Exploring Chilean Teacher Candidates’ Assessment Literacy

Abstract

Despite substantial investment in teacher preparation, low levels of teacher assessment literacy persist, particularly with respect to the sociocultural and ethical dimensions of assessment. This study reports on interviews with 12 Chilean elementary teacher candidates (TCs). During interviews, TCs reviewed a set of assessment challenges and reported how they would address each challenge. Challenges were designed to elicit assessment as, for, and of learning in response to assessment challenges involving language and culture. Chile presents an interesting context due to its strong policy emphasis on formative assessment and a changing, increasingly diverse student population. TCs’ proposed assessment moves were highly context-dependent and tended to favor formative practices. Culturally responsive assessment approaches were also mentioned, but were primarily oriented toward valuing students as individuals rather than toward sustaining and expanding cultural and linguistic identities. Responses also reflected dominant group-oriented perspectives, characterized by deficit views or the absence of sociocultural considerations. Together, these results highlight the challenge of moving beyond technical assessment skills toward developing the dispositions and skills necessary for justice-oriented classroom assessment practices.

1. Introduction

In many countries, teacher preparation programs (TPPs) devote considerable resources to equip teacher candidates (TCs) with classroom assessment skills. However, low levels of TCs’ assessment literacy persist (Pastore, 2023). Recent scholarship has also emphasized the importance of attending to issues of language and culture within classroom assessment efforts (Brookhart, 2024; Evans, 2023; Kang & Furtak, 2021). However, justice-oriented or culturally responsive classroom assessment is largely ignored in assessment literacy definitions, teacher preparation efforts, and in empirical research (Brookhart, 2024).

The literature that does exist on justice-oriented classroom assessment is largely theoretical (Furtak et al., 2025, Shepard, 2021) or reports on specific teacher preparation efforts (McGowan & Tzou, 2025; Penuel et al., 2025), providing useful guidance to researchers and teacher educators about topics and concepts to explore and activities to implement. However, little is known about how TCs think about justice-oriented classroom assessment. Without this information, it is difficult for TPPs to know how best to prepare TCs for classroom assessment that meets the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. This study attempts to fill this gap by reporting on interviews with 12 Chilean TCs who attend 5 different TPPs. Interviews ask how the TCs would respond to a set of predetermined assessment challenges intended to elicit different approaches to assessment—assessment as, of, and for learning—while also presenting situations that involved issues of justice as they related to language and culture.

This interview-based approach is unique in that data collection was unaffiliated with any TPP program, limiting concerns about social desirability. The study is also novel because it asks TCs to provide open-ended responses to questions about what they would do in response to hypothetical assessment challenges as opposed to directly examining experiences that naturally occur during the course of student teaching. As such, a wide array of assessment issues, linked directly to teacher preparation standards, can be explored.

Chile provides a pertinent and relevant context. The Chilean government has invested heavily in guiding TPPs to develop classroom assessment skills and has emphasized formative approaches, more specifically, assessment as and for learning. Chile’s teacher preparation standards (CPEIP, 2022; hereafter Estándares) include two major sections on classroom assessment, but do not address the impact of language or culture on classroom assessment beyond mentioning issues of fairness. Simultaneously, Chile is educating an increasingly diverse citizenry marked by tremendous growth in immigrant populations (Colmenares & Abarca, 2022) and increasing sensitivity toward Chile’s Indigenous community, which makes up 12 percent of the total population (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile, 2025). However, there is a widespread belief among Chileans from dominant groups that poverty—as opposed to association with a minoritized group—is the main source of inequity (Bellei, 2013). This backdrop provides a rich opportunity to explore TCs’ thinking about classroom assessment when it is emphasized in policy and when there is an urgent need to learn how to better educate minoritized students. Using this approach, we explore the following research questions: (1) What kinds of assessment moves do Chilean teacher candidates report they would use in response to a set of classroom assessment challenges?, and (2) To what extent, and in what ways, do Chilean teacher candidates address student language and culture in proposing different assessment moves?

2. Review of Literature

The literature review is organized into three sections that provide the theoretical and empirical foundation for examining Chilean TCs’ approaches to assessment in culturally diverse classrooms. The first section, assessment literacy in teacher preparation, presents the research on the development of assessment literacy in TCs. The second section, justice-oriented assessment, introduces frameworks that challenge deficit views of students and instead center student language and culture as assets. Finally, the classroom assessment in the Chilean context section situates the study within national policies and teacher preparation, highlighting the need for research on how assessment practice addresses the needs of Chile’s increasingly diverse student population. Taken together, these studies highlight that: (a) assessment literacy is an ongoing challenge area for TPPs, (b) justice-oriented assessment literacy is only beginning to emerge as an area of practice worldwide, and (c) because of its increasingly diverse population, Chile presents an interesting test case for exploring how TCs approach justice-oriented classroom assessment.

2.1. Assessment Literacy in Teacher Preparation

Assessment literacy is a critical component of teacher professionalism (Brookhart, 2024; Pastore & Andrade, 2019; Xu & Brown, 2016), at least in part because skillful use of classroom assessment both informs decision-making about how to most productively allocate instructional efforts and helps teachers to develop meaningful relationships with students to attain learning goals (Chen & Bonner, 2020; Leighton & Bustos Gómez, 2018).

The research consistently characterizes TCs as having low levels of assessment literacy (Pastore, 2023; Van Orman et al., 2025). TCs often report feelings of unpreparedness (Van Orman et al., 2025) and conceptualize assessments predominantly through a summative and negative lens due to their own schooling experience (Smith et al., 2014). However, it is possible to positively influence how TCs think about assessment. Smith et al. (2014) followed a cohort of TCs in New Zealand over the course of their education and found that assessment beliefs varied over time. Entering TCs viewed assessments as only summative. By their third year, TCs demonstrated a clearer understanding of the assessment’s role in informing learning.

Other researchers characterize teacher assessment literacy as a continuum. Duckor et al. (2017) validated a set of performance tasks used to measure TCs’ classroom assessment. Using Rasch modeling, they described the progressions of 72 TCs from having disjointed, intuitive notions about assessment to developing sophisticated, integrated mental models.

Coombs et al. (2018) also describe the assessment practices of TCs and of in-service teachers using the Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory (ACAI). The ACAI addresses the purpose, process, and fairness of classroom assessment and also captures understanding of measurement theory. They collected data from 727 participants—27 percent of whom were TCs—across four career stages and identified 443 unique assessment profiles. Profiles were used to identify an evolutionary trajectory reflecting how training, experience, and institutions influence teacher views of assessment. Initial TCs—those at the start of their teaching credential program—prioritize assessment for learning and differentiation, but largely ignore the validity of inferences or practical issues. In contrast, teachers at later career stages continue to prioritize assessment for learning and differentiation, but also attend to the extent to which assessments accurately measure learning.

Xu and Brown (2016) reviewed 100 studies and proposed a new conceptual framework called Teacher Assessment Literacy in Practice (TALIP), which also presents teacher assessment literacy as a learning trajectory that is shaped by evolving contexts. They argue that TPPs should move beyond developing TCs’ technical skills to address beliefs and help TCs navigate assessment challenges that arise in classrooms. They emphasize the importance of constructing a professional assessment identity through reflective practice to achieve these goals. The TALIP framework reflects changes in conceptions of classroom assessment literacy. The field has moved away from technocratic, objectivistic understandings of student achievement to approaches that embrace sociocultural theories as important lenses for making sense of what students know and can do (Xu & Brown, 2016).

This situated view of classroom assessment literacy has corresponded to increasing focus on formative assessment, which Brookhart (2023) and Pastore and Andrade (2019) note requires teachers to navigate a multitude of competencies, including communicating learning goals and criteria for success to students and using assessment data to inform instructional decisions. They also emphasize the importance of providing effective feedback that guides students to reflect on their learning, a central component of self-regulation. Brookhart (2023) further highlights that well-executed formative assessment acts as an “agent of equity” (p. 170) by ensuring all students have access to the support needed to succeed.

While the idea of teacher assessment literacy is well-established, significant gaps remain in teachers’ ability to use classroom assessment effectively. Formative uses of classroom assessment are particularly challenging. Van Orman et al. (2025) report that many educators overemphasize assessment for learning—the teacher’s role in eliciting evidence and adapting instruction—and underemphasize assessment as learning—student-driven practices such as self- or peer-assessment intended to help students develop self-regulated learning skills. Another persistent issue relates to assessment of learning—or the methods used to certify what students know and can do, especially the conflation of academic performance and compliance with teacher expectations that can undermine the validity and interpretability of grades (Brookhart, 2023).

