Assessment for Learning (AfL) is important in policy and practice in secondary schooling across the globe. It is associated with teacher expertise, student agency, a dialogic classroom climate, and a commitment to the needs of all learners. Research about AfL often includes measuring the efficacy of selected practices or foregrounding the role and experience of teachers. Less prominent is literature examining student experience, which is problematic, given AfL's generally agreed aim of orienting learners as evidence seekers, interpreters, and decision‐makers. This scoping review examined 75 empirical studies published since 2002 that provided evidence of the lived experiences of secondary school students when teachers facilitated AfL pedagogical practices. A conceptualisation of student experience as comprising six interrelated dimensions, ranging from recognition of classroom practices to integration with experiences beyond the classroom, is proposed in the thematic arrangement of results. Findings show student experience as responsive to changes in teacher practice when students are co‐practitioners of AfL and developers of disciplinary expertise. The pedagogic power of students as evaluators is affirmed in evidence that positive student evaluation of the worth or value of a practice is an important precondition for productive student experience. AfL further contributes to a generative experience of learning when it enhances dialogic interactions, with students and teachers as partners in moving learning forward. Inclusive AfL and discipline‐specific AfL practices are evident but under‐represented in the field. The video abstract for this article is available at https://youtu.be/L8HI‐KIskLs.
Assessment for learning (AfL) practices in secondary schools are intended to help learners understand what expert performances in disciplines look like, and then apply this understanding to their own learning and assessment performances. Common AfL practices such as sharing criteria for success through rubrics and students using them to interrogate exemplars and give feedback rely heavily on the students’ language and attention. Students need to understand and draw on conceptual and collaborative language, and to make connections across several activity stages. Consequently, students with language and/or attentional difficulties and their teachers face a dilemma. On the one hand, AfL practices can provide access to developmentally appropriate curriculum. On the other, AfL practices may present additional barriers to learning. This article identifies some of the barriers students with language and/or attentional difficulties may encounter in common AfL practices, and how teachers adapted sharing of success criteria to design for greater accessibility. Access to learning is conceptualized by referring to Dewey’s principles of continuity and interaction. Interviews with 20 teachers were analyzed to find out how they adapted AfL to be more accessible in an 8 week AfL pedagogical intervention focused on success criteria. Ideas for designing accessible AfL practices from the outset are outlined as teachers realized the role of their language, small steps, visual tools, and regular opportunities for connection and interactions in making it more likely for students to benefit from AfL practices. Given that students with language and/or attentional difficulties represent some of the highest occurrences of disability in student populations, these ideas have immediate relevance for teachers and those who support AfL practices in educational policy and research.
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