Not playing the game: student assessment resistance as a form of agency

Student resistance in the classroom—Functional‐instrumentalist, critical‐emancipatory and critical‐functional conceptualisations

“…Addressing the numerous possible manifestations of students' resisting behaviours, the majority of the literature in this category considers student resistance as a destructive phenomenon (Burroughs, Kearney, & Plax, ; Lamude, Schudder, & Furnolamude, ; Seidel & Tanner, ; Weimer, ; Yüksel, ) and terms it either as misbehaviour (Johnson, Claus, Goldman, & Sollitto, ; Johnson, Goldman, & Claus, ; Kearney, Plax, Smith, & Sorensen, ; Kearney, Plax, Sorensen, & Smith, ), non‐compliance (Burroughs, ; Lamude et al, ; Zhang, Zhang, & Castelluccio, ) or destructive student behaviour (Seidel & Tanner, ; Shekhar & Borrego, ). Students' destructive behaviour ranges from advising the teacher to adopt a different teaching style, blaming the teacher for their behaviour, up to deception, revenge and by appealing to powerful others such as the dean (Akerlind & Trevitt, ; Chory‐Assad & Paulsel, ; Harris, Brown, & Dargusch, ; Paulsel & Chory‐Assad, ; Pursell, ; Seidel & Tanner, ). Other authors problematise behaviours such as non‐attendance (Paulsel & Chory‐Assad, ), low learning activity (Cornelius‐White, ) and rejection of teacher instructions (Gunn, ; Silverthorn, ).…”

“…Other authors problematise behaviours such as non‐attendance (Paulsel & Chory‐Assad, ), low learning activity (Cornelius‐White, ) and rejection of teacher instructions (Gunn, ; Silverthorn, ). In this sense, student resistance is any behaviour that disrupts on‐task teaching and learning behaviours, undermines classroom climate, jeopardises getting correct results in course assessments, and may even inflict harm on the instructor (Bingham, Carlson, Dwyer, & Prisbell, ; Chory‐Assad & Paulsel, ; Harris et al, ).…”

Is Assessment for Learning Really Assessment?

“…The problem with this construction is simple; students are humans with psychological and social concerns as complex as adults. Lois Harris and I have written extensively about how students dissemble to each other and teachers in classroom assessment (Harris et al, 2009(Harris et al, , 2014(Harris et al, , 2015(Harris et al, , 2018Harris and Brown, 2013). Children in school are free-will beings who do not necessarily like or trust their classmates or teacher.…”

Diverse perspectives on student agency in classroom assessment

“…In a recent systematic review of studies focussing on the role of students in assessment, Dinsmore and Wilson (2017) concluded that there is currently a lack of evidence regarding the benefits of student participation in assessment practices, although the authors did not discard the notion that ''participation in assessment can be beneficial in terms of self-regulation'' (p. 164). The range of papers in the Special Issue contribute to filling some of these 'evidence gaps' by addressing student agency in assessment from a variety of lenses-clarity of assessment information through the design of assessment task sheets (Graham et al 2018); the importance of knowing students through careful dialogue (Heritage 2018b), descriptive feedback (Rodgers 2018) and through their out-of-school activities (Bourke et al 2018); enhancing student metacognition (Braund and DeLuca 2018;Panadero et al 2018); and understanding student resistance to assessment practices (Harris et al 2018). There is still a need for more research through large-scale studies and through the intense gaze of small localised studies.…”