A substantial body of research has established that TPPs play an important role in developing assessment literacy, through a combination of coursework and practicum experiences (DeLuca et al., 2013; Graham, 2005; Levy-Vered et al., 2022; Mthembu et al., 2023; Xu & He, 2019). Importantly, several authors have noted that participation in practicum experiences and in coursework over an extended period of time is required to change both TCs’ skill in developing and using classroom assessment and also TCs’ dispositions to view classroom assessment as beneficial to learning (Deneen & Brown, 2016; Xu & He, 2019).

However, conceptions of assessment literacy have not yet caught up with modern understandings of high-quality teaching that incorporate the need to be equitable, justice-oriented, and culturally responsive (Furtak et al., 2025; Hosseini et al., 2024; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris, 2012). Furtak et al. argue that classroom assessment could and should support justice-oriented goals. They explain, “assessment has the potential to be a key site for transforming education for more equitable, just, sustaining, and thriving futures... we need well-grounded theories and practices of assessment aligning with the expansive and critical vision of learning” (p. 407).

Qualitative research is needed to support theory building. Yet most research on TCs’ assessment literacy is quantitative and questionnaire-based (Brown, 2006; Coombs et al., 2018; DeLuca et al., 2018; Gotch & French, 2014; Kyttälä et al., 2024; Lutovac & Flores, 2022; Pereira et al., 2025) or analyzes assessment data collected to meet requirements for completing a formal teacher education program (Atjonen et al., 2022; DeLuca et al., 2013; Graham, 2005; Levy-Vered et al., 2022; Mthembu et al., 2023). We identified only two studies that included qualitative components. Both studies collected open-ended data from teacher candidates about their assessment literacy.

Xu and He (2019) conducted focus groups, individual interviews, and observations of six Chinese TCs during their teaching practica. Data collection focused on general experiences with and opinions of assessment, questioning, and feedback strategies observed during instruction. They found that practica helped TCs develop deeper and more realistic conceptions of how assessment can be used to further student learning. While informative, their approach did not explore how TCs might respond to a wide variety of assessment challenges because they were limited to interactions that happened to occur during observations. Deneen and Brown (2016) interviewed six master’s degree students (both in-service and pre-service teachers) about their conceptions of assessment and discovered that negative opinions about assessment persisted even after the completion of assessment coursework.

Neither study was explicitly focused on the attainment of teacher preparation standards. Nor did they explore the full array of assessment skills that teachers use. They also did not explore issues of equity or justice as they relate to TCs’ assessment literacy. This study is the only one we are aware of that: (a) asks TCs to share how they might respond to predetermined assessment challenges, and (b) incorporates issues of equity and justice while exploring TCs’ assessment literacy.

2.2. Justice-Oriented Assessment

Assessment is a double-edged tool. While it can serve as a vehicle for advancing equity and closing opportunity gaps, it may also reinforce the advantages of students in dominant groups (Heritage & Wylie, 2018). Boykin (2014) argues that traditional assessments act as a barrier to the growth of students from minoritized groups because they have been used primarily as a tool to categorize and select students, a process that has disproportionately excluded those from underrepresented backgrounds. In a similar vein, Randall et al. (2021, 2025), and Nortvedt et al. (2020) criticize classroom assessments for privileging Eurocentric ways of knowing and expression, devaluing and neglecting the cultural expressions, languages, and lived experiences of students from minoritized communities. These authors argue that classroom assessment practices produce inaccurate, deficit-oriented interpretations about the knowledge and capabilities of minoritized students. Such practices, often framed as “race neutral” or “color blind,” ultimately reinforce hierarchies that elevate dominant group norms to positions of superiority and universality (Boykin, 2014; Randall et al., 2021). We refer to this perspective as dominant-group oriented (DGO).

In contrast, justice-oriented perspectives seek to dismantle deficit-based approaches to education by acknowledging the historical structures of oppression embedded in assessment practices, examining their consequences, and intentionally disrupting them by centering the needs of marginalized populations (Randall et al., 2021). Boykin (2014) recommends the use of “human capacity building” (p. 499) assessment practices to develop talent rather than merely evaluate it. This aligns with Heritage and Wylie (2018), who argue that equity requires moving beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to position students as capable learners by using assessment to identify specific learning needs, helping students to engage with learning experiences targeted to their needs.

Culturally responsive assessment (CRA) and culturally sustaining assessment (CSA) are related to justice-oriented approaches as they value students’ cultural and social identities in the assessment process, advancing principles of social justice (Nortvedt et al., 2020; Randall et al., 2021). Nortvedt et al. define CRA as, “assessment designs, processes and adaptation to individual students and classrooms as well as to assessment outcomes that are sensitive to cultural variations in ways of participating, thinking and learning” (p. 11). As such, CRA communicates value for student identities and ways of knowing. In contrast, CSA “fundamentally reposition(s) classroom assessment as a means of sustaining learners’ cultures and languages (Bang & Medin, 2010) and expanding educators’ interpretive power (Rosebery et al., 2016) in their daily interactions with learners... in the service of promoting, not merely evaluating, students’ deep learning” (Furtak et al., 2025, p. 406). CSA goes beyond CRA by actively incorporating and furthering student cultural and linguistic identities. As such, both CRA and CSA are forms of justice-oriented assessment; both seek to deconstruct deficit perspectives by centering student cultural assets and promoting socially just outcomes.

Cochran-Smith and Keefe (2022) propose a distinction between “thin equity” and “strong equity.” Thin equity focuses on ensuring individual access and uniformly distributing resources without questioning the social structures that produce inequality. In contrast, strong equity acknowledges that injustice is rooted in historical and structural factors and calls for the redistribution of resources and opportunities, valuing the knowledge and experiences of minoritized students, promoting the representation of minoritized groups in curricular decision making, and challenging dominant narratives. From this perspective, preparing teachers who are genuinely committed to justice means not only helping students adapt to existing systems but also actively working to transform them.

2.3. Classroom Assessment in the Chilean Context

Classroom assessment has been recognized as a crucial component of teacher assessment literacy in Chile, and it is thoroughly addressed in Chile’s teacher preparation standards (Estándares; CPEIP, 2022). The Agencia de la Calidad de la Educación (2016) conducted a study that investigated the scope and depth of assessment theories covered during teacher preparation, the perspectives of various stakeholders involved in teacher training, and the assessment topics addressed. The study revealed that Chilean TPPs focus on assessment for learning and, to an even stronger extent, the use of external standardized assessments to reflect on instruction. Use of classroom assessment to reflect on instruction was largely overlooked, despite the fact that the importance of preparing teachers for formative classroom assessment is emphasized both in policy and in educational regulations (CPEIP, 2022; MINEDUC, 2020).

One such policy is the Estándares (CPEIP, 2022)—Chile’s teacher preparation standards—which outline the competencies that TCs should develop. Two sections of the Estándares directly address assessment-related competencies and outline the specific skills graduates are expected to have developed. The organization of the Estándares is described in the methods section of this paper.

Sun et al. (2011) and Sun (2022) analyzed results from a comprehensive, portfolio-based assessment that practicing public school teachers must take to maintain their teaching certification. They found that, while the pedagogical skills of Chile’s teachers have improved over time, progress over time is weakest in teacher assessment skills. Only 12–36% of teachers were scored as competent in assessment, compared to much higher competency rates in other domains. For example, 91% of teachers were rated competent in planning skills.

Navarro Ciudad et al. (2021) analyzed questionnaire data from a 211-item instrument administered to 724 final-year TCs across 23 Chilean TPPs to examine how to improve TC preparation for classroom assessment. They calculated an opportunity to learn (OTL) index in several areas. Overall, OTL was calculated based on “general pedagogical knowledge” (school curriculum, learning and child development, and school culture) and “disciplinary knowledge” from four disciplines (Mathematics, History, Natural Science, and Language). Twenty-eight items addressed OTL for assessment.

Navarro Ciudad et al. (2021) found that for nearly half of the sample (48%), preparation for assessment was significantly lower than preparation in other areas, such as child development, curriculum, and school culture. They suggest that this imbalance may be a consequence of assessment training often being offered through a single introductory course.

