn from to explicate the multiple dimensions of various assessment literacies
within the semiotics of contemporary assessment practices.
A Bernsteinian analysis for the conceptualisation of assessment
literacies
Bernstein (1999) described vertical and horizontal structures of
educational discourse, providing a theoretical language to distinguish between
ways that knowledge is acquired and transmitted, inducting the user into the
language of the community of practice. Vertical discourses he referred to as
official or schooled knowledge, and horizontal discourses as local or
common sense knowledge (1999, p. 158). Vertical discourse has a coherent,
explicit and systematically principled structure, hierarchically organisedand
takes the form of specialised languages (p. 161). It is disciplinary knowledge
constituted in scientific research communities, literary and artistic organisations
and encoded in highly symbolic forms that must be decoded or translated
(pedagogised) in order to be accessible to those outside the specialist domain
(Singh 2002, p. 575). Horizontal discourse is likely to be oral, local, context
dependent and specific, tacit, multi-layered (Bernstein 1999, p. 159) and learning
it probably requires oral transmission; the experience of a social interactional
relationship with an expert in the practice (p. 165). Competence in a horizontal
discourse will often not transfer to other contexts, as the competence is tied to
the social context in which it is enacted (Moss, 2000, p. 52).
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Before teachers help students to recognise (read), realise (speak) and move
between the multiple discourses of schooling, they need to be literate in these
discourses themselves, as well as be able to recontextualise the knowledges to
induct their students into the discourses (Bernstein 1996, p. 47). Bernsteins
(1996) concepts of classification, that is the strength of boundaries between
contexts, and framing, the internal logic within a discourse, are proposed as
helpful conceptual tools to analyse, explain and define assessment literacies. The
power relations that maintain the distance between discourses are hidden,
appearing natural, real and the source of integrity (Bernstein 1996, p. 21). A
strong classification (C+) indicates that a discourse has a distinct voice,
specialised rules and unique identity, in contrast to weak classification (C-) with
less specialised voices and discourses. While horizontal discourses tend to have
weak classification, they can have weak or strong framing (Bernstein 1999, p. 64).
Framing refers to the kind of talk and spaces that are constructed to regulate the
selection, sequencing, pacing, criteria and rules of social order that control
communication within local pedagogic practice, that is who controls what
(Bernstein 1996, p. 27). When framing is strong (F+), the teacher has more
control over communication and the social base, whereas where framing is weak
(F-), the student or acquirer has more apparent control (p. 27. emphasis in the
original). Assessment discourses that exhibit strong classification, (for example
economic assessment practices have organisation and specialised language quite
different to assessment practices in visual arts), and strong framing (with well
known symbols and an acknowledged canonical hierarchy of concepts) would be
notated as C+ F+ to indicate the strength of the internal grammars (Bernstein
1999, p. 164). Acquisition of a horizontal discourse with weak framing (F-) is
more problematic, as it is highly situated and local, and expertise is gained
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through a tacit acquisition of a particular view of cultural realities so that what
is counted as knowledge depends on whose perspective is dominant in the social
context (Bernstein 1999, p. 165). Teachers not only recontextualise knowledge
and structure the classroom pedagogic discourse through curriculum and
assessment practices, moving between horizontal and vertical discourses,
additionally power relations are legitimated, contested and negotiated (Singh
2002, p. 578). These fundamental Bernsteinian concepts of vertical and horizontal
discourse and classification and framing are used in the following section to
conceptualise assessment literacy.
