Il formative assessment nelle convinzioni e nelle pratiche degli insegnanti. Analisi secondarie da una indagine sui docenti di scuola media di due regioni italiane

All around the world, several scholars are reflecting on the role of the so-called «teacher variable» for orienting changes towards quality and equity in the education. In this field, it is stressed the importance of the relationship between teachers’ beliefs practices. Following this tradition, this paper aims to prove the existence of a relationship between democratic beliefs of the teachers and their adoption of formative assessment (FA) practices. Secondary analyses are conducted on data collected during a study, which involved a sample of more than a thousand middle school teachers. In this work we focused on data from two Italian regions: Emilia-Romagna and Piemonte. These data are re-analyzed to prove the relationship between the declaration on the adoption of FA practices and three beliefs variables, namely teachers’ beliefs on the FA, on the existence of natural gifts of students, and on the utility and dynamicity of instructional design. Personal, professional, and experiential variables are included to prove the existence of significant differences. The results suggest that the teachers who adopt FA practices more often and who present more democratic beliefs are: women, experienced teachers, those who teach literature or scientific disciplines, and those who are specialized in special needs teaching. Multivariate regression analysis, finally, confirm the relationship between the adoption of FA practices and positive beliefs towards the formative assessment and instructional design.