This symposium is related to the project Pupils stories about grades - a study of pupils´ experiences of getting grades and of conducting national tests in grade six, funded by the Swedish Research council. 

For this symposium, we present four contributions, of which two are related to students’ stories about grading, and two to national testing. The purpose of the symposium is to present preliminary findings related to issues of pupils’ feelings, identity and agency on the one hand, and what their stories indicate in relation to issues of equity on the other. Data for the projects are based on interviews with pupils and on video-recordings. Both types of data have been utilised for the contributions to this symposium. In three of the contributions, the main focus is on aspects of pupils’ identities and agency as they appear in the stories produced during the interviews or in video-recordings and further what these can tell about pupils as actors in an assessment system – not only as individuals being assessed. The fourth contribution focuses on ethical issues that can be identified in pupils’ narratives about national tests and discusses them as an aspect produced by the Swedish assessment system. The symposium contributes to the few Nordic studies there are that address students’ perspectives on assessment in school and further relates them to ethical issues.

Medan det i relation till traditionella skolämnen som svenska, matematik, naturvetenskapliga ämnen och språk finns en etablerad ämnesdidaktisk forskning saknar yrkesämnena inom gymnasieskolan i Norden än så länge motsvarande ämnesdidaktisk forskning. Det närmaste forskningsområdet har varit yrkespedagogik, som till stora delar bestått av antingen historiska beskrivningar av yrkesutbildningens historia (generellt eller med fokus på specifika yrkesutbildningar) eller av intervjustudier med elever eller lärare. Studier av hur yrkesundervisningen tagit form eller förändrats över tid har inte varit vanliga, även om sådana sedan några decennier förekommit i t.ex. Tyskland. Under 2000-talet har intresset för yrkesundervisning i skola och arbetsliv ökat, vilket bland annat kan utläsas av ett ökande antal internationella tidskrifter inom området. Då ämnesplanerna för de flesta yrkesprogrammen är relaterade till konkreta verksamheter och kunskapstraditioner av betydelse för den specifika yrkesutbildningen istället för till akademiskt relaterade kunskapstraditioner, utgör t.ex. transformationen av specifika aspekter av det yrkeskunnande som utövas på arbetsplatser till ett innehåll för skolbaserat lärande exempel på områden som kunde vara intressanta att studera komparativt mellan olika yrken och yrkesområden. Syftet med detta paper är att bidra med en översikt av forskningsläget i Sverige idag, mot bakgrunden av att en forskarskola i yrkesämnenas didaktik startade 2012 inom ramen för Kunskapslyftet för lärare, kompletterad med några internationella utblickar relaterade till utvecklingen under de senaste åren. 

The present paper is based a systematic research reviews (Hirsh & Lindberg, forthcoming) for the Swedish Research Council, aiming at systematically identify and report recent and current trends in research into formative assessment, in Sweden as well as internationally. Here the issue is to illuminate firstly, in what ways formative assessment is perceived and used in research contexts, and secondly what differences and similarities that exist in research on formative assessment between countries. The review is limited to research published in Swedish and peer-reviewed articles in English during 2000 - 2014. The initial searches yielded approximately 2000 hits (internationally published articles) and 230 Swedish theses and articles. However, most of the hits were related to other than compulsory school and were therefore excluded. Overall findings are that the term 'formative assessment' is used in either a narrow (instrumental) or a broad sense (a complex phenomenon addressed on various levels); that Asian studies tend to be related to ICT, while British and Australian studies have a larger width and American studies tend to be related to accountability or the No Child Left Behind-reform. In Swedish research, young researchers and classroom studies dominate. To conclude: not only theories of learning, but also basic epistemological and ontological assumptions need to be addressed in future research, as do issues related to assessment embedded in teaching, which calls for collaboration with research into classroom practices.

Assessment is described as a process that includes the collection, interpretation and presentation of data which leads to a defined decision (Nyström, 2004). In recent years, the models of formative and summative assessment have been frequently discussed and debated by school researchers such as Gipps (2001), Jönsson (2009), Korp (2011), Lundahl (2006, 2011), Moss, Girard and Haniford (2006), Pettersson (2011) and Wiliam (2006). Formative assessment is a smoothly flowing process of assessment and summative assessment is assessment of the student’s acquired knowledge at a certain time or an exam (see e.g. Black&Wiliam, 2003; Gipps, 2001; Moss et al., 2006; Wiliam, 2006). The discussion of assessment is often about how a teacher, based on curricular goals and knowledge requirements, can implement a similar and equivalent assessment of student knowledge (cf. ibid.). Equivalent assessment is a central concept in earlier research on grading and assessment (see e.g. Black&Wiliam, 2003; Gipps, 2001; Lundahl, 2006, 2011). Teachers’ assessment should not rest on their personal ideas of what knowledge they see as important for the education. Assessment must be based on established criteria (see e.g. Black&Wiliam, 1998) if students are to be assessed equally and fairly. Assessment takes place in an interaction between teachers, students, their environments, language, and the objects which are used in the process, such as or computers, and books (Moss et al., 2006). By assessing, teachers try to create opportunities for students to show what they can (Nyström, 2004).

Research on vocational education shows that the relationship between the vocational teacher and the students is very important in the formative assessment model (Asghari, 2014). Equally important is the vocational teacher’s feedback to the students (Öhman, 2015). In the summative assessment model, students’ vocational theoretical knowledge is often assessed (Lindberg, 2003). Studies of vocational teachers’ assessment practice can contribute to previously unknown views of teachers’ work (Lindberg, 2011). In the forthcoming article, which this presentation is a part of, two vocational teachers’ assessment practice when they talk about their experiences of teaching will be shown and discussed. Assessment can be discussed from many different aspects. It can serve as a way to motivate students in their learning, it can make students’ reasoning about the topic visible for teachers, it can create opportunities for feedback to students, and it can construct different identity formations in students (Moss et al., 2006). And identity formation is what the article, based on the studies of vocational teachers’ assessment practice, will focus on. The assumption is that vocational teachers’ assessment practice leads eventually to the students’ grades and those students can through their grades construct different identities in different contexts (cf. ibid.). It means that a non-passing grade can bring consequences in students’ lives, like losing their self-confidence, dropping out of school and education, and even in some cases, become gang members and get into crime. It appears from vocational teachers told experiences that students, through a pass grade, may identify themselves as students, who may have enough knowledge, are good enough as citizens and are proud to be skilled workers. It also appears that vocational teachers in such situations identify themselves as a caring teacher. Vocational teachers told experiences show different considerations that qualify for a pass-grade and may be categorized as “pass grade in advance”, “pass grade as praise”, “pass grade as a last chance” and “pass grade for being well behaved and socially competent”. These categories of assessment do not proceed from curricular goals and knowledge requirements, but they may be related to vocational teachers’ care for their students.

References

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