Vertical and horizontal discourses of assessment and views of learning
Assessment literacies conceptualised as vertical or horizontal discourses
within different cultural and policy contexts, are underpinned by different
assumptions about learning. Within traditional measurement conceptions of
assessment that emerged from early twentieth century paradigms of scientific
measurement, social efficiency and behaviourist learning theories, assessment
remains separate from instruction. In direct contrast the social-constructivist
paradigms emerging later in the twentieth century emphasise the interrelatedness
of assessment, curriculum and learning theory (Shepard 2000. p 5). Traditional
measurement views of assessment value scientific measurement by objective tests,
and commitment to precise standards (p. 6) and reflect the characteristics of a
vertical discourse with strong classification and framing (C+F+). This view of
learning underpinned early definitions proposed for assessment literacy such as an
ability to know the difference between sound and unsound assessments with
sound assessments being described as meeting standards of appropriate purposes,
targets, methods, and achievements with control for bias (Stiggins 1995. p. 238).
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This definition of assessment literacy may describe the teachers role within high
stakes assessment cultures in the USA (Popham 2009), Confucian heritage
cultures (Carless 2011), and within Australian National Assessment Program
Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN] (Klenowski, 2011). With clear skills,
specialist languages and processes (Maton, 2000) they are examples of vertical
assessment discourses. Assessment case studies in other policy contexts such as
Canadian teacher education (DeLuca and Klinger 2010), standards referenced
classroom assessment in Queensland (Adie 2010) and formative or assessment for
learning contexts (Willis 2011; Cowie, 2005) reflect characteristics of horizontal
assessment discourses in that they are local, with the integration of assessment
practices, learning and pedagogy. Assessment literacy in a horizontal discourse is
more like critical inquiry [into] the practices and processes of assessing social
and cultural acts of doing assessment in actual contexts (Wyatt-Smith and Gunn
2009 p. 87), reflecting sociocultural views of learning. Assessment literacy will be
understood differently depending on the view of learning embedded in the cultural
and policy context and so is closely associated with theories of learning. In this
paper, a sociocultural view of learning informs the proposed definition of
assessment literacy.
Assessment literacy from sociocultural perspectives
From sociocultural perspectives (Gee 2004; Rogoff 1990; Wenger 1998)
assessment is viewed as a cultural activity where individuals negotiate meaning
and identity through participating in the activity with the social, cultural and
historical experiences they bring (Elwood 2006; Gipps 1999; Pryor and
Crossouard 2008). Assessment must be reconceived in more active and relational
terms rather than in terms of static matching and fixed descriptive frameworks
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(Bredo 1994, p. 24). Assessment is linked to learning interactions and pedagogical
relationships and is conceived not as something that is being done to students
[but rather as] something that is being done with and for the students (Klenowski
2009, p. 89). Drawing from the works of Dewey (1919|1966) and Vygotsky (in
Cole et al. 1978), it importantly shifts the location of learning from inside an
individuals brain, to be an aspect of person-environment interaction itself
(Bredo 1994, p. 24). It expands the definition of assessment literacies beyond a
traditional view of skills, knowledges and cognitions that reside within the
individual (Gee 2003) to culturally responsive practices through which teachers
open up opportunities for students to negotiate their identity and practice within
the learning community (Adie 2010; Klenowski 2009; Willis 2010). While these
are worthy goals, they are not simple to achieve as teachers work within multiple
horizontal and vertical assessment discourses simultaneously.
Teacher assessment literacies are situated, complex and challenging.
