Policies, Programs, and Practices: Exploring the Complex Dynamics of Assessment Education in Teacher Education Across Four Countries

DeLuca, Christopher; Willis, Jill; Cowie, Bronwen; Harrison, Christine; Coombs, Andrew; Gibson, Andrew; Trask, Suzanne

doi:10.3389/feduc.2019.00132

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ., 26 November 2019

Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement

Volume 4 - 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00132

This article is part of the Research Topic Teacher Assessment Literacy View all 5 articles

Policies, Programs, and Practices: Exploring the Complex Dynamics of Assessment Education in Teacher Education Across Four Countries

$\nChristopher DeLuca &#x;$ Christopher DeLuca¹^*^†

Jill Willis²^†

Bronwen Cowie³^†

Christine Harrison⁴^†

Andrew Coombs¹^†

Andrew Gibson²^†

Suzanne Trask³^†

¹Faculty of Education, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada
²Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
³Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
⁴School of Education, Communication, and Society, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

There has been a global trend toward increased accountability and assessment in schools over the past several decades. Across policy and professional standards, teachers have been repeatedly called to integrate assessment throughout their practice to identify, monitor, support, evaluate, and report on student learning. This professional capacity to integrate and utilize assessment to effectively facilitate student learning has long been characterized as teachers' “assessment literacy,” or more recently “assessment competency,” and “assessment capability”. Concerningly, research indicates that teachers generally maintain low levels of assessment knowledge and skills, with beginning teachers particularly underprepared for assessment in schools. This persistent finding is unsurprising as researchers argue that assessment has historically been a neglected area of study in teacher education programs. However, with the rise of accountability mandates, assessment is beginning to occupy a more prominent and necessary role in pre-service preparatory programs. However, analyzing and situating assessment education in relation to broader conceptions of assessment literacy remains necessary in order to effectively promote the assessment capability of beginning teachers. Likewise, understanding how assessment education and assessment literacy are shaped by the complex dynamics and larger teacher education frameworks and how they contribute to teachers' developing professional identities is essential in constructing a more comprehensive view of teacher preparation within and for accountability-driven systems of education. This paper analyzes teacher education policies, programs, and practices aimed at supporting initial teacher learning in assessment across four country contexts: Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand. Bernstein's (1999) codes of classification and framing provide an analytic discourse for examining the vertical and horizontal messages about assessment that shape teacher capability in this key area of professional practice. In drawing on policy and teacher education documents and qualitative data (i.e., interview and teacher reflections) from across each country context, the paper concludes with five consistent and interconnected findings about the complex landscape for teacher preparation in assessment.

There has been a global trend toward increased accountability and assessment in schools over the past several decades. Across policy and professional standards, teachers have been repeatedly called to integrate assessment throughout their practice to identify, monitor, support, evaluate, and report on student learning (e.g., Brown et al., 2019; The Classroom Assessment Standards for PreK-12 Teachers; Klinger et al., 2015). Not only are data on student achievement from classroom and large-scale assessments proliferating at an incredible pace, but teachers are largely expected to analyse and utilize these data to meaningfully guide instruction for student development (Black and Wiliam, 2006; Earl, 2013). This professional capacity to integrate and utilize assessment to effectively facilitate student learning has long been characterized as teachers' “assessment literacy” (Popham, 2004; Brookhart, 2011; Xu and Brown, 2016), or more recently “assessment competency” (Popham, 2009; Herppich et al., 2018) and “assessment capability” (Absolum et al., 2009; Hill et al., 2010; Booth et al., 2014; DeLuca and Johnson, 2017).

Concerningly, research indicates that teachers generally maintain low levels of assessment knowledge and skills, with beginning teachers particularly underprepared for assessment in schools (MacLellan, 2004; Bennett, 2011; Xu and Brown, 2016; Herppich et al., 2018; Looney et al., 2018). This persistent finding is unsurprising as researchers argue that assessment has historically been a neglected area of study in teacher education programs (i.e., professional programs responsible for the education and certification of teachers; Stiggins, 1999; Shepard et al., 2005; La Marca, 2006; Taras, 2007; Xu and Brown, 2016). However, with the rise of accountability mandates, assessment is beginning to occupy a more prominent and necessary role in pre-service preparatory programs. As a result, a variety of assessment education models have emerged, yet with little research documenting their design or effectiveness. With growing attention to assessment education in pre-service and in-service contexts, there is an increased need to understand the frameworks of assessment and professional learning driving teacher development efforts globally.