In addition, the Estandares (CPEIP, 2022) do not address the role of language or culture in shaping student and teacher experiences of assessment but do make general references to fairness. This contrasts with the country’s rapidly increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, marked by a 95% rise in the immigrant population since 2017, which challenges an educational system that remains “in great measure, monocultural” (Riquelme-Sanderson & Peña-Sandoval, 2024, p. 274).

Teacher preparation in culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogy is also lacking. Riquelme-Sanderson and Peña-Sandoval (2024) call for a fundamental reorientation of Chilean TPP curriculum to address issues of diversity and immigration throughout each program instead of in isolated courses. They argue that such a justice-oriented approach to teacher education is needed to help future teachers, “develop cultural competence and help maintain the knowledge and practices of culturally diverse students” (p. 273).

Taken together, the literature highlights persistent gaps in how Chilean TCs are prepared to engage with classroom assessment and argues for the importance of giving assessment literacy a more central role in teacher preparation. There is also an urgent need to incorporate justice-oriented approaches into teacher preparation, particularly as Chile’s student population has become increasingly diverse. Research is needed to examine how justice-oriented classroom assessment practices, in particular, can address the needs of Chile’s changing student population.

3. Methods

We used semi-structured interviews to explore TCs’ assessment moves. Data were collected as part of a larger instrument development study focused on justice-oriented Chilean TCs’ assessment literacy. TCs were asked to respond to a series of classroom assessment challenges presented as short vignettes and were asked how they would address each challenge. We applied provisional coding (Saldaña, 2013) and thematic analysis to identify significant themes as they emerged across codes (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

3.1. Participants

Twelve TCs from five TPPs participated in the study. We selected a convenience sample of participants who were enrolled in the fourth and final year of their elementary credential programs, had student teaching experience, and had successfully completed an assessment course. We focused on TCs at advanced stages in their education because they were most likely to be knowledgeable about assessment, both from coursework and from applied experience, conditions that Xu and Brown (2016) argue are needed to both develop classroom assessment skills and dispositions that view classroom assessment as supportive of student learning.

Participant characteristics are presented in Table 1. Most participants were recruited from two TPPs (four participants from each TPP), two attended a third TPP, and the remaining TCs each attended a different TPP. All TCs self-identified as female. TCs were placed in classrooms spanning first through eighth grade across municipal, subsidized, and private schools. School type serves as an important indicator of student socioeconomic status (SES)—municipal schools are public schools that tend to serve impoverished students, subsidized schools tend to serve students from more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and private schools primarily serve high-income families (Miguez et al., 2022; Bellei, 2013). Most TCs interned in multiple schools with differing school types. We also wanted to capture the extent to which participants had personal experience in diverse socioeconomic contexts prior to entering teacher education. In Chile, SES is widely considered to be the main source of inequity, and minoritized people tend to live in impoverished areas (Bellei, 2013). We asked TCs where they grew up and the type of elementary school they attended. We used municipal-level estimates of poverty (e.g., median income) from the 2022 National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (CASEN; Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Familia, 2022). Most participants completed their practica in multiple locations, with one practicum in a school with similar economic demographics as the schools that they themselves attended and another practicum in a different school type. They also grew up in relatively wealthy areas.

Table 1. Participant characteristics.

Personal Background			Student Teaching Experience
ID	Home Region SES	School Type	School Types	Grades	Diversity of Students
P1	Q5	Subsidized	Subsidized	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity Ethnic diversity
P2	Q3	Municipal	Subsidized Municipal	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity Ethnic diversity
P3	Q4	Private	Municipal Private	Elementary	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity Ethnic diversity
P4	Q4	Municipal	Subsidized Municipal	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status
P5	Q5	Private	Municipal Private	Elementary	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity
P6	Q5	Private	Private Subsidized	Elementary	Ethnic diversity
P7	Q4	Subsidized	Municipal Private	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity
P8	Q5	Subsidized	Subsidized Municipal	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity Ethnic diversity
P9	Q3	Subsidized	Subsidized Municipal	Elementary Middle Grades	Low socioeconomic status Cultural diversity
P10	Q5	Private	Subsidized Private	Elementary Middle Grades
P11	Q5	Private	Subsidized	Elementary	Low socioeconomic status
P12	Q4	Subsidized	Private	Elementary	Cultural diversity

Note: School type indicates socioeconomic status (SES): municipal schools tend to serve low-SES students, subsidized schools tend to serve mixed SES students, and private schools tend to serve high-SES students. Home region (similar to US counties) SES refers regional income quintiles reported by the Chilean National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (CASEN, 2022). Q1 = the lowest median income; Q5 = the highest. Elementary = grades 1 to 4; Middle grades = grades 5 to 8, consistent with Chile’s organization of grade levels. The diversity of students column indicates which minoritized groups TC reported teaching during their student teaching placement.

3.2. Materials

Semi-structured interviews were guided by an interview protocol designed to learn how TCs might respond to different assessment challenges, presented in the form of vignettes tied to specific descriptors in the Estándares. Two different standards address assessment-related competencies: Standard 4, “Assessment Planning” and Standard 9, “Assessment and Feedback for Learning.” Five focus areas (two under Standard 4 and three under Standard 9) provide more detailed breakdowns of the competencies associated with each standard. The most granular description of the skills that TPPs should develop—called descriptors—are organized within focus areas. We wrote vignettes to represent different descriptors, ending up with 16 vignettes overall as described in Table 2 and Table 3. To reduce participant burden, vignettes were divided into two forms, and participants were randomly assigned to a form, taking care to ensure that both forms were equally represented in interviews.

Table 2. Focus areas and descriptors represented in each vignette: Evaluation and planning standard.

Vignette	Descriptor
Focus Area: Construction and collection of learning evidence
V1: You are a 3rd-grade teacher. You are planning the writing assessments that you will administer throughout the year. What kind of assessments would you plan? Why?	Plans the evaluation considering the appropriate moments and various techniques and instruments for it, including self- and peer-evaluation by their students, so that everyone can demonstrate what they have learned and their results provide timely and relevant information regarding progress and achievement of the learning objectives.
V2: Your 5th grade class is diverse. It includes immigrants and students from the Mapuche community. You are in the middle of the unit about traditional legends. What strategies would you use to identify what your students have learned so far?	Design assessments that allow diversifying and broadening the evidence, formative, to monitor and track learning, and summative, to collect information on the level of achievement of learning objectives.
V3: You have developed three quizzes with your grade level team to assess your students’ skill in adding fractions. Your team noticed that a group of students who seemed to understand the contents during lessons performed below the learning expectations on the three quizzes. What would you propose to your team to get better information?	Adapt, in collaboration with peers, the evaluation strategies and procedures to diagnose, give timely feedback and qualify the learning of students who require specific support.
V4: Your students are working on math problems that require them to explain their thinking. Your Haitian students, who are new to Chile, are struggling to write their explanations in Spanish. What do you do?	Builds, selects and adapts evaluation criteria consistent with the learning objectives, to guide their observation.
V16: You have a diverse classroom where one of your students is from a Middle Eastern country. You applied a test and realized that your Middle Eastern student, instead of answering “two-thirds” answered “thirds-two.” How would you interpret their answer?	Addresses the ethical dimension of evaluation and the use of evidence, to interpret the results and detect biases that may reflect inequities in learning opportunities.
Focus Area: Analysis of learning evidence and feedback
V5: Paulina, a student from Chile, and Maria, a new student from Venezuela, got the same score on a standardized test in 7th grade. In 8th grade, Paulina got a much higher score than Maria. What would you do to better understand this result?	Analyzes the data and evidence provided by the assessments, to identify gaps between the expected learning and the actually achieved, as well as changes with respect to previous evaluations, and to improve the evaluation procedures and techniques used.
V6: You are teaching a unit on the importance of the appropriate use of natural resources. Your students discussed a documentary about the importance of natural resources and wrote a journal entry about their experiences taking care of nature. In the next activity, they will work in groups to present a poster about how to take care of the environment. At what points in your Unit would you provide them with feedback to make them reflect on their learning? What methods would you use to provide feedback?	Plan different instances—oral and written, individual and group—to provide students with timely feedback that helps them reflect on and regulate their own learning.
V7: You are a 6th-grade teacher, and some of your immigrant students performed worse than other students on a reading comprehension assessment in which they read a text about Chile’s Independence Day celebration. The students have consistently demonstrated strong reading skills on classroom assessments. How would you interpret these results?	Addresses the ethical dimension of evaluation and the use of evidence, to interpret the results and detect biases that may reflect inequities in learning opportunities.
V8: You and your colleagues are developing grading policies for the coming school year and have noticed that some students do not do well when they are tested at the beginning of the marking period, requiring you to reteach some concepts. How would you suggest to use the results of the beginning of the marking period? Would you recommend to retest students and only use the most recent test performance to generate a grade? Why?	Determines procedures to qualify the performance of its students, using evaluation criteria in a fair, rigorous and transparent way, and that accurately communicate through a number, symbol or concept, the level of learning achievement.