Assessment literacies within vertical discourses might emphasise the knowledges
that teachers need when identifying misconceptions and gaps in individual
students acquired concepts, and the competencies required to adequately
diagnose students needs and position them on developmental continua (Griffin,
Woods and Nguyen 2005). The challenge is that for teachers this is a task of
immense difficulty, one that is far more complex than that implied by the notion
of a gap (Black and Wiliam 2006, p. 90). Elwood (2008. p. 93) notes that a
focus on closing the gaps is a constructivist view of learning where learning gets
located back within the individual which can lead to teachers attributing lack of
learning to the innate qualities of the learner rather than the teaching (Murphy and
Whitelegg 2006). Teachers who resist this discursive position and see themselves
as agents for change, responsible for inviting students to connect their peer-based
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and community-based identities with the specialist discourses connected to school
assessment, enable students to achieve learning gains and autonomy through
assessment (Marshall & Drummond 2006). Developing assessment literacies
therefore includes knowing how to create opportunities for students to connect to
the official school discourse, a principle that is highlighted in assessment literature
as an ethical prerequisite for fair assessment (Gee 2008, p.76; Elwood & Lundy
2010). However this assumes that teachers have knowledge of students local
community identities and can recontextualise this knowledge through their
classroom instructional discourse and the regulative discourse that provides the
rules for social order (Bernstein 1996 p. 47). Additionally, developing teacher
assessment literacies requires continuous learning about new curriculum and
assessment policies and contributions to the ensuing discussions and practices
through which new assessment discourses emerge. Policy change requires
teachers to develop new repertoires which significantly impacts on the work of
teachers and the assessment, curriculum and pedagogic discourses of the
classroom (Comber 2012). Rather than a singular assessment literacy, the multiple
discourses indicate that teachers and students need multiple assessment literacies.
A sociocultural view of assessment literacies thus acknowledges that assessment
literacy is not a singular or fixed set of capabilities, but a capability that is situated
and needs to be understood within the assessment culture and policy context of
the community. Through Bernsteins (1999) concepts of horizontal and vertical
discourses, assessment literacies can be explored so that the embedded literacies
within various assessment discourses emerging and merging in the current era of
curriculum reform can be identified, articulated and further understood.
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Assessment literacies and ethical considerations in times of educational
reforms: Examples from the Australian assessment context.
Australian teachers are experiencing an era of educational reform as they
implement a national curriculum in English, Maths, Science and History, with
additional discipline areas soon to follow. The Australian curriculum specifies
content to be taught and the achievement standard expected for each year level
and discipline (ACARA 2011). Assessment is discussed in terms of a range of
purposes: to diagnose, to inform learning, to provide consistency in reporting and
to determine levels of achievement in aspects of literacy and numeracy and other
learning areas (ACARA 2010a). Alongside the Australian curriculum is a
National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) that
includes annual testing of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students levels of achievement.
The introduction of standards for learning and assessment has impacted the
curriculum in many countries in two main ways (Centre for Educational Research
and Innovation 2005; Clarke et al.2000; Zepke et al. 2005). First, there is a
horizontal discourse within standards-referenced assessment that aims to align
curriculum and assessment by placing student learning in the centre of the policy
process, and relying on teacher social moderation to reach local agreement about
standards (Learning and Teaching Scotland 2010: Queensland Studies Authority
2009). Second, standards are also used for accountability as seen in national
assessment programs such as NAPLAN. This vertical assessment discourse is
often viewed in competition with a student-centred discourse of assessment yet
the horizontal and vertical assessment discourses overlap and inform teacher
practice. The following varied assessment contexts that exemplify the complexity
of teachers work are only a few of the multiple assessment discourses that
Australian teachers are required to be fluent within.
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The introduction of standards-referenced curriculum into Australian
schools brought with it processes, such as social moderation, to ensure the
reliability and consistency of judgement decisions. The practice of social
moderation is located within the assessment policies in many Australian
educational sites, yet for a number of teachers it is a new assessment practice.
Understanding assessment through the negotiated practice of social moderation
involves teachers in both the vertical discourses of specialised, hierarchically
organised discipline knowledge, and the horizontal discourses of local place-
specific interpretations of standards and criteria. This is a conceptually complex
assessment context involving teachers negotiating their judgement decisions
across systems of knowledge generation which include:
1. Thelocallygeneratedschoolbasedunderstandingsofassessmentpolicy,processesandpractices,ahorizontaldiscourse
2. Theteacherslearnedknowledgeofadiscipline(forexample,thedifferentdisciplineknowledgesofmathematics,scienceorEnglishthatareverticaldiscourses),and
3. Theteacherspersonalbeliefsaboutlearningandassessment,andtheroleofstudentsintheseprocesses,ahorizontaldiscoursedevelopedthroughexperience.
