Teachers' conceptions of assessment: Regional response to global pressure to use assessment for learning

Teachers' conceptions of assessment: Regional response to global pressure to use assessment for learning

• Brown, Gavin Thomas Lumsden
• Hui, King Fai Sammy The Hong Kong Institue of Education
• Yu, Wai Ming

2010

Symposium conducted at CESHK Annual Conference 2010: Globalization within Regionalization: Identity, Understanding and Interactions (2010: South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China)

• L Educational Measurement & Evaluation
  • LC Academic Achievement Tests

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Hong Kong has an assessment for learning policy and a cultural context that emphasizes examinations. In addition to associating student grading with improvement, important improvement-oriented conceptions have been identified among Hong Kong teachers and which were not fully instantiated in Brown’s Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment (TCoA) inventory. An expanded Chinese-TCoA inventory was administered to 601 teachers (85% primary school) in Chinese. The intended 10 factor structure had poor fit to the data. Exploratory factor analysis (MLE, oblimin rotation) identified 7 factors. Confirmatory factor analysis of 7 inter-correlated factors, with 28 items, had acceptable fit (χ2=1061.87; df=329; χ2/df =3.23, p=.07; gamma hat = .92; RMSEA=.061; SRMR=.056). The strongest inter-correlation (r=.74) was between assessment is for school quality & control and assessment is for teacher quality & control. Correlations >.60 were seen between assessment is examinations and assessment is for student personal development and teacher quality & control and between assessment is for school quality & control and assessment is for student personal development. Factor inter-correlations among these 4 factors and the remaining three (assessment is irrelevant, assessment has error, assessment improves learning) were less than .60. Teachers gave mean scores over moderately agree to Improve Learning and Error, weak agreement was given to Personal Development, School Quality & Control, and Examinations. Disagreement was given to Irrelevance and Teacher Quality & Control. We conclude that, in keeping with the highly selective system, Hong Kong primary school teachers predominantly conceived of assessment as examinations for improved learning, rather than as a means of personal development and reject it as a means of teacher quality assurance.

Symposium conducted at CESHK Annual Conference 2010: Globalization within Regionalization: Identity, Understanding and Interactions

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/e9e133ad

2015-10-08