Table 3. Focus areas and descriptors represented in each vignette: evaluation and feedback for learning standard.

Vignette	Descriptor
Focus Area: Criteria for evaluation and monitoring of learning
V9: You have developed a rubric to assess the writing skills of your 4th-grade students. How would you make sure that the students understood the rubric?	Explain the assessment criteria to students, aligned with the learning objective, giving them examples of the expected performance so that they gradually participate in the definition of these criteria.
V10: While teaching a unit about fractions, you ask your students to order the fractions with the same numerators but different denominators from largest to shortest. About 15% of your students put the fraction with the largest denominator in the space for the biggest number. What would you do to understand the source of their confusion?	Checks during class, through questions or relevant activities, the level of understanding of their students and identifies difficulties and errors to redirect teaching.
V11: You give an assessment to determine which 1st-grade students need support in developing their decoding skills. Students performed very differently, with some students doing very well and others struggling with differentiating the sound /r/ and /rr. How would you use this information?	Use the monitoring results to carry out additional and differentiated activities or to reorganize learning experiences, providing support according to the rhythms, characteristics and needs of their students.
Focus Area: Feedback
V12: Your colleague asks for advice on how to provide feedback to her fourth-grade students who are finishing a unit on fables. She is worried because a Haitian student wrote a draft of a fable that included all of the important parts, except it did not teach a lesson about the world. His tale included some words written in Creole. What feedback characteristics would you emphasize?	Offers students descriptive feedback in a timely manner, based on evaluation criteria and indicators, so that they have differentiated information on the levels of achievement of the knowledge, skills and attitudes defined in the evaluated learning objectives; and to establish strategies that allow them to overcome the gaps.
V13: You just finished grading the first test. Many students are immigrant students from countries with different grading systems. How would you help students understand their grades and reflect on performance?	Communicate to students the grades obtained, making sure they understand the number, symbol or concept that represents the level of learning achievement, so that they define their own improvement goals and commit to the following learning processes.
V14: All but two of your 4th-grade students did well on the most recent test. How would you talk to these students about their grades to help them persevere?	Develop timely strategies to address the potential effects of assessment and grades on students’ emotions and motivation, in order to protect their academic self-esteem and promote perseverance in learning the discipline taught.
Self-assessment of learning
V15: You are planning a peer assessment for a writing activity where each student will write a description of a painting. How would you guide your students so they provide accurate information about performance to each other and use each other’s feedback to improve their work?	Teaches and guides students to use criteria, indicators and attributes for self- and peer-assessment processes, with the purpose of observing their learning and that of others, and determining the learning achieved and those that require improvement.

Interviews lasted about an hour and started with questions about TC backgrounds and experiences in school settings. We then presented participants with a slide deck that included one vignette per slide (eight slides total) and asked them how they might respond to the vignette if that situation occurred in their classroom. We prompted participants for a categorizable assessment use (as, of, or for learning) or justice orientation (CRA, CSA, or DGO) if they did not automatically provide one.

3.3. Procedure

Participants were recruited through personal contacts, recruitment flyers, and word of mouth in accordance with a university-approved HSIRB. The first author, a Chilean national, conducted all 12 interviews individually via Zoom. The interviews lasted approximately 1 h, were conducted in Spanish, and were audio-recorded.

After obtaining consent to participate, the interviewer asked participants about their background and experiences in teacher education. She then read each vignette out loud as it was presented on the slide and asked participants to share how they would respond to the presented challenge. Participants received a $30 honorarium.

Zoom recordings were automatically transcribed by Amberscript (2025, Version 3.0) software, which uses artificial intelligence. Transcripts were subsequently reviewed and manually edited to ensure the fidelity of the participants’ testimonies and to facilitate qualitative analysis. Spanish transcripts were translated into English using Google Translate to facilitate consensus coding.

3.4. Analysis

Data analyses were conducted using NVivo (Version 15; Lumivero, 2025). Because our analysis was driven by a specific analytical interest in justice-oriented assessment practices, we employed a theoretical thematic analysis rather than a purely inductive one (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

To organize the dataset, the first author applied attribute coding to register participant characteristics—demographics and classroom experiences—and structural coding to identify the vignette being discussed. Then, coding vignette-by-vignette, both the first author (working in Spanish) and the second author (working with English translations of interviews) independently applied the codes derived from established frameworks, both parent codes that captured the six assessment approaches—assessment as, of and for learning, CRA, CSA, and DGO—and subcodes—second-order tags to the primary codes to capture specific details about how these approaches might play out (e.g., Were teachers focused on issues of language, or culture? Did they use deficit-oriented language or lower expectations for specific students?). Across all transcripts, 96 text segments were analyzed (2 forms × 8 vignettes per form × 6 participants per form).

We initially coded four transcripts and examined intercoder agreement, with agreement rates between 87.4 and 99.9 percent depending on the code. However, a qualitative review revealed interpretative discrepancies hidden by these high numbers. To ensure rigor and trustworthiness, we employed consensus coding, which prioritizes intensive group discussion to resolve discrepancies over simple statistical agreement, ensuring a shared and deep interpretation of the data (Saldaña, 2013). Therefore, the researchers met, compared codes, and arrived at consensus for all instances in which codes differed. This process also helped us refine the codebook and select the most representative quotes (see Table 4). After completing this joint coding effort, the first author conducted a focused analysis of the subcodes, examining the co-occurrence of codes to develop themes.

Table 4. Qualitative codes used in the study: Assessment approaches.

Code	Definition
Parent Child Grandchild
As learning (AaL)	Suggests activities or strategies that encourage students to develop self-regulation and metacognition.
Metacognition	Provides opportunities for students to reflect on their own learning processes, such as evaluating their strategies or identifying sources of error.
Peer feedback	Provides opportunities for students to exchange comments with their peers to provide constructive information, with the aim of improving each other’s work or understandings.
Self-assessment	Provides opportunities for students to critically analyze their own performance, including reflecting on their strengths, weaknesses, and overall effectiveness.
For learning (AfL)	Uses assessment to adjust teaching, define strategies and plan next steps.
Plan instruction	Uses assessment to guide subsequent instructional moves or plan future lessons.
Identify students	Uses information to identify students for additional support in specific areas.
Monitor understanding	Uses assessment to diagnose what students know without stating how information will be used, including asking students for verbal explanations.
Of learning (AoL)	Uses assessment to certify or qualify students learning. This includes using formative assessments for grading purposes.
Marking or scoring	Assign a number or value to a piece of work
End-of-unit assessment	Assesses what students learned at the end of a period, unit.
Dominant group (DGO)	Suggest activities or strategies that promote assimilation into the dominant culture, without valuing students’ diverse experiences/knowledge.
Deficit perspective	Focuses on perceived deficiencies of cultural groups.
Linguistic knowledge	Consider students’ home language to be less valuable than the standard language.
Lowers standards	Reduces expectations or criteria for certain students or groups of students.
Culturally Responsive (CRA)	Acknowledges the knowledge and experiences students bring from their cultures and uses them as resources for learning new content.
Linguistic resources	Recognizes students’ home language. Builds on existing language skills without viewing language as a deficit.
Students use first language	Allows students to use their full linguistic repertoire.
Translates to students’ language	Takes steps to translate assignments into students’ home language.
Cultural knowledge	Acknowledges students’ unique cultural knowledge and assets as valuable to learning. Acknowledges student cultural knowledge without viewing it as a deficit.
Different modes	Applies varied assessment methods so students can fully demonstrate what they know and can do. This includes asking students to orally explain and allowing multiple means of expression on an assessment that all students take.
Culturally Sustaining (CSA)	Supports students in affirming and expanding their identities and cultural practices.
Linguistic resources	Creates opportunities for students to share their home language with others.
Cultural resources	Provides opportunities for students to share their culture with others.
Other equity	Equity-oriented moves that are unrelated to CRA or CSA (for example, mentioning potential bias in an assessment)

4. Results

Results are organized by each research question and the themes that we identified from the analysis. Key patterns and variations in participants’ responses are described, and vignettes are identified by (v), and illustrative quotes are presented and identified by participant (P).