Through participation in moderation meetings, teachers are expected to negotiate
a shared understanding of the qualities of a standard by explicitly identifying and
justifying how the evidence denotes a standard. It is also anticipated that teachers
involvement in these processes of negotiation and explication will enhance their
teaching practice and enable them to support their students to realise the
discipline-specific assessment literacies.
The adoption of standards-based assessment and the understanding that
achievement standards are fuzzy and lacking in precise boundaries of distinction
(Sadler 1987), could be seen to weaken the classification (C-) of a discipline,
particularly those discipline areas with a history of specialised and hierarchically
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organised knowledge systems. For example, the introduction of open-ended
assessment tasks into a discipline such as mathematics can challenge historic
notions of correctness based on a single answer. When the students justification
and reasoning are to be assessed, then a previously strong classification (C+) of
mathematics that involved specialised rules of what is understood as correct
responses will be weakened (C-) as teachers negotiate their local understandings
of what denotes quality in terms of justification and reasoning.
The inclusion of social moderation into a standards-referenced assessment
system is intended to strengthen the framing (F+) so that the social orders that
control the [assessment] communication become embedded in local assessment
practices. However, when teachers are involved in a range of new assessment
practices, for example the introduction of standards-referenced assessment and
social moderation, then we may expect that the framing would be considerably
weakened (F-). Adie (2010) describes such a context in a project that investigated
the introduction of online social moderation processes to middle school teachers
in Queensland, Australia. The teachers were involved in the judgement and online
moderation of newly introduced common assessment tasks in English,
mathematics and science, which were based on stated achievement standards and
judged using task-specific assessment criteria. For the teachers, the practices of
standards-referenced assessment, social moderation, online communication, and
the use of common assessment tasks were all new practices.
To successfully negotiate the assessment context of online moderation, the
teachers needed to be able to move between their disciplinary knowledge and their
local contextual knowledge to justify their judgement decisions, and to form
common understandings of the standards with the other teachers involved in the
meeting. This new assessment discourse presented as weakly framed (F-) and
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problematic as there was little shared prior knowledge or history within the group
to draw from. While experience in such a context would strengthen the framing of
this discourse, it was apparent in Adies (2010) investigation that teachers drew
from other knowledges and attributes such as an ability and willingness to
problem-solve to overcome some of the weaknesses in this discourse. The
teachers use of the online tools that enabled annotation of the evidence of a
standard within student work also strengthened the framing of this assessment
practice. Teachers willingness to work through and gain control over difficulties
that were discipline-related, technological or part of the negotiation process in the
online moderation meetings, enhanced their participation in the assessment
practice. The introduction of new ways of knowing and doing assessment
required that the teachers articulate their current understandings and negotiate
how or if these were accommodated in the new practice. Teachers also needed to
draw on other skills and understandings to fully engage with these new
assessment practices.
Through participation in a new social assessment practice, the tools and
shared histories that began to strengthen the framing of the horizontal discourse
were being negotiated. The social and conceptual tools are examples of the
dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users
(New London Group 1996, p. 64). Social participation is an important part of
developing literacy within a discourse, as Bernstein (1996) asserts that the
regulative or the social discourse is the dominant discourse. In the example of
social moderation, the social resources enabled the development of an
increasingly strengthened framing of the horizontal assessment discourse.
Bourne (2004) illustrated how a teacher used the deliberate strengthening of the
framing within a horizontal literacy discourse, in partnership with positive social
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cues, to invite the students to become insiders into the community of meaning.
However, strong framing does not always lead to inclusion. The following
Assessment for Learning contexts illustrate other variations of classification and
framing within horizontal assessment discourses that were used to support
learners.
