c) La Exposición Universal de 1888

The literature review demonstrates how developments in theories of learning and in epistemologies of knowledge led to changes in the conceptualisation of assessment over the past fifty years. Teachers are at the forefront in implementing these changes and a number of researchers have completed empirical research examining teachers’ perspectives on assessment (Marlow et al., 2014; Leighton et al., 2010; Wyatt-Smith et al., 2010; Torrance, 2007; Marshall and Drummond, 2006; Brown, 2004; Yung, 2001). Assessment is currently utilised in education for a number of purposes, which have been outlined previously. Research (Brown, 2006) has demonstrated that teachers do not believe that assessment is irrelevant. Teachers agreed with the notion that assessment may be used to improve teaching and learning, and that it may also be used for school accountability purposes. However, the research also shows that teachers do not believe that assessment has any purpose in student accountability. This research implies that the implementation of any new assessment policy must take account of teachers’ conceptions of assessment in order to succeed. Further research highlights the centrality and complexity of teacher judgement practice in such a policy context (Allal, 2013; Brookhart, 2013; Wyatt- Smith et al., 2010). In an Australian context teachers have stated standards by which they award grades. Wyatt-Smith et al. found that, while the stated standards are utilised by teachers, they are insufficient to fully account for how teachers ascribe grades. Other factors impact largely in this process, especially social and cognitive ones. Allal (2013) also highlights both the individual cognitive and the socially situated aspects of teachers’ judgements. This research demonstrates that teachers can introduce adaptations in their procedures to take into account individual student specificities.

46 Assessment for learning approaches have been introduced in many jurisdictions in the past twenty years. In examining the success of assessment for learning approaches, it was found that there is a strong link between teachers’ personal convictions and their successful implementation of assessment for learning practices (Lysaght, 2010; Marshall and Drummond, 2006; Yung, 2001). These practices were more likely to be used effectively if teachers took responsibility for the success or failure of pupil autonomy than those teachers who only implemented the procedures. This has implications for any implementation of reform in assessment practices as reform will not succeed unless teachers have a sense of agency and personal conviction about the changes. Difficulties or obstacles in instigating these reforms were only surmounted when the teachers believed themselves professionally responsible for the success of the reform (Marshall and Drummond, 2006). Lyzaght and O’Leary (2013) recognise these issues for teachers in the Irish primary education setting and developed an assessment for learning audit instrument. They found that most practices associated with AfL approaches were “at best emerging” (2013, p.225). However, Marlow et al. (2014) found that an assessment tool introduced in the UK to support a formative approach is used differently across schools and at times is used in a summative manner, which raises the question of how teacher assessments are used and their purpose.

Assessment for learning approaches also highlight the importance of the pupil’s role in mediating their own learning. The teacher-pupil relationship is imagined as one of facilitation and partnership where the teacher assists the pupils in understanding any challenges they may be having and outlining how to improve their learning. As assessment also contains a summative role, where the teacher collects data and reports back to parents or the larger system, this leads to a tension

47 in the teacher’s role. If there is an assessment innovation or initiative that is significantly different to the beliefs that teachers hold, the challenge on the teachers demand them to restructure their belief or ‘domesticate’ the reform so that it fits into their belief system (Yung, 2001). These findings are especially important at a time when large-scale testing in being introduced in many jurisdictions, including Ireland.

Other researchers have demonstrated that teachers do not believe in the efficacy of such tests (Leighton et al., 2010). Their research shows that teachers who believe that classroom tests provide more information about pupils’ learning styles and progress, are more likely to influence meaningful learning, and are more likely to develop learning rather than test-taking strategies. Innovative assessment approaches that are too prescriptive have also led to problems in their implementation. A danger of this practice is that assessment becomes the totality of education – instead of assessment of learning or assessment for learning there is assessment as learning. Research (Torrance, 2007) has demonstrated how assessment can dominate the learning experience. Teachers can begin to use assessment for learning approaches to constitute the curriculum as opposed to aiding learning. Key components of assessment for learning, such as instructive feedback, can be interpreted very narrowly, with an overwhelming focus on criteria compliance and award achievement. Tunstall and Gipps (1996) demonstrate that primary teachers provide a variety of feedback to pupils in a school day. They classify the roles of feedback as socialisation, classroom management, performance orientation, mastery orientation, and learning orientation. They recommend the use of feedback based on learning orientation for formative assessment purposes. Murtagh (2014) found that, whilst teachers may claim that they make effective use of some feedback strategies to support pupils’ learning and motivation, that this is not supported by

48 empirical data. This research demonstrates that when the locus of control regarding feedback lies with the teacher, it negatively affects pupils’ intrinsic motivation. In an Irish primary education setting, Lyzaght and O’Leary (2013) found that feedback specifying the nature of progress is being established in classrooms. However, feedback from teachers designed to assist learning and the involvement of pupils in providing feedback to parents is not nearly as common. The next section will examine the empirical research involving pupil perspectives on assessment.