6.6.1 Requirements and criteria establishment
In Class 1, the STs had only a week to complete the task and knew that the other class had two weeks, so some students felt this was unfair and negatively impacted their results. Moreover, as with Task 1, several interviewees mentioned pressure and workload of other assessment tasks in other modules at the same time, which influenced directly the quality of their assessed work. Additionally, most of the STs saw the choice of month, class and school as a fair feature of this assessment because they could make choices that played to their strengths. Dan explained this:
With the freedom in choosing a month, some who did not have much experience with activity organisation, they could choose a month with less extracurricular activities […] (Dan)
To Dan, the freedom in the task might result in differences in the quality of the plans designed by different STs. One or two interviewees worried that the different contexts in different classes or schools led to different plans and it might difficult for the lecturers to compare the plans and might bias the assessment results.
We had to accept that each school had different features: some did not have strengths in both academic quality and extracurricular activities. We just needed to define suitable objectives for the school STs to achieve, it was not necessary to require to organise all activities as the rubrics. (Bich)
Consequently, Bich suggested the lecturers be flexible in assessing their plans. The STs’ concern about the detailed rubric was an aspect of their perception of fairness in
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assessment. From their point of view, too many criteria equalled too many requirements, so it was hard for the STs to meet them and the rubric might impact on their mark. Some interviewees implied that the deficiency of authentic learning and assessment in other modules from the first year of the teacher education programme limited their ability to perform this task.
I did not suppose to be assessed in this way [Task 1 and Task 2]. It was interesting and useful for me but it was really new, I had not got used to it. […] I think we would have been assessed in this way from the first year to avoid strangeness. (Quan)
Like Quan, other STs also expected to have more opportunities to get used to authentic assessment forms. In short, in the STs’ perception, the factors which supported or restricted them to perform best in the task were the dimensions of fairness and equity in assessment.
6.6.2 Peer and self-assessment
As described above, in this task, peer assessment was conducted via feedback only and did not impact on the final marks. It is likely that, for this reason, the STs did not mention fairness and equity in peer assessment, but paid more their attention to fairness and equity in self-assessment. Some interviewees perceived self-assessment to be fair because it took both lecturers and STs’ voices into account. A few interviewees supposed that self-assessment was useful to assess the assessment process (while lecturers were better placed to assign marks) because STs knew most clearly how they had conducted the task and how hard they had worked. Combining assessment of students and the process itself in a single assessment may lead to fairer assessment. Coupled with the clear, specific rubric and class discussion, the interviewees strongly believed that they could assess their own assignments.
We should use self-assessment because we had a long process to complete our assignments, we could assess exactly our real competencies. Before doing it, there were some presentations and discussions, [so] we could know which limitations of our plans were. (Bich)
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From Bich’s view, it could be seen that involving STs via self-assessment was a strategy to improve the reliability of the assessment results. However, as found in Task 1, STs also determined that the assessment results given by STs were subjective and inaccurate to some extent, due to bias and lack of assessment experience. Therefore, all STs wanted self-assessment to carry a low weight because, in their opinion, the higher the weight given to self- assessment, the greater the bias. It seemed that the STs really worried about the reliability and accuracy of self-assessment marks, as well as marks in general. As in Task 1, STs supported peer and self-assessment, but were still concerned the inaccuracy of marks given by their peers and themselves.
6.7 Student teachers’ perceptions of outcomes of authentic assessment
6.7.1 Learning outcomes
There were mixed emotions toward the results of the task. Some interviewees were satisfied with what they did and their final products. At the time of the interviews, they did not know the results of lecturers’ assessment, but they believed that they had done good assignments and were pleased with the knowledge and skills they gained during the task (as with Task 1).
Again, the interviewees could identify invisible but long-term useful results of the task. The task allowed STs to place themselves in a teacher’s shoes to learn more about teaching work in practice and to do the work that all form tutors have to do. This task helped them expand their understanding of school context.
I had to go to school [after the task]. I did not remember much about theories but I remembered a lot of the practice because I observed the school practice, naturally it went in my mind. (Hong)
The discovery of diversity in high schools, classes and STs helped them learn about the flexibility of classroom management plans as mentioned earlier.
I think each school, each class has a different context, we may have a common form of classroom management plan but depending on each context, we need creativity and flexibility in the plans to suit the context. (Quan)
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For that reason, they had to actively make their own plan from their understanding and experience with a specific context. Moreover, the professional knowledge and skills gained during the task were appreciated.
By task 2, I had gained knowledge of how to manage [and] supervise a class, how to make a classroom management plan in the role of form tutors in high schools. I practiced the planning skills, goal-setting skills, activity organising skills, skills of assessing students’ competencies to assign them tasks appropriately. (Dan)
Dan’s opinions were shared by many interviewees. They supposed that for teachers, emotional-social skills were core professional skills, without which they could not understand, communicate with or influence students. They did not practice all these skills in the task, but nevertheless it helped them to see the importance of those skills. Additionally, assessment skills were also developed in the task using peer and self-assessment. STs agreed that these were compulsory skills for all teachers and this assessment experience would be helpful for them later.
Later it will be easier for us in assessing, discovering our students’ mistakes, designing rubrics so that we could look at them to assess the students’ products. (Dao)
Such statements indicated that STs gained realistic experience that made them believe they could do better in the future. STs connected the task with the requirements of teaching. The contribution of the task to their professional skill development was acknowledged, which made them appreciate the authenticity of Task 2.
6.7.2 Marks and feedback
As mentioned earlier, STs still thought marks were important. However, they also confirmed that they were interested in realistic and useful experiences.
The importance was not the current marks, but our skills of designing classroom management plans later. (Bich)
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Bich defined herself as a teacher-to-be, and thus expected to gain realistic experience from the task rather than high marks. Therefore, she appreciated feedback from the lecturers and peers. Moreover, from oral feedback during the presentations and discussion in class, STs had the chance to reflect on their assignments and compare them to the plans presented. A few interviewees emphasised their respect for the lecturers’ feedback rather than that of their peers.
I would have been happy if the lecturer were interested in my assignment. If there were some negative feedback, I would have asked the lecturer and my peers to explain and debated with them. The lecturers’ feedback was most valuable, the peers’ feedback should be considered as minor reference source. (Luong)
In Luong’s opinion, the lecturers had more experience in assessment; they could give more accurate, comprehensive, intensive judgments than other STs. When asked about STs’ preferred format of feedback, some interviewees selected public, common feedback.
I prefer to get public and common feedback in front of the whole class. If we had more time, we would have invited more presentations to get the feedback to correct them […] Getting more feedback from other STs was better. (Khuong)
Like Khuong, other interviewees also expected to get broad experience and judgment from different people. They explained that through the presentations, the lecturers and other STs gave their oral and public feedback and each student could learn more than getting the feedback for only his/her work anonymously.
6.8 Student teachers’ perceptions of impact of authentic assessment on their