Assessment for Learning (AfL) practices such as sharing learning goals,
feedback, peer and self-assessment have become part of international educational
policy discourse since Black and Wiliam (1998) highlighted associated positive
achievement gains. In some policy contexts such as Northern Ireland (Gardner
2011) AfL is a systemic priority with the clear skills, specialist languages and
processes indicative of vertical discourse. In the assessment policy context of
Queensland, Australia, AfL has been positioned as a horizontal discourse,
integrated within classroom learning episodes (QSA 2009). Through AfL
practices, teachers expect students to shift from being passive recipients to
becoming active learners who take responsibility for and manage their own
learning (Black and Wiliam 2006). However as Willis (2011) shows teachers can
frame assessment practices in a variety of ways, all with the intention of including
students in the discourse. In a Year 9 science class the teacher strongly framed
(F+) the AfL practices creating a shared repertoire of daily learning goals, a self-
assessment revision quiz, and peer feedback. The strong framing was shaped by
the vertical discourse of science (C+F+) and further enabled by the teachers use
of social stories based on his own and his students life experiences to
recontextualise the concepts. In a Year 7 class the teacher provided explicit
direction and vocabulary, and used encouraging verbal and nonverbal
communication, to establish cooperative learning habits among student peers
across a number of their subject areas prior to peer assessment (C-F+). This
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changed over time as students developed skills in collaboration to become a
weaker framing, where the teachers questions positioned the students as decision
makers (C-F-). A further effective combination occurred in Year 8 when the
teacher deliberately used weak framing of peer and teacher feedback in an
integrated social science, technology and personal development assessment task to
challenge students to experiment with technology (C-F-). He created positive
relationships with the students although this was also combined with occasional
strong framing of social expectations (F+ of the regulative discourse).
The teachers framing of AfL practices occurred within both the
instructional and regulative discourses (Bernstein 1996) and the framing strength
shifted depending on the teachers own learning preferences as well as what type
of framing the teacher thought would best help students learn to accomplish the
desired assessment practice at that time. Teacher assessment literacy therefore
included the ability to notice and read and respond to the assessment and
learning practices of the students (Morgan and Wyatt-Smith 2000) and to
encourage them to act in literate ways that make their learning visible and
audible to themselves and others (Johnston and Costello 2005, p. 262). Positive
social relationships between teachers and students and shared repertoires of AfL
practices made expectations of quality and the practices of experts visible and
accessible to students as explicit and tacit knowledge, and this was achieved
through both strong and weak framing. Not all students are able to read the tacit
social cues about how to participate appropriately in AfL practices (Pryor and
Crossouard 2008), so it becomes the responsibility of teachers, and more
experienced colleagues, peers and mentors... to open up practice to learners by
engaging them in the joint enterprise and extending their access to the
repertoire of the tools of the community (Murphy et al. 2008 p.113). Knowing
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how to work within the discourses to open up opportunities for students to
succeed has the potential to enable teachers to interrupt the reproduction of
educational inequality (Gamble and Hoadley 2004. p. 157). The importance of
teachers reading the degree of student participation was a new understanding of
assessment literacy for the teachers linked to ethical assessment practice. It
challenged their traditional beliefs that assessment was purely about measuring
cognitive outcomes, particularly when there was a concurrent national assessment
policy emphasis on national testing through NAPLAN and increased
accountability as school results are published on the MySchool website (ACARA
2010b).
Australias increased use of assessment within systems of accountability is
part of a global economisation of education policy (Lingard 2010). Within this
context, ethical assessment and equity principles have gained increased
significance as ethical dilemmas emerge from an over-reliance on high-stakes
testing (Nichols and Berliner 2007; Berliner 2008). International assessment
theorists (Stobart 2008; Berliner 2008) have identified the social science principle,
known as Campbells law as relevant in this context of so-called transparency and
more performance-related accountability. This principle states that the more any
quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it
will be to corruption pressures, and the more likely it will be to distort the social
processes it is intended to monitor. National assessments (social indicators) can
be used to maximise outcomes for accountability and the monitoring of standards
(social decision-making) with unintended consequences for schools, teachers and
students (Elwood and Lundy 2010; Stobart 2008).