4.1. Research Question 1: Types of Assessment Moves Reported

The first research question explored the kind of assessment moves that participants said they would enact in response to classroom assessment challenges. Two themes emerged from the analysis: the prioritization of student agency and instruction, and the context-dependent nature of their assessment choices.

4.1.1. Prioritizing Student Agency and Instruction

Participants conceptualized assessment primarily as a pedagogical tool to foster student agency and guide instruction rather than as a method for accountability. Consequently, participants reported a significantly higher number of formative assessment moves, which included Assessment as Learning (AaL) and Assessment for Learning (AfL), compared to summative moves, which consisted of Assessment of Learning (AoL), as shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Frequency with which teacher candidates brought up a specific assessment use.

Use		Representative Quote	# Participants (n = 12)	# Times (n = 96)
Assessment of Learning			10	24
	Marking or scoring	I would evaluate them with a rubric... for example; Do they explain in a clear and coherent way the appropriate use of natural resources? So, put 0 to 5 and evaluate according to that. (V6, P04)	7	10
	End-of-unit assessment	I find that there are many times when the summative scores don’t measure reality as much, because of course, it’s a grade... something might have happened... all the socio-emotional aspects can [affect performance]. (V5, P10)	5	8
Assessment for Learning			12	32
	Use evidence to plan future instruction	I am very much in favor of the fact that the first tests should be formative only to see the level at which the students are and from there get to work. Yes, it means a delay in the curriculum, in meeting all the objectives, with all the planning that one has in the year, but it is important that no student is left behind and on the fly It is important to cover all those patches as much as possible. (V8, P1)	7	9
	Identify students who need special support	After obtaining responses from all the assessments, I would classify them according to which students have greater or fewer difficulties and then provide additional support to those who need reinforcement. (V4, P1)	4	6
	Monitor understanding	Review the errors as a whole. See which part of this was the hardest for them, such as reviewing what’s missing or understanding misconceptions. (V14, P6)	9	20
Assessment as Learning			10	25
	Metacognition	they correct their own tests, giving them the opportunity to understand where they went wrong. (V11, P5)	10	19
	Peer feedback	When everyone presents, their classmates... explain what they lacked, where they should enhance, the issue of why they were given that score, why they were criticized for such a thing. (V6, P4)	9	10
	Self-assessment	I would try to have each student do a self-evaluation in the sense that they check what we are doing... for example, does my fable have a title? My fable contains characters that are, in this case, I don’t know, animals? my fable is leaving a message? So that the student himself can understand what he is missing and what he is not. (V12, P2)	6	8

Note: The number of participants who mentioned a specific assessment use and the total number of times a use is mentioned are presented. Bolded numbers present overall counts for assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning.

Moves aligned with AfL were the most frequently mentioned (32 codes, every participant). Participants focused on the instructional utility of assessment when discussing assessment moves in this category. This included using assessment results to: (a) monitor student understanding (20 codes, 9 participants), (b) plan future instruction (9 codes, 7 participants), and (c) identify students requiring specific supports (6 codes, 4 participants). TCs often described how they would directly interact with students to monitor for understanding (the most frequently mentioned aspect of AfL). For instance, when asked about planning writing assessments in V1, P1 said she would incorporate opportunities for oral explanation, “I would speak directly with them so they could explain [what they wrote] to me, so I can see whether I have really understood.”

AaL and AoL were discussed with equal frequency (25 codes and 24 codes, respectively; 10 participants each). Metacognition—a subcode within AaL—was the most frequently mentioned subcode (19 codes, 10 participants), suggesting that participants prioritize strategies designed to develop students’ ability to reflect on their own learning processes and identify sources of error. For example, when asked how she would discuss poor grades with students to encourage perseverance in V14, P2 emphasized helping students analyze their results to plan next steps. She stated, “I will ask them to try to distinguish where their errors are so that they themselves can realize what could be missing… and how they have to work for this.” Participants also mentioned peer feedback (10 codes, 9 participants) and self-assessment (8 codes, 6 participants), two AaL approaches addressed in a specific focus area of the Estándares, but with less frequency than general metacognitive strategies.

AoL involves moves used to certify or qualify students’ learning, including discussion of how participants would mark or score specific assessments (10 codes, 7 participants) and use formal, end-of-unit assessments (8 codes, 5 participants). For instance, when planning assessments for a writing unit in V1, P1 described using a rubric as a scoring tool to assign a final grade. Participants often emphasized the importance of alignment between summative grading criteria and the formative tools used during instruction, “At the end, I used a rubric (to assign a grade). What’s important is that it was very similar to the checklist the students used while they were working.”

4.1.2. Context Influences How Assessments Are Used

Vignette-by-vignette analyses revealed that participants reported uses of assessment were highly context-dependent, with different pedagogical challenges eliciting distinct assessment uses (Table 6). While there was an overall tendency toward formative practices, participants demonstrated a capacity to adapt their reported moves based on the specific nature of the classroom vignette.

Table 6. Count of teacher candidates recommending different assessment uses by vignette (n = 6).

Vignette	AoL	AfL	AaL
V1: You are a 3rd-grade teacher. You are planning the writing assessments that you will administer throughout the year. What kind of assessments would you plan? Why?	5	4	3
V2: Your 5th grade class is diverse. It includes immigrants and students from the Mapuche community. You are in the middle of the unit about traditional legends. What strategies would you use to identify what your students have learned so far?	0	4	0
V3: You have developed three quizzes with your grade level team to assess your students’ skill in adding fractions. Your team noticed that a group of students who seemed to understand the contents during lessons performed below the learning expectations on the three quizzes. What would you propose to your team to get better information?	1	4	0
V4: Your students are working on math problems that require them to explain their thinking. Your Haitian students, who are new to Chile, are struggling to write their explanations in Spanish. What do you do?	0	2	0
V5: Paulina, a student from Chile, and Maria, a new student from Venezuela, got the same score on a standardized test in 7th grade. In 8th grade, Paulina got a much higher score than Maria. What would you do to better understand this result?	1	2	0
V6: You are teaching a unit on the importance of the appropriate use of natural resources. Your students discussed a documentary about the importance of natural resources and wrote a journal entry about their experiences taking care of nature. In the next activity, they will work in groups to present a poster about how to take care of the environment. At what points in your Unit would you provide them with feedback to make them reflect on their learning? What methods would you use to provide feedback?	4	1	3
Vignette 7: You are a 6th-grade teacher, and some of your immigrant students performed worse than other students on a reading comprehension assessment in which they read a text about Chile’s Independence Day celebration. The students they have consistently demonstrated strong reading skills on classroom assessments. How would you interpret these results?	1	0	0
Vignette 8: You and your colleagues are developing grading policies for the coming school year and have noticed that some students do not do well when they are tested at the beginning of the marking period, requiring you to reteach some concepts. How would you suggest to use the results of the beginning of the marking period? Would you recommend to retest students and only use the most recent test performance to generate a grade? Why?	4	4	0
Vignette 9: You have developed a rubric to assess the writing skills of your 4th-grade students. How would you make sure that the students understood the rubric?	2	0	4
Vignette 10: While teaching a unit about fractions, you ask your students to order the fractions with the same numerators but different denominators from largest to shortest. About 15% of your students put the fraction with the largest denominator in the space for the biggest number. What would you do to understand the source of their confusion?	0	4	2
Vignette 11: You give an assessment to determine which 1st-grade students need support in developing their decoding skills. Students performed very differently, with some students doing very well and others struggling with differentiating the sound /r/ and /rr. How would you use this information?	0	5	0
Vignette 12: Your colleague asks for advice on how to provide feedback to her fourth-grade students who are finishing a unit on fables. She is worried because a Haitian student wrote a draft of a fable that included all of the important parts, except it did not teach a lesson about the world. His tale included some words written in Creole. What feedback characteristics would you emphasize?	1	0	2
Vignette 13: You just finished grading the first test. Many students are immigrant students from countries with different grading systems. How would you help students understand their grades and reflect on performance?	3	0	6
Vignette 14: All but two of your 4th-grade students did well on the most recent test. How would you talk to these students about their grades to help them persevere?	2	1	4
Vignette 15: You are planning a peer assessment for a writing activity where each student will write a description of a painting. How would you guide your students so they provide accurate information about performance to each other and use each other’s feedback to improve their work?	1	0	1
Vignette 16: You have a diverse classroom where one of your students is from a Middle Eastern country. You applied a test and realized that your Middle Eastern student, instead of answering “two-thirds” answered “thirds-two.” How would you interpret their answer?	0	3	0

In vignettes addressing challenges related to supporting students, participants predominantly said that they would use AaL or AfL. They emphasized providing opportunities for students to independently analyze their work and identify areas for improvement. This reflects a focus on developing self-regulation and metacognitive skills. For example, when discussing V12, P11 said she would try to prompt the student’s own cognitive processing rather than simply providing the correct answers:

I would try to have the student look for the word himself, to understand what he was trying to say, and ask him whether everything is correct. I would have the student think about what is missing from the moral or the lesson about the world. The idea is to help him find different solutions on his own—to make him think.