At present, variable definitions and conceptions of assessment literacy, competency, and capability exist in the literature, each with potentially differing implications for assessment education. Over time there has been a shift from instrumental conceptions of assessment literacy, rooted in the acquisition of knowledge and skills (O'Sullivan and Johnson, 1993; Plake et al., 1993; Mertler and Campbell, 2005), toward a more socio-cultural understanding that links to teachers' developing professional identities (Adie, 2012; Scarino, 2013; Willis et al., 2013; Cowie et al., 2014; Xu and Brown, 2016; Looney et al., 2018). This shift has been stimulated by research that recognizes the complexity of implementing assessment knowledge within diverse contexts of learning and in relation to teachers' diverse training background and dispositions (Adie, 2012; Willis et al., 2013; Looney et al., 2018). Particularly, there is a growing recognition on the socio-constructivist nature of assessment (Shepard et al., 2005) and the influence of context on assessment learning (Xu and Brown, 2016). Analyzing and situating assessment education in relation to broader conceptions of assessment literacy remains necessary in order to effectively promote the assessment capability of beginning teachers. Likewise, understanding how assessment education and assessment literacy are shaped by the complex dynamics and larger teacher education frameworks and how they contribute to teachers' developing professional identities is essential in constructing a more comprehensive view of teacher preparation within and for accountability-driven systems of education.

Theorizing the Complex Dynamics of Assessment Capability

Assessment capability involves situated professional judgement, that is the ability to draw on learning and assessment theories and experiences to purposefully design, interpret, and use a range of assessment evidence in the service of student learning. Drawing on Bernstein's (1999) concepts, we theorize how student teacher assessment capability is represented within and across multiple contexts, and how the interrelationships and activities in these different contexts create different desirable identities through dominant forms of consciousness. Assessment, along with pedagogy and curriculum are interrelated message systems that communicate dominant cultural categories and reinforce relationships of power in classrooms, schools, and societies that student teacher must negotiate. Bernstein's (1999) codes of classification and framing, occurring within vertical and horizontal discourses provides a theoretical language to explain how messages about assessment capability are created and circulate in each of our four national contexts.

Where assessment capability is set apart as a specialized set of knowledge and practices, the identified knowledge is strongly classified—ruled, differentiated, and insulated from other knowledges. Specialist knowledge is maintained, reproduced, and legitimated through activities that preserve the boundaries of what is valued as knowledge, and thus the dominance of those people and institutions who set the recognition rules for that knowledge (Bernstein, 1990). When assessment capability is integrated alongside other knowledge, such as part of a teaching and learning cycle, it could be seen as weakly classified, and less able to be regulated. In a weakly classified framework for assessment learning, pre-service teachers engage in integrated learning experiences where assessment is part of, rather than separated from, the learning of other professional knowledges, and embedded within the relationships that structure teaching and learning contexts—social, cultural, curricular, and pedagogical.

Framing refers to how meaning is put together within a context, that is, how the communication of knowledge is organized and controlled. Choices around sequencing and pacing of the knowledge, and the way that the social order is regulated all are features of framing (Bernstein, 2000). The stronger or more explicit the framing, for example through accreditation reviews, explicit criteria or scaffolded assessment tasks, “the smaller the space for potential variation” (Bernstein and Solomon, 1999, p. 271). Weak framing can enable knowledge acquirers to have more apparent choice and control such as developing a feel for assessment quality drawing on peer discussion of exemplars, or observing a mentor teacher on practicum and making connections to university readings. Yet weak framing can lead to some beginning teachers not being able to access what is expected if they do not have a shared understanding of the underpinning knowledge discourses.

Classification and framing codes are part of broader vertical “official” and horizontal or “local” knowledge discourses. Vertical discourses are the coherent, explicit, hierarchically organized knowledge structures where specialized theoretical language is recontextualized, and acquired through graded performances. Vertical discourses are endorsed through standards of practice, certification requirements, and vision statements of graduates. Horizontal discourses, in contrast, are local, context dependent, and social, often created through practice of tacit or craft knowledge (Bernstein, 1999). Horizontal discourses often operate at the classroom level—through instructional moments—in which teachers and students re-interpret “official” knowledges within the diverse contexts of their practice. Assessment education within pre-service programs draws on multiple vertical and horizontal discourses with national and local policy, program structure, and pedagogical practices all informing assessment learning.