Students, particularly those from different ethnic or cultural groups, have
been found to have differential access to curriculum and to level of qualifications,
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which is seen as a discriminatory practice (Gillbourn and Youdell 2000).
Students can also feel marginalised, can be excluded because of their behaviour or
can be separated into special education provision because educational difficulties
are pathologised as difficulties inherent within students. This is true not only of
students with disabilities and those defined as having special educational needs,
but also of those whose socioeconomic status, race, language and gender renders
them problematic to particular teachers in particular schools (Ainscow 2009, p
6). Such discriminatory practices and collateral effects can emerge in test-based
accountability contexts (Nichols and Berliner 2007). In England and the United
States, for example, the government exerted pressures on schools to improve their
test results. A negative feature of punitive accountability climates is the
emergence of pre-test coaching to improve particular students results to help the
school achieve its identified target. In this situation resources are allocated to
those students who have been identified as borderline, and who with help, are
likely to achieve a pass grade. By giving attention to those students who might
just make it, other students, such as those who will pass without support and
those who are unlikely to reach the standard to pass, are neglected (Stobart 2008,
127). An important ethical and legal dimension of teacher assessment literacy is
therefore being able to critically consider how assessment can be culture-inclusive
to challenge discriminatory consequences of assessment policy implementation
and promote greater respect for and valuing of difference (Assessment Reform
Group 1999; Tognolini and Stanley 2007; Young and Kim 2010).
In a study of culture-inclusive assessment for Indigenous Australian
students in regional and remote Queensland, Klenowski, Connolly & Funnell
(2012) found that teachers pedagogy and assessment practices required change to
open up opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to
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demonstrate their understanding and achievement in mathematics. The research
problem of patterns of under-achievement by Indigenous students as reflected in
standardised tests provided the context for the study. Data across all levels -
school, state, national, and international reveal that Australian schools are not
addressing equity issues effectively (DEST 2007; Sullivan, Tobias and
McDonough 2006) with Indigenous children scoring significantly lower than non-
Indigenous (De Bortoli and Thomson 2009) and with a decline in the performance
of Indigenous students in numeracy relative to that of the rest of the school
population as the period of time spent at school increases (DEST 2007). Drawing
on Bernsteins concepts of knowledge codes and structures it is possible to
analyse how the vertical discourse of the subject mathematics and the strong
framing of the didactic approach to the teaching and assessment of this subject
hindered learning for some Indigenous students.
The vertical discourse and the strong framing and classification of the
pedagogic and assessment practices were impenetrable for some students in that
they found the literacy demands challenging and unfamiliar. Circulation of
knowledge in this context of strong classification and framing requires explicit
recontextualisation. It was in examining the assessment opportunities for cultural
connectedness for student learning that Klenowski et al (2012) found that if the
teachers worked more closely with Indigenous Education Workers, teachers could
appreciate fully the students cultural identities and contexts. Teachers could in
this way identify cultural influences, funds of knowledge and values supportive
for them to enhance their pedagogic and assessment practices to embrace and
extend the cultural spaces for learning and teaching of their Indigenous students.
In horizontal discourse the circulation of knowledge occurs through social
relations, practices and their contexts. The Indigenous Education Workers were
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in a position to inform teachers of how mathematical assessment tasks could be
reframed to appear more authentic and engaging for Indigenous students by
responding to their local and cultural circumstances.
The opportunity for Indigenous students to participate in learning and
assessment, and to demonstrate their achievement, is fundamental to equity. Yet
such opportunities are sometimes hindered as Indigenous students find the vertical
discourse and the strong framing of the pedagogy do not recognise, respect or
value their experiences and their methods of demonstration of learning. A
culture-inclusive approach requires teachers to distinguish the funds of
knowledge (Gonzlez et al. 2008) that Indigenous students draw on in their
learning. Effortful teaching that is culture-responsive and allows for different
ways of knowing is also practised to facilitate increased agency for these students.
