The beliefs teachers have about assessment influence classroom practices and reflect cultural and societal differences. This paper reports the development of a new self-report inventory to examine beliefs teachers in Hong Kong and southern China contexts have about the nature and purpose of assessment. A statistically equivalent model for Hong Kong and southern China teachers had three factors (i.e., improvement, accountability, and irrelevance). The Chinese teachers very strongly associated accountability with improvement (r = .80). This is consistent with the Chinese tradition and policy of using examinations to drive teaching quality and student learning and as a force for merit based decisions. Small differences between the two groups of teachers are consistent with assessment policy differences in the two jurisdictions.
[Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.]

Background: In line with the increase of using value-added assessment information to evaluate learning gain made by learners in different parts of the world, the Education Bureau in Hong Kong has recently introduced a system that provides value-added information of secondary school students. However, not many teachers have a clear knowledge and understanding about value-added assessment. Aims: This paper provides a brief review of the meaning and the importance of value-added assessment in education. Then it provides an example of how to find out the academic attainment that one can reasonably expect from individual students and how to produce two types of school-based value-added estimations with reference to their own prior attainment or development ability measures. The paper also evaluates the use of descriptions in the value-added grid for making interpretations of the value-added assessment results. Sample: 60 schoolchildren in a primary school in England. Research method: Linear regression models. Results: The findings indicated that the descriptions in the grid were applicable for interpreting the assessment results, but attention had to be paid when making speculations about the positions of individual schoolchildren’s past attainment in reading. Conclusion: This paper functions as a simplified example and a timely resource for teacher learning and development concerning value-added assessment. It also reflects the importance for teachers and school administrators to equip themselves with a good understanding of the nature, potential value and meanings of value-added estimations.
[Copyright © 2009 New Horizons in Education.]

This study examines Chinese tertiary award-winning tutors' perceptions and reported practices of classroom-based assessment. Seventeen tutors in the final stage of a national university teaching contest were individually interviewed. An interview framework was developed using three process dimensions of assessment for learning (AfL). A sequential and iterative analysis of resulting data was conducted based on Miles and Huberman's protocols for qualitative analysis. Participants demonstrated a complex set of connections between perceptions and practices around issues of sharing standards, delivering feedback and response to external assessments. Results deviate from widely promoted principles of AfL and classroom-based assessment espoused in the international literature; in doing so, they challenge existing research and assumptions about the standardised and international nature of award-winning instructors' assessment practices. Findings are discussed in relationship to understanding best practices in tertiary assessment, given emerging tertiary education markets. Practical implications for the further development of learning and assessment practices and theoretical implications for the AfL theory are also discussed.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1066306]

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.

School-based assessment (SBA) refers to the assessments conducted in the process of learning within the school. In Hong Kong, SBA has been promoted in the education system. Through analyzing a case study, this paper aims to explore: (1) the current practices of SBA in the case study school, (2) the support for and effects of SBA practice; and (3) the issues emerging in SBA practice. The purpose is to provide a living example for those teachers and policy makers who favour the use of SBA to enhance students' learning in schools.

The traditional assessment landscape in Hong Kong has been changed since a large scale educational reform was launched six years ago. Recommendations for change encouraged more diverse forms of student assessment. However, the traditional examination-oriented culture within a Chinese context has added difficulty to the implementation of assessment reform in Hong Kong. This paper reports a case study of four project schools. It investigates how teachers experimented with assessment reform in school policy and practice. The focus lies on how teachers express their understanding of student assessment reform in classroom practice. The findings show how teachers understand student assessment, how they put their ideas of formative assessment into practice, and the challenges they face in the reform process.

In recent years, educators in Hong Kong have raised concerns about the examination culture that pervades the school system. Their arguments have focused on the detrimental effect that examination preparation has on student learning, and they advocate the introduction of less formal alternative practices that promote assessment for learning. The government, prompted by the impact of globalization and new technology on the economy that demand a more sophisticated workforce, has encouraged schools to adopt these new approaches to assessment. However, early indications suggest that there is considerable resistance to these moves from teachers and parents. Teachers tend to have difficulty in assimilated the new philosophy of assessment into their pedagogical beliefs and practices, while parents are concerned that informal assessment will undermine the value of standard, formal testing as a fair and objective means for determining social advancement. This paper discusses these tensions and presents a small-scale study that provides insights into current assessment practices in the classroom. It concludes that, given the tensions, informal assessment for learning needs to be implemented gradually in Hong Kong to ensure acceptance and sustainability.
[Copyright © 2012 North-West University.]