Special Issue "The Role of Assessment in Supporting an Equitable Pedagogy"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Bill Boyle
Centre for Formative Assessment Studies (CFAS), School of Education, Ellen Wilkinson Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Website: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/william.f.boyle/
E-Mail: william.f.boyle@manchester.ac.uk
Phone: +44 16 127 53418
Interests: teaching, learning and assessment; self-regulated learning; formative assessment; co-construction; equity and metric

Guest Editor
Ms. Marie Charles
Centre for Formative Assessment Studies (CFAS), School of Education, University of Manchester, UK
E-Mail: yellowaugust@hotmail.com
Interests: early writing development, affective and connative domains, equitable pedagogies, formative assessment

Dear Colleagues,

In 1970, the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire published his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’. It introduced expressions such as ‘humanising pedagogy’ and the ‘banking model’ of education which made a profound and lasting impression on my own training. Over 20 years have passed since the National Curriculum and its assessment was implemented in England followed by the introduction of international testing and performance League Tables. These events have produced a dehumanising of the taught curriculum with the pupil a recipient of a delivery model measured by coverage and banking of facts with the accountability for those facts through increasingly minimum competency examinations.

Freire’s humanistic principles for an enlightened education system have been submerged internationally by ‘one size fits all’ government-issue pedagogy; speeded and basic training in ‘delivery’ for teachers based on the model of pupil as producer of performance data rather than an individual with a stake in his or her own learning journey.

The intention of this Special Issue is to reclaim assessment as an integral part of an equitable pedagogy; in plain terms, assessment to be understood and practised as an essential support to teaching and learning rather than used as a measurement and grading process.

Professor Bill Boyle
Marie Charles
Guest Editors

Submission

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• assessment
• formative assessment
• self-regulated learning
• co-construction
• differentiation
• equity pedagogy
• learning environments
• teacher training

Title: Development centre for principals: a formative assessment  approach to enhance principals’ learning
Authors:Christine Bieri Buschor and Co-authors
Abstract: There has been a major shift from „schools as a secret garden“ towards „accountability“ (Day et al., 2011) since 1990. In this context, principals are considered as change agents to improve school effectiveness (Ball, 2008). Competence-based assessments are currently being used to enhance the professional development of principals and teachers. However, summative assessments lead to showing one’s skills in terms of „impression management“ (Niess, 2012) rather than learning settings. The goal of this article is to show how elements of a developmental assessment centre approach were used to provide a formative assessment for principals to enhance their self-regulated learning and leadership competences.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Involving Students in Assessment: The Role of Interpersonal Factors in Peer Assessment
Authors: Nanine A.E. van Gennip¹, Harm H. Tillema¹ and Mien S.R. Segers²
Affiliations: ¹Department of Educational Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
²Department of Educational Research and Development, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Harm Tillema, Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Science, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: tillema@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Abstract: The present study examines how students in vocational education  partake in peer assessment while gauging interpersonal variables psychological safety and value congruence. Three assessment conditions are compared: (1) a teacher-based assessment condition; (2) a peer assessment condition using pre specified marking rules, and (3) a peer assessment⁺ condition, in which students  were involved in standard setting. Results indicate that teacher based condition differed significantly from peer assessment conditions in psychological safety as well as value congruence. The levels of psychological safety and value congruence were most pronounced in the peer assessment⁺ condition compared to those in the regular peer assessment condition, as a result of higher student involvement.
Keywords: Peer assessment, assessment for learning, vocational education, interpersonal variables.