Berlack (2001), cited by Luke et al. (2002, p. 11), argued students from a non-
dominant culture experience testing as a form of cultural intimidation. These
authors state that students from particular ethnic and racial groups may develop
attitudes and practices of resistance to the surveillance, judgement and
categorisation practices that are affiliated with large-scale testing. Culture-
inclusive assessment does not attempt to favour the culturally different group,
rather it is recognised that cultural differences can impact on performance, such as
on standardised tests. The variables that may influence test performance include:
the cultural-specificity of how the task or activity in question is framed; the
cultural-specificity of the normative models of child and adolescent development
reflected in the domain specification and constructs of the test; the linguistic codes
and conventions of the test and task and the cultural-specificity of content
knowledge (Luke et.al. 2002).
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These examples from Australian assessment contexts exemplify the
understanding that teacher assessment literacies include knowledge of the
grammars of both horizontal and vertical discourses in situated assessment
practices, and knowing how and when to frame horizontal discourses to create
both epistemic and social relations to enable full participation of students as
knowers (Maton 2000). It is through participation, and responsive framing that
interlocutors develop fluency in the situated assessment discourses.
Conclusions
We have stated that assessment literacy, as an ethical, social, dynamic and
layered practice needs to be positioned within a discussion about learning theory.
If assessment literacies are understood as a negotiated rather than static or
received understandings then a shared language is needed to enable teachers to
engage in critical inquiry of their assessment practices. Through this shared
discourse, teachers can begin to articulate and question their beliefs and
understandings of assessment. This paper has drawn on Bernsteins concepts of
horizontal and vertical discourse and classification and framing, as a theoretical
language to open up conversations about assessment. Illustrative examples from
empirical assessment research have been analysed using the terms to propose a
sociocultural understanding of assessment literacies. The definition of assessment
literacy as a dynamic context dependent social practice that involves teachers
articulating and negotiating classroom and cultural knowledges with one another
and with learners, in the initiation, development and practice of assessment to
achieve the learning goals of students, is offered as an invitation for further
dialogue about how to support teachers and learners.
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21
When teacher assessment literacies can be understood in terms of
discourses, teachers can be supported in developing the required skills through
participation in supportive communities of practice. The three assessment contexts
highlight this social and situated dimension of assessment literacy. Dialogue, and
learning by doing, give participants the opportunity to read and critically
problematise and recontextualise norms of assessment communities and
understand assessment demands. Acknowledging these varied experiences opens
up opportunities for shared understandings of assessment to be developed within a
local community of practice, as well as a wider global community. Pedagogic and
assessment practices that strive to achieve fairer and more equitable outcomes for
all students and that protect all young peoples rights to opportunities to learn,
progress and succeed, have become a global priority. Participation in assessment
as with participation in education must be inclusive, avoid discrimination
and encourage opportunities for marginalized children to be involved it needs
to provide equality of opportunity for all, without discrimination on any grounds
(Elwood and Lundy 2010 p. 345). Valid, equitable assessment is a childs right
(Elwood and Lundy 2010). There are important system-level implications here for
those who inform and support teachers in addressing these new demands.
Teacher assessment literacies are a fundamental issue that needs to be
made more explicit and discussed and debated. Through discussions about what is
meant by assessment literacies, we can open up our practices to develop shared
understandings rather than assuming that we share common needs and knowledge.
When teachers have the opportunity to discuss the implications for student
learning through assessment practices in climates of curriculum and assessment
reforms, teacher professionalism is honoured and assessment literacies are
articulated and developed as teachers negotiate their understanding. The extent of
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22
how well teachers, policy officers, teacher educators and researchers and
professional bodies support the development of teacher assessment literacies will
be measured by the development of student assessment literacies. Developing
teacher assessment literacy is part of the ethical and moral responsibility to
provide opportunity for all students to learn.
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23
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