In this paper we consider data from vertical knowledge systems such as national policy contexts and teacher education program structures, as well as data from horizontal or local contexts for enactment that includes participant perspectives to consider how assessment capability is realized and recognized through teacher education programs. Our aim is not to precisely identify strongly classified knowledge that beginning teachers should know; such an activity has been conducted elsewhere (e.g., Klinger et al., 2015; DeLuca et al., 2016) through analysis and articulation of standards for practice. Instead, the aim of this paper is to begin to characterize the complex state of assessment education in four country regions by describing the influences across vertical and horizontal knowledge systems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and England. These four countries have been selected for this study because, aside from the United States, they represent among the largest producers of English-speaking teachers in the world. Given the significant mobility of English-speaking teachers working across countries internationally, understanding how assessment literacy is supported and promoted in initial teacher education within these countries holds international relevance. That said, we recognize the importance and value of continuing to map the preparation of assessment education across other jurisdictions and countries, both English and non-English speaking, and position this study as an initial cross-country investigation.

Methods

For each of the four focal countries, we examine the policies, programs and practices of assessment education in teacher education as a way of acknowledging that assessment capability is situated within complex systems involving both strong and weakly classified knowledges and vertical and horizontal discourses (Bernstein, 1999). Due to local variations in how teacher education programming is offered and access to documents and data, each country has leveraged data unique to its context to most effectively describe teacher education policies, programs, and practices.

Policies

In the subsequent section of this paper, we describe policies within each country that describe both the assessment context for teacher assessment literacy, as well as the policies that shape teacher education and assessment learning. A variety of policies documents in each context have been utilized drawn primarily from publicly accessible government and institutional websites (e.g., university websites, teacher accreditation agencies). These documents have been discursively interpreted to contextualize teacher candidate assessment learning in relation to Bernstein's (1999) classification and framing concepts.

Programs

Following our review of the policy context for pre-service teacher assessment capability in each context, we investigate provisions for assessment learning at the programmatic level. In each country, course descriptions were obtained from a select number of teacher education programs and analyzed using a consistent framework. Course descriptions in each context were obtained from university public websites (i.e., information for students regrading course title, length, and description). Universities in each context were selected to reflect geographic distribution and variability of size of initial teacher education programs. In Australia, 17 universities were selected and 357 courses that mentioned assessment in their title or description were identified across teacher education program in those universities. In Canada, 12 universities were selected that had 2-year post-graduate teacher education programs with 173 courses identified that mentioned assessment from those programs. In England, 6 universities were selected that offered a post-graduate certificate of education (PGCE; a 1-year post-degree course) with 11 complete program descriptions identified that mentioned assessment. Importantly, given the structure of programs in England and the fact that assessment was not taught as a standalone course in any program, program session descriptions were used as the unit of analysis rather than course level descriptions. In New Zealand, 140 course descriptions were analyzed that mentioned assessment from six universities.

Using a document analysis template, data were gathered from program websites related to (a) program information (i.e., length, course load, practicum length, cohort size); (b) provisions for and descriptions of explicit assessment courses (including course descriptions, number of credit hours, and whether or not course(s) was elective or required); and (c) descriptions of courses that addressed assessment (including course description, number of credit hours, and whether or not course(s) was elective or required). Beginning with the Australian course descriptions, two researchers inductively identified assessment concepts/topics across descriptions to create a codelist with definitions. Researchers in each context applied the codelist to their course descriptions with latitude to create additional emergent topics codes. Coding reliability was established through a process of inter-coder agreement, in each context, in which at least two researchers coded a subset of course descriptions until agreement was reached (Garrison et al., 2006; Campbell et al., 2013). Code data were reported as frequencies (calculated by dividing the rate of frequency of a code by the total number of coded datum points and multiplied by 100 within each contexts' dataset) to enhance comparability of analysis across contexts.

Practice

In the final section of findings, we examine the resulting practices of program provisions toward assessment learning within each context drawing on data from unique key informants in each context. Each context examined assessment learning from a different key informant perspective.