Similarly, participants emphasized gathering evidence to inform instructional planning, an aspect of AfL. For instance, V10 presents a scenario in which a significant number of students demonstrated misconceptions about the ordering of fractions. When asked about how she would respond, P6 proposed using the identified error as a focal point for future instruction, “This is something that is very likely to happen to them, so perhaps we should work more with errors in class.”

Conversely, participants were more likely to employ AoL approaches when vignettes explicitly involved assessment instruments or grading policies. Notably, these approaches were often paired with AfL or AaL. For example, four participants brought up AoL-related moves and four mentioned AfL in response to V8, which involves collaborating with colleagues to plan grading policies for the coming school year and how to address situations in which students initially perform poorly. Participants discussed AoL (2 participants) and AaL (4 participants) in response to V9, which asks about strategies a participant might use to help students interpret a scoring rubric associated with a specific assignment. P4 emphasized the value of using a rubric to clearly explain to a student why specific points were deducted:

If I put zero it is because it means that he forgot to put something, for example an accent mark. And if he doesn’t know he will ask me, why do I have zero in this dimension? … Then I would go and take the story and tell him, look Juanito, here in the word “more,” you have to put an accent mark, and I will tell him that’s why he doesn’t have the corresponding score.

This pattern suggests that participants knew to use all three assessment approaches–AaL, AoL, and AfL–to target the different assessment roles that teachers must fulfill. They also used these approaches in combination to meet the needs of students. Of particular note was participants’ prioritization of supportive, non-graded approaches associated with AaL and AfL, even when AoL was also discussed. In doing so, participants demonstrated a capacity to adapt their assessment practices to support learning.

4.2. Research Question 2: Justice-Oriented Assessment Moves

The second research question examined the extent to which participants exhibited appreciation for students’ language and culture when proposing different assessment moves. Two themes were identified that support the idea that participants saw students’ cultural and linguistic resources as supportive of learning, but the application of this view was not homogeneous: the prevalence of culturally responsive assessment (CRA) and justice-oriented perspectives as a viable alternative across contexts.

4.2.1. The Prevalence of CRA

When addressing issues of justice, participants prioritized CRA (30 codes, every participant), mentioning approaches consistent with this approach more often than culturally sustaining assessment (CSA) (13 codes, 8 participants), dominant-group oriented (DGO) (11 codes, 7 participants), and other equity moves such as mentioning potential bias in assessments (5 codes, 3 participants). The frequency with which justice-oriented approaches were raised by participants is detailed in Table 7.

Table 7. Frequency with which teacher candidates proposed a specific approach.

Approach		Representative Quote	# Participants (n = 12)	# Times (n = 96)
Dominant-group oriented			7	11
	Lowering standards	I think that when it comes to writing skills, I would assess them differently. I would evaluate them using achieved/not achieved, rather than comparing them with their classmates. (V1, P4)	3	3
	Use of dominant language	The idea is for him to adapt to our language and gradually abandon his native tongue. (V12, P12)	4	5
	Deficit perspective	I would interpret [poor performance] as meaning they’re not interested... I feel like there are many Venezuelans who hate Chile, so they can pass that on to their children. (V7, P08)	5	5
Culturally Responsive Assessment			12	30
	Linguistic resources	In the end, it’s a math test; the focus isn’t on the language involved, but on what he wants to achieve.. It’s like when children write letters backward or numbers backward. It’s basically fine, it’s just that they’re still in progress. (V16, P6)	1	2
	Students use first language	I would talk to international students and let them know that I’m available for anything they need. We could even look at [their work] in their own language... whatever it takes to help them, using the tools available. (V6, P5).	6	9
	Translates to students’ language	And I also think that I would present the problem to them in their language (V4, P4).	4	4
	Cultural knowledge	Perhaps there is another student who also finds this [culturally-embedded] way... of saying two-thirds useful, for him it is also a little clearer or makes much more logic or more sense. I do not agree with eradicating them, I would like, if it is possible to add them, for them to be added. (V2, P2)	8	12
	Different modes	Yes, so that they can represent it graphically or in the way that is most comfortable for them. (V4, P4)	9	11
Culturally Sustaining Assessment			8	13
	Linguistic resources	a glossary could be included that could help both them and the reader, because perhaps they don’t know those words either. In the end, how to construct this hybrid, ultimately, not how to cut them off from their culture, but rather combine them. (V12, P6)	3	3
	Cultural resources	I would open a dialogue so that the Haitian children could share their experiences... and the kids in the class as well... it would be reciprocal, and they could learn together. (V4, P09)	8	11
Other Equity		But María, being from Venezuela, may have some words that are different from our Chilean vocabulary. So, perhaps, [she] might get a lower score for not understanding the same thing that Paulina understood here in Chile. (V5, P9)	3	5

Note: The number of participants who mentioned a specific assessment approach and the total number of times an approach is mentioned are presented. Bolded numbers present overall counts for dominant group-oriented, culturally responsive assessment, culturally sustaining assessment, and other equity.

CRA moves acknowledge students’ funds of knowledge and uses them as resources for learning new content, including: treating students’ culture as an asset that can be incorporated into the assessment process (12 codes, 8 participants), allowing students to present their knowledge using a variety of modes (11 codes, 9 participants), encouraging students to use their primary language when completing assessments (9 codes, 6 participants), translating assessments to students’ primary language (4 codes, 4 participants), and acknowledging the role that primary language plays in the assessment process without treating it as a deficit (2 codes, 1 participant). These moves show that participants recognize and value students’ home languages and cultures and build on them to foster learning.

For example, when P1 was asked during a discussion of V10 how she would interpret the answer of a Middle Eastern student who, instead of answering “two thirds,” answered “thirds-two,” she answered as follows:

I get the sense that he is answering based on his previous knowledge or how (the concept) was taught to him previously. I would not say that it is a wrong answer because I have to understand that teaching and learning (practices) vary across different parts of the world.

CSA was the second-most frequently reported category, yet it has the most potential to be transformative. Unlike CRA, which uses language and culture to facilitate learning, CSA explicitly affirms and expands students’ linguistic and cultural practices by providing opportunities for students to share and expand their home language (3 codes, 3 participants) or cultural knowledge (11 codes, 8 participants). For example, translating your own assessments to students’ first language or encouraging students to use their first language to respond are consistent with CRA, while a CSA approach provides students with opportunities to share and expand their language. P6 proposes a CSA approach to V12 when describing giving feedback to a student who used a mix of Spanish and Creole in a fable that they wrote:

I think we could even emphasize incorporating [their Creole writing] as a form of hybridity, creating spaces for students to mix their cultures, because in the end they are becoming part of one culture, but not in a way that requires them to eliminate the other. I think that sometimes, unconsciously or due to a lack of attention, we as teachers do not incorporate this, but perhaps students themselves can do so and offer ideas, and after that, it might even permeate the classroom.

A DGO approach to assessment—the opposite of CRA or CSA—was mentioned less frequently. DGO prioritizes assimilation into the dominant culture while failing to value students’ diverse experiences and knowledge. The participants in our sample at times voiced a DGO assessment perspective by focusing on perceived deficiencies of minoritized students (5 codes, 5 participants), shared that students’ knowledge of their home language was less valuable than proficiency in Spanish (5 codes, 4 participants), or shared that it is appropriate to lower expectations for minoritized students (3 codes, 3 participants). These responses framed adaptation as the main goal and resisted rethinking of assessment practices to better meet students’ needs. For instance, when discussing V9, P1 shared her belief that expectations should be lowered for minoritized students. She discussed the use of a common rubric with all students, including those who do not speak Spanish, explaining:

“… I think with all cases of diversity, one has to be much less drastic. That’s the good thing about rubrics, that in the end they contain what has been achieved, moderately achieved and to be achieved, then the scores aren’t so terrible. You always have to be very understanding”.

