Conditions that mediate teacher agency during assessment reform

Abstract

Purpose A new senior curriculum and assessment policy in Queensland, Australia, is changing the conditions for teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to consider the personal, structural and cultural conditions that mediated the agency of Senior English teachers as they negotiated these changes. Agency is conceptualised as opportunities for choice in action arising from pedagogic negotiations with students within contexts where teachers’ decision-making is circumscribed by other pressures. Design/methodology/approach An action inquiry project was conducted with English teachers and students in two secondary schools as they began to adjust their practices in readiness for changes to Queensland senior assessment. Four English teachers (two per school) designed a 10-week unit of work in Senior English with the aim of enhancing students’ critical and creative agency. Five action/reflection cycles occurred over six months with interviews conducted at each stage to trace how teachers were making decisions to prioritise student agency. Findings Participating teachers drew on a variety of structural, personal and cultural resources, including previous experiences, time to develop shared understandings and the responsiveness of students that mediated their teacher agency. Teachers’ ability to exert agentic influence beyond their own classroom was affected by the perceived flexibility of established resources and the availability of social support to share student success. Originality/value These findings indicate that a range of conditions affected the development of teacher agency when they sought to design assessment to prioritise student agency. The variety of enabling conditions that need to be considered when supporting teacher and student agency is an important contribution to theories of agency in schools, and studies of teacher policy enactment in systems moving away from localised control to more remote and centralised quality assurance processes.

The European Conference on Education 2022: Official Conference Proceedings

“…(2019) employed a sociocultural perspective and seemed to define teacher agency similarly. Ryder et al (2018) alluded to teacher agency as "the professional goals of the teachers" and "the choices teachers make concerning their working practices" (p. 539) while Willis et al (2019) described agentic teachers as those who "engage with new policies and make informed professional judgements about the design, practice, and consequences of classroom curriculum and assessment" (p. 234). However, whereas Willis et al (2019) highlighted contextual factors and conceptualized agency as "a social role that is negotiated in practice, often in the collective of the classroom, or with peers in the broader collective of schools" (p. 234), Ryder et al (2018) argued that it is personal goals and biography, separated from the broader structure, that determine teachers' agentic actions.…”

“…Ryder et al (2018) alluded to teacher agency as "the professional goals of the teachers" and "the choices teachers make concerning their working practices" (p. 539) while Willis et al (2019) described agentic teachers as those who "engage with new policies and make informed professional judgements about the design, practice, and consequences of classroom curriculum and assessment" (p. 234). However, whereas Willis et al (2019) highlighted contextual factors and conceptualized agency as "a social role that is negotiated in practice, often in the collective of the classroom, or with peers in the broader collective of schools" (p. 234), Ryder et al (2018) argued that it is personal goals and biography, separated from the broader structure, that determine teachers' agentic actions. Adopting Dewey's transactional realism, Bergh and Wahlström (2018) focused on teacher agency "in the intersection between the ideal and the realistic", associating it with "experiences in relation to the normative content of the curriculum" (p. 136) that are "experienced by individuals in their interactions with a social and material environment" (p. 139).…”

“…Professional expertise. In Australian assessment reform, teachers' familiarity with proposed changes, experiences with external assessment, adaptability (Willis et al, 2019), and assessment literacy (Poulton, 2020) were found to positively influence agency level. Deep content knowledge may facilitate Chinese teachers' agency (Fu & Clarke, 2018), whereas access to collective experiences of previous curriculum changes provided interviewed Swedish teachers with a broader repertoire to manoeuvre (Bergh & Wahlström, 2018).…”

“…As claimed by Ryder et al (2018), policy mediators who act as brokers between policymakers and school communities could facilitate teacher agency. Besides, interventions from outsiders such as university researchers or teacher educators may encourage teachers to seek out and test alternatives (Willis et al, 2019;Scanlon et al, 2021).…”

Lecturers’ Beliefs and Agency about Active Learning in English For Specific Purposes Classes

“…There is a growing interest in teacher agency in response to the call for curriculum and instruction change initiated by the government; therefore, teachers are likely to act their roles as 'agents of change' (Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015), 'ecology' (Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson, 2017), or 'agentic professionals' (Simpson, Sang, Wood, Wang, & Ye, 2018). As its name suggests, teachers are believed to play an indispensable role within the social, political, and cultural-mediated contexts in which they work to effect changes (Willis, McGraw, & Graham, 2019). Such agentic beliefs are associated with lecturer commitment (Tao & Gao, 2017) and their passion for teaching.…”