A systematic review of prerequisites for implementing assessment for learning in classroom practice

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAlthough many researchers acknowledge that Assessment for Learning can significantly enhance student learning, the factors facilitating or hindering its implementation in daily classroom practice are unclear. A systematic literature review was conducted to reveal prerequisites needed for Assessment for Learning implementation. Results identified prerequisites regarding the teacher, student, assessment and context. For example, teachers must be able to interpret assessment information on the spot, student engagement in the assessment process is vital, assessment should include substantial, constructive and focussed feedback, and the school should have a school-wide culture that facilitates collaboration and encourages teacher autonomy. The results of this review contribute to a better understanding of the multiple facets that need to be considered when implementing Assessment for Learning, from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint.

Academic staff perspectives on technology for assessment (TfA) in higher education: A systematic literature review

“…This systematic review supports the current state of the field, which has emphasised a scarcity of studies which investigate the core issues relating to academic staff technological adoption within teaching and learning in higher education (King & Boyatt, ; Selwyn, ) Similarly to Heitink et al () and Bennett et al () this work emphasises the need for more studies into the required operational costs, time and resources of TfA for academic staff. The systematic review found a lack of any (published) longitudinal investigation of academic staff experiences of implementing or using TfA in a sustained manner.…”

“…This study expands on other reviews that emphasised the perceptions of academic staff (Heitink, Van der Kleij, Veldkamp, Schildkamp, & Kippers, 2016) by taking a wider perspective on assessment to include formative and summative assessment. It also explores a wide range of technologies (see Figure 4) used by academic staff within assessment in the HE sector.…”

Effectiveness of clicker‐assisted teaching in improving the critical thinking of adolescent learners

“…However, an appropriate control group including students who do not receive any form of critical thinking training, either clicker-based or traditional, is required for a proper analysis of this speculation with a pretest-posttest design, and it can be the subject of further research in the future. The positive results for the clicker group on the other hand empirically substantiate the notion that the presumed hurdles in the implementation of clickers (such as technical issues, unfamiliarity or unease of the learners with the alien piece of technology in the classroom, difficulty of development of appropriate questions, and time limitations) can be overcome by good designs and practices (Heitink, Van der Kleij, Veldkamp, Schildkamp, & Kippers, 2016;Lee et al, 2012). The teacher noticed enthusiasm among the students toward the use of clickers in the classroom.…”

“…This may hint that the traditional pedagogical method was, to say the least, too slow in the improvement of critical students to show a large effect in the time course between the administration of the pretest and posttest. The positive results for the clicker group on the other hand empirically substantiate the notion that the presumed hurdles in the implementation of clickers (such as technical issues, unfamiliarity or unease of the learners with the alien piece of technology in the classroom, difficulty of development of appropriate questions, and time limitations) can be overcome by good designs and practices (Heitink, Van der Kleij, Veldkamp, Schildkamp, & Kippers, 2016;Lee et al, 2012). However, an appropriate control group including students who do not receive any form of critical thinking training, either clicker-based or traditional, is required for a proper analysis of this speculation with a pretest-posttest design, and it can be the subject of further research in the future.…”

Data use in education: alluring attributes and productive processes

“…For example, we know that teachers draw upon a range of knowledge sources when deciding upon their instructional strategies, such as informal data on unstructured classroom observations, subjectdidactic knowledge, relational knowledge, formal data on assessment results, research results and research reviews (e.g. Heitink, Van der Kleij, Veldkamp, Schildkamp, & Kippers, 2016;Schildkamp et al, 2014). However, teachers often struggle with how to use and integrate these, and additionally, policy makers and administrators tend to draw upon somewhat different knowledge bases than teachers, and partly also school leaders (Labaree, 2005;Møller, 2015).…”