(V9)

Finally, it is important to note that we also attempted to code for deficit-oriented perspectives about students having different cultural knowledge, but failed to find any comments that asserted this belief. While we can not make any assertions about the role of race in the DGOs of participants, it is important to note that the majority of Chile’s immigrant population are migrants from Spanish-speaking countries. Most Spanish learners are from Indigenous communities or are Black students from Haiti, confounding issues of race with language.

In addition, we identified other types of equity-oriented assessment moves that did not fall within the categories of CRA or CSA. Some participants recognized that assessments themselves may have limitations, that students may lack the specific vocabulary needed to understand a question, that testing situations may cause stress to some students, and that specific assessment methods may not be suitable for all students. For example, V3 consists of a situation in which a group of students who appeared to comprehend the content during class then performed below the minimum expected level on three assessments of the content. Participant P6 reflected that, to better understand the situation, she would review the tests themselves. She stated, “I think we should first review the instruments, because it could be a very circumstantial matter, since they’re doing well and understanding the content.”

4.2.2. Equity-Oriented Perspectives as a Viable Alternative Across Contexts

The vignette-by-vignette analyses presented in Table 8 reveal that different vignettes tended to elicit different justice orientations. Participants most often adopted CRA for vignettes in which language served as a barrier to accessing content (e.g., V4). However, they were more prone to DGO when rigorous expectations or national identity seemed to be challenges for students (e.g., V12, V7). Importantly, vignettes that often elicited CRA or CSA codes also elicited DGO comments to a lesser extent. This suggests that there are numerous situations in which justice-oriented assessment approaches are possible if TCs have the disposition and skills to use them.

Table 8. Count of teacher candidates recommending a justice-oriented approach by vignette (n = 6).

Vignette	DGO	CRA	CSA	OE
V1: You are a 3rd-grade teacher. You are planning the writing assessments that you will administer throughout the year. What kind of assessments would you plan? Why?	1	3	0	0
V2: Your 5th grade class is diverse. It includes immigrants and students from the Mapuche community. You are in the middle of the unit about traditional legends. What strategies would you use to identify what your students have learned so far?	0	1	5	0
V3: You have developed three quizzes with your grade level team to assess your students’ skill in adding fractions. Your team noticed that a group of students who seemed to understand the contents during lessons performed below the learning expectations on the three quizzes. What would you propose to your team to get better information?	0	1	0	0
V4: Your students are working on math problems that require them to explain their thinking. Your Haitian students, who are new to Chile, are struggling to write their explanations in Spanish. What do you do?	0	3	1	0
V5: Paulina, a student from Chile, and Maria, a new student from Venezuela, got the same score on a standardized test in 7th grade. In 8th grade, Paulina got a much higher score than Maria. What would you do to better understand this result?	1	3	0	1
V6: You are teaching a unit on the importance of the appropriate use of natural resources. Your students discussed a documentary about the importance of natural resources and wrote a journal entry about their experiences taking care of nature. In the next activity, they will work in groups to present a poster about how to take care of the environment. At what points in your Unit would you provide them with feedback to make them reflect on their learning? What methods would you use to provide feedback?	0	3	1	0
V7: You are a 6th-grade teacher, and some of your immigrant students performed worse than other students on a reading comprehension assessment in which they read a text about Chile’s Independence Day celebration. The students they have consistently demonstrated strong reading skills on classroom assessments. How would you interpret these results?	3	3	1	0
V8: You and your colleagues are developing grading policies for the coming school year and have noticed that some students do not do well when they are tested at the beginning of the marking period, requiring you to reteach some concepts. How would you suggest to use the results of the beginning of the marking period? Would you recommend to retest students and only use the most recent test performance to generate a grade? Why?	0	1	0	3
V9: You have developed a rubric to assess the writing skills of your 4th-grade students. How would you make sure that the students understood the rubric?	1	2	0	0
V10: While teaching a unit about fractions, you ask your students to order the fractions with the same numerators but different denominators from largest to shortest. About 15% of your students put the fraction with the largest denominator in the space for the biggest number. What would you do to understand the source of their confusion?	0	1	0	0
V11: You give an assessment to determine which 1st-grade students need support in developing their decoding skills. Students performed very differently, with some students doing very well and others struggling with differentiating the sound /r/ and /rr. How would you use this information?	1	0	0	1
V12: Your colleague asks for advice on how to provide feedback to her fourth-grade students who are finishing a unit on fables. She is worried because a Haitian student wrote a draft of a fable that included all of the important parts, except it did not teach a lesson about the world. His tale included some words written in Creole. What feedback characteristics would you emphasize?	3	2	3	0
V13: You just finished grading the first test. Many students are immigrant students from countries with different grading systems. How would you help students understand their grades and reflect on performance?	0	3	0	0
V14: All but two of your 4th-grade students did well on the most recent test. How would you talk to these students about their grades to help them persevere?	0	0	0	0
V15: You are planning a peer assessment for a writing activity where each student will write a description of a painting. How would you guide your students so they provide accurate information about performance to each other and use each other’s feedback to improve their work.	0	0	0	0
V16: You have a diverse classroom where one of your students is from a Middle Eastern country. You applied a test and realized that your Middle Eastern student, instead of answering “two-thirds” answered “thirds-two.” How would you interpret their answer?	1	4	2	0

V12 elicited the largest number of DGO comments. The vignette involved a Haitian student writing a fable that included Creole words and omitted the moral of the tale, a key component of fables. Some of the comments reflected a DGO wherein participants failed to value the students’ linguistic resources. For example, P8 focused on the lack of Spanish proficiency:

I would help with the Creole if it’s just a few written words; we could translate them into Spanish, and I would send the student home to write the entire story in Creole so that family members who do not speak Spanish can also read it.

However, for this same vignette, P2 saw an opportunity to embrace the Haitian student’s funds of knowledge by valuing the student’s linguistic resources. She emphasized that using words from the student’s home language was appropriate and also suggested incorporating a glossary including vocabulary in Creole. She responded as follows:

The important thing is that the audience understands it. For example, if he writes some name, some city, some name of a character, some city or some specific thing, that does not need prior context or translation, there is no problem. The other thing is to include vocabulary from the dictionary that allows me to build, and not leaving aside what is typical of their culture.

Another example of how teachers approached the same vignette from different justice-oriented lenses arose in responses to V7, which described a situation in which immigrant students performed poorly on a reading comprehension test focused on Chile’s Independence Day. P11 emphasized the importance of assimilation, stating that teachers should help immigrant students learn Chilean history and traditions. She stated,

If you are in Chile, it is important to know its history, so I would try to do some work with a Chilean student and an immigrant… [so that the immigrant] can also learn from them… and we as teachers focus on helping them relate to Chile’s independence.

However, other participants approached V7 with a CRA or CSA orientation. For example, P2 recognized that the assessment created a cultural barrier that prevented students from demonstrating their true competence and proposed an alternative that aligns to their cultural background, “I think it is necessary to start trying with another type of text, finding a common language that is not just about the independence of Chile; perhaps it talks about Latin America if the immigrant students are from Latin America.”

Interestingly, some participants proposed multiple, contradictory assessment moves in response to the same vignettes, comments were CRA- or CSA-focused and also DGO. P8 presents an example of this phenomenon. At first, she responds to V7 using deficit-oriented language to interpret the root cause of low performance:

I would interpret it as meaning they’re not interested. For example, I think Venezuelans aren’t happy being here in Chile. They had to come out of necessity. I feel like there are many Venezuelans who hate Chile, so they pass that on to their children.

She goes on to propose a CSA approach that ensures students learn about each other’s cultures and histories by having them write short stories about similar celebrations in their home countries:

…we could do some short stories about the celebration of both Chilean Independence Day and Venezuelan Independence. And if I have Haitians, they could also write about Haitian Independence. Let’s include everyone.

In contrast to the vignettes discussed thus far, six vignettes only elicited justice-oriented comments consistent with CRA or CSA. For example, V4 described Haitian students struggling to write mathematical explanations in Spanish. Participants indicated that they would use a variety of approaches to assess these students, including encouraging students to respond in their first language, translating materials, or varying assessment methods. P4 recommended this kind of approach. She prioritized mathematical thinking over Spanish proficiency by offering multiple modes of response and also translating assessments for students. P4 stated that she allowed students to “represent [mathematical understanding] graphically or in the way that is most comfortable for them. Just that they explain to me how they could solve it. And also, I think I would present the problem to them in their language.”

