The contradictory culture of teacher-based assessment: ESL teacher assessment practices in Australian and Hong Kong secondary schools

Abstract

A growing concern in teacher-based assessment, particularly in assessing English language development in high-stakes contexts, is our inadequate understanding of the means by which teachers make assessment decisions. This article adopts a sociocultural approach to report on the background and findings of a comparative study of ESL teachers’ assessment of written argument in the final years of secondary school in Australia and Hong Kong. Using verbal protocols, individual and group interviews and self-reports, the study explored the different assessment beliefs, attitudes and practices of teachers working with senior secondary Cantonese-speaking students acquiring English as a second language. The study found that the Australian teachers varied considerably in their approach to assessing student work with two somewhat conflicting assessment orientations revealed: the legalistic assessors who ‘ticked the boxes’ according to the published assessment guidelines and those assessors who relied much more on professional judgment. In Hong Kong, there was much more variability in the underlying assessment criteria with consensus reached through reference to community norms rather than explicit statements of performance. The article concludes that traditional notions of validity may need to be reconceptualized in high-stakes teacher-based assessment, with professional judgment, interaction and trust given much higher priority in the assessment process.

Validating an Academic Group Tutorial Discussion Speaking Test

“…In future research, we aim to capture the thought processes of raters as they view student interaction and make grading decisions in real time via think-aloud protocols, following Leung (2012), Davison (2004) and Ducasse & Brown (2009). Such an approach would allow us to determine specific moments in the overall discussion that triggered raters" attention, caused them to make positive or negative appraisals of student performance, see when and where raters reach agreement or disagreement, and show whether raters reach the same grading decisions based on different approaches, or reach www.ccsenet.org/ijel…”

“…6, No. 4;2016 differently despite similar training or language background (Brindley, 1991;Hamp-Lyons, 1989;Cumming, 1990;Davison, 2004), misinterpreting the language of the criteria (Lumley, 2002;Kohn, 2006), making judgements on the criteria based on personal beliefs and teaching experience (Davison, 1999(Davison, , 2004Arkoudis & O'Loughlin, 2004) or with students performing very well under some of the sub-criteria but poorly in others (Saxton, Belanger, & Becker, 2012). Previous informal correspondence with teacher raters suggested that each of the above issues was a factor when considering the validity of the test as a whole.…”

Effective Team Teaching between Local and Native-speaking English Teachers

“…A further illustration of NET impact on colleagues was exemplified by a LET expressing appreciation of the way Pat provided co-teachers with authentic internet resources for units they were team teaching. The LET regarded this as a time-saver so that he could spend more time on composition marking, a particular priority for LETs in Hong Kong (Davison, 2004). Collaboration did, however, also involve some sacrifices.…”

“…In this sense she was going against the prevailing assessment culture in Hong Kong (cf. Davison, 2004) and providing a challenge to the existing status quo. However, both NETs were aware that to compensate for their difference in teaching philosophies, they must be and be seen to be hard-working, in a culture where diligence is one of the most valued attributes (Cheng & Wong, 1996).…”

Efectos de las Prácticas de Evaluación en el Salón de Clase de un Curso de Lectura en Lengua Extranjera (LE)

“…Nowadays, there is a growing interest about the practices the teacher does in the classroom, and some studies have focused on second and foreign language teaching contexts (Cheng, Rogers, & Hu, 2004;Davison, 2004;Leung, 2004;Muñoz, 2009;Rea-Dickens, 2004;Sánchez & Morrison-Saunders, 2010). These researchers have explored teachers' practices and beliefs related to assessment through surveys and the impact of these assessment practices in external norm-setting and tests.…”