Teacher Perspectives and Experiences of Assessment Literacy in Victorian Junior Secondary Schools

Abstract

Teachers’ assessment practices are invariably related to their knowledge, skills, and beliefs or their assessment literacy. While teachers’ assessment literacy continues to gain attention, there is limited empirical research on the relationship between assessment literacy and teachers’ practices and beliefs, in particular junior secondary school teachers. Drawing from a larger project, this paper employs a synthesised conceptual framework on assessment literacy to interrogate the assessment practices of eight teachers. The findings reveal that teachers’ conceptual knowledge and their conceptions of assessment are influenced by government policies. Teachers acknowledged the importance of effectively interpreting and communicating assessment data in order to support student learning. Finally, the study found that the ways in which teachers meaningfully engaged students in the feedback process created opportunities for building assessment literacy in both teachers and students. This article highlights the gap in how teachers draw upon their conceptual knowledge and how that contextual knowledge allows them to enact assessment within their varied school contexts.