V2, also one of the six vignettes, was the only case with more CSA-focused comments than comments associated with other categories. V2 describes a 5th grade class with both immigrant and indigenous students who are learning about legends. Participants were asked to describe what they might do to determine what students have learned. In contrast with other vignettes, participants tended to view this as an opportunity for students to share and teach their classmates about their cultural knowledge and did not see diversity as a challenge to be managed. P8 proposed an assessment strategy that centers on the students’ heritage, “I would ask them to come to the front and tell us a little about their culture, so that the other students can also get to know it, considering that we also have immigrant students in the classroom. Their legends are different from the legends here in Chile.”

The results indicate that the focus of the vignette influences the adoption of specific justice-oriented approaches. More importantly, in all vignettes that elicited participants to respond with a DGO, there were also participants who proposed CRA or CSA approaches. This shows that equitable assessment practices are possible even in scenarios that triggered dominant perspectives. However, these equity-oriented moves often focused on adapting to students’ immediate needs and frequently coexisted with dominant cultural narratives.

5. Discussion

This study explored how Chilean elementary teacher candidates conceptualize and enact assessment practices within diverse classroom contexts. Findings indicate that participants did not rely on a single standard approach in response to different classroom assessment vignettes. Instead, participants flexibly navigated between AoL, AfL, and AaL depending on the demands of the specific vignettes. This pattern is consistent with DeLuca et al.’s (2019) and Pastore’s (2023) claims that assessment literacy is a “differential and situated” competency shaped by the negotiation of technical knowledge, classroom context, and student diversity (DeLuca et al., 2019, p. 1).

This flexibility was reflected in participants’ ability to discriminate among different assessment purposes and select strategies aligned with the pedagogical demands of each situation. For example, they more frequently used AfL strategies and AaL strategies in vignettes that required providing support or feedback, while opting for AoL moves in scenarios explicitly involving grading policies. Moreover, the prevalence of AaL moves suggests that participants viewed students as active contributors in the assessment process, responsible for bridging the gap between assessment information and learning through self-reflection and the development of agency to monitor their own learning.

Although participants most often discussed AfL and employed strategies aligned with CRA, they focused primarily on “pedagogical adaptation” rather than on working to disrupt structural systems of power (Evans, 2023). This suggests that the use of Afl moves alone does not guarantee the implementation of equitable assessment practices. As Randall et al. (2024) argue, teachers can be technically prepared to implement formative assessments but simultaneously reinforce dominant perspectives. This tension was evident when TCs described CRA-aligned strategies—such as drawing on students’ linguistic resources—while also framing their actions as compensatory responses to perceived student deficits. This double-barreled approach can undermine students’ identity as learners and hinder the development of trust necessary for a collaborative community of practice (Heritage & Wylie, 2018).

The results also showed that some TCs treated assessments as neutral, as they did not question the cultural biases embedded in assessments and instead interpreted students’ low performance through deficit lenses. In doing so, they fail to question whose values or cultural patterns were being privileged (Randall et al., 2024). When TCs fail to do this, they risk perpetuating a system in which specific forms of cultural knowledge are treated as universal indicators of competence, while other ways of knowing are marginalized (Lyons et al., 2021; Nortvedt et al., 2020).

Participants who embraced equity-oriented approaches appeared more prepared to adapt their assessment methods and to recognize and incorporate students’ identities (CRA), but less prepared to enact culturally sustaining practices that affirm and sustain those identities (CSA). These findings suggest that while participants demonstrated emerging equity-oriented dispositions, they demonstrated readiness to implement practices aligned with CSA to a lesser extent. As Lyons et al. (2021) argue, CSA demands moving beyond accommodation toward practices that empower students to critically engage with systems of power. This distinction reflects broader debates in teacher education about how to develop equity-oriented pedagogical and assessment practices.

Teacher education policies and conceptions of teacher quality must move beyond “thin” notions of access—primarily focused on access and redistribution (Cochran-Smith & Keefe, 2022)—toward “strong” equity that actively recognizes and values the diverse knowledge traditions of all learners (p. 23). However, at least in our sample, strong equity was observed less often than thin equity.

These dynamics are particularly relevant in the Chilean context, where TCs are entering increasingly diverse classrooms despite having been prepared for monocultural educational contexts (Riquelme-Sanderson & Peña-Sandoval, 2024). As Riquelme-Sanderson and Peña-Sandoval, and others note, Chilean TPPs often limit their approaches to focus on integration or assimilation instead of fostering genuine inclusion.

The TCs in our sample appear to possess foundational competencies necessary to advance toward a student-centered assessment paradigm—one that fosters key skills such as self-regulation and the capacity to recognize and learn from the cultural wealth of others. However, results also suggest that participants had not yet developed the “teacher as assessor” identity necessary to sustain students’ cultural communities (Xu & Brown, 2016, p. 158). While technical competence in classroom assessment was evident, it did not automatically translate into justice-oriented practice. Consequently, TPPs must move beyond technical training to explicitly address the socio-emotional and ethical dimensions of teachers’ professional identities (Deneen & Brown, 2016; Pastore, 2023; Pastore & Andrade, 2019). Specifically, TPPs should support future teachers in critically examining their own beliefs and assumptions in order to develop this identity and become educators capable of enacting justice-oriented assessment (Xu & Brown, 2016, p. 158).

One limitation of this study is the small sample size. Including a larger number of TCs would have provided us the opportunity to obtain a broader range of perspectives, allowing a more comprehensive understanding of how future teachers interpret and respond to assessment challenges. Another limitation is related to the characteristics of the data collection. This study examined TCs’ self-reported responses to hypothetical assessment scenarios rather than their enacted practices in real classrooms. As such, the findings reflect participants’ intentions and reasoning, but not necessarily how they would act in practice. Teachers’ decisions are influenced by contextual factors, including institutional norms, classroom dynamics, time constraints, and accountability pressures.

In addition to the limitations already identified, another possible limitation relates to the relative homogeneity of the participant sample. All 12 participants self-identified as female. Most grew up in relatively affluent areas and completed practica across similar institutional contexts. This limits the extent to which the findings capture the perspectives of teacher candidates from more diverse socioeconomic, regional, gender, or racial backgrounds. Given that personal experiences with marginalization, language diversity, or schooling inequities may shape candidates’ justice-oriented dispositions, future studies should intentionally recruit a more demographically and geographically diverse sample of TCs to explore how background characteristics influence assessment orientations.

Based on our results, a critical research line must focus on pedagogical interventions within TPPs designed to move TCs from “thin equity” to “strong equity” (Cochran-Smith & Keefe, 2022). Our findings reveal that while TCs are willing to provide access through “redistribution” (for example, by providing linguistic support), some of them struggle with “recognition” (viewing minoritized knowledge traditions as valid intellectual assets rather than deficits to overcome). Future research should examine how explicit training in justice-oriented design frameworks, such as Evans (2023) protocol for culturally responsive performance tasks, impacts TCs’ conceptions of assessment and whether such interventions can influence TCs’ views of assessment design to sustain cultural and linguistic identities.

Another important area for future study involves examining the development of justice-oriented assessment literacy longitudinally across teacher preparation and into early career teaching. The current study captures candidates’ thinking at a single point in time and focuses on hypothetical scenarios. Future research could track TCs over multiple years (through coursework, practicum, and induction) to investigate how justice-oriented conceptions evolve, what experiences or interventions promote movement from culturally responsive (CRA) to culturally sustaining (CSA) approaches, and how institutional contexts support or constrain this progression. Such longitudinal work would help clarify how assessment identities are constructed and sustained in real classroom environments across time.

In sum, this study underscores both the promise and the limitations of Chilean teacher candidates’ current assessment literacy. While participants demonstrated flexibility in navigating assessment as, for, and of learning—and frequently emphasized formative, student-centered approaches—their equity orientations were less consistently enacted. Culturally responsive moves were common, yet culturally sustaining practices and strong equity perspectives appeared less developed, and dominant-group assumptions persisted in certain contexts. These findings suggest that technical competence in assessment is necessary but insufficient for justice-oriented practice. If teacher preparation programs are to meet the demands of increasingly diverse classrooms, they must more explicitly cultivate candidates’ critical reflection, ethical commitments, and culturally sustaining assessment identities, ensuring that classroom assessment becomes not only a tool for measuring learning but a means of affirming and sustaining students’ linguistic and cultural communities.