SSHRC

Examining teacher mediation between assessment internal to the classroom and external high-stakes exams: the assessment bridge and the potential for synchronized assessment

Turner, Carolyn E. (McGill University)

In both general and second language (L2) education, research has helped us understand that high stakes tests can have some sort of influence on classroom practice and activity. This influence is commonly called washback. To date, much variation has been reported (Cheng et al., 2004; Turner, 2006, 2008). This proposed research focuses on internal classroom assessment as it is related to external exams in second language (L2) education contexts. It is specifically concerned with the teacher factor in classroom activity and how teachers mediate between classroom assessment activity and preparing students for upcoming external exams. It is felt that the teacher evidence in this study will contribute to and inform the ongoing call in the literature for assessments at all levels to be aligned, that is, to establish an education system that is comprehensive, coherent and continual (Pellegrino et al., 2001). Because the ultimate goal is for students to learn and because assessment is used as a tool to identify student progress, this research aims to explore the classroom reality in terms of internal assessment routine practices as related to external high-stakes test preparation. There are four specific objectives:

- To examine how teachers mediate between classroom assessment activity and preparing students for upcoming external exams.
- To explore how teachers interpret their role in the assessment process.
- To identify and describe the type of teacher and student support needed for effective assessment practices that are aligned across internal and external assessment.
- To develop and evaluate English as a second language (ESL) assessment tasks for classroom use building on the above results.

The main participants in the proposed program of research are secondary V teachers of English as a second language (ESL) in the province of Quebec. Their students must pass the provincial ESL exam as part of the requirement to receive a high school diploma. At present an educational reform is taking place in the Quebec school system and the new final leaving exam (now in its development stages) is an integral part of it. This is the context in which the research will be carried out.

The ideal situation in an education system is when the curriculum, teaching and assessment (both internal and external) are synchronized and therefore it is beneficial for teachers (and other stakeholders) to work for “positive washback” where all components correspond (Black &Wiliam, 2003; Davison, 2008). There has been heightened awareness, however, concerning the differing approaches to assessment, that is, assessment internal to the classroom and that which is external. Important questions are becoming of interest within the context of where these two approaches meet, that is, in the classroom. This has been discussed as the “assessment bridge” (Colby-Kelly & Turner, 2007); Solomon, 2002). One vast question in particular concerns washback: When considering the teacher factor, what is the relationship between classroom based assessments and large-scale testing, that is, teacher classroom assessment versus the education system’s large scale exams? How does this relationship manifest itself in instructional contexts? How do teachers mediate between routine classroom assessment activity and preparing students for upcoming external exams? The call for synchronized assessment within education systems is becoming louder (Pellegrino et al. 2001; Willis, 2007). By exploring the above questions, the anticipated results of this research can lead to a process where teacher evidence helps inform the ongoing call in the literature for assessments at all levels to correspond. This in turn can help create a coherent and comprehensive education system to benefit student learning.