In Australia assessment learning was examined through the perspective of 17 beginning teachers using a reflection protocol. In total, 535 digital reflections were collected from these teachers over several months using GoingOK.org software. Specifically, teachers were invited to indicate “how they were going in their first year of teaching” on a 100-point slider scale (0 = distressed, 50 = going ok, 100 = soaring). Entries accumulated over time and were visible to the beginning teacher as a plotline (see Figure 1 as a sample). For each reflection, teacher were also invited to narrate their experience through descriptive texts. Overall, the dataset is a collection of rich, point-in-time reflections about the day-to-day experiences of beginning teachers (Willis et al., 2017; Crosswell et al., 2018).

FIGURE 1

Figure 1. An example of a digital plotline over time.

Narrative data were analyzed quantitatively using Reflective Writing Analytics that enabled patterns in the group data to be visualized and assessment keywords (in red) to be cross-referenced to metacognitive reflective writing cues (highlighted in yellow in Figure 2; Gibson, 2017). These highlighted entries were then analyzed qualitatively.

FIGURE 2

Figure 2. An example of an assessment reflection from a beginning teacher.

In Canada, perspectives on assessment learning were obtained from 25 teacher educators from 12 pre-service programs from across Canada who participated in semi-structured interviews (up to 1 h). Of the 25 educators, 14 instructed standalone assessment courses with the remainder teaching curriculum or professional studies courses. Questions were designed to provide teacher educators with the opportunity to discuss how they approached assessment learning in the courses they instructed and their perception of assessment learning of teacher candidates' outside of their class. Sample interview questions included: At the end of your course, what do you hope students will have learned about assessment? Are there key individuals or opportunities for learning that shape assessment education in your program? Interviews were transcribed verbatim and were inductively analyzed using a standard thematic analysis process (Patton, 2014). Two raters from Canada analyzed a subset of data (i.e., three interviews) to ensure rater reliability, with an overall inter-rater agreement of 92% after discussing any differences in coding.

In England, perspectives on assessment learning were obtained from 10 mentor teachers, who supervise pre-service candidates while on practicum, through semi-structured interviews (upto 1 h). All mentor teachers were affiliated with one of the universities involved in the program review analysis. The interviews were completed toward the end of the course post-practicum. The intention of the interviews was to collect mentors' perceptions of the pre-service teachers' assessment learning, as well as data on how schools and pre-service programs enculture and educate pre-service teachers into appropriate classroom assessment practices. Interview questions focused on: (a) How mentors interpreted assessment competency? (b) What support and opportunities were provided to help pre-service teachers understand and carry out assessment? and (c) How did pre-service teachers fit in with school assessment procedures and practices? Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data were first analyzed deductively using the same coding system constructed for the analysis of the policy documents. One code (i.e., student data) had to be re-described because it had a formulaic approach in schools rather than the more process driven ideas in the handbook. Further, an additional code learning about assessment was generated that was specific to the interview data because all the mentors kept referring back to assessment ideas introduced in the university part of the course vs. those practiced in school. Data were then inductively analyzed for emergent themes. Three specific themes were identified by mentor teachers regarding the assessment learning of pre-service candidates: (a) assessment for learning, (b) marking, and (c) tests. Coding of data was checked by comparison of two researchers with blind-coding of three of the transcripts. A 78% inter-rater agreement was achieved after moderation and discussion.

In New Zealand, analysis of perspectives toward assessment learning were based on a previous study (Cowie and Hill, 2011; Hill et al., 2014) of 25 teacher educators from four universities. Via focus groups, teacher educators were asked to elaborate on their understandings of assessment, what assessment topics and approaches they aimed to develop in their pre-service teachers, and their perceptions of the contextual influences on student teacher learning about assessment. Participating teacher educators coordinated compulsory courses where the course outline included explicit mention of assessment as a learning outcome. In all, 25 teacher educators participated in the focus groups. Focus group data were transcribed verbatim and inductively analyzed using a standard thematic analysis process (Patton, 2014). Multiple raters analyzed a subset of data with discussion amongst raters about codes to ensure rater agreement.

While data on practices from each context is different; taken together, it presents a multiple-perspective view on how assessment education provisions are influencing practice and assessment learning within and through pre-service program components (coursework and practicum).

Policy Contexts for Pre-Service Teacher Assessment Capability

Despite quite different policy foundations, the rise of the accountability movement in each country has led to similar impacts in teacher education programs with assessment beginning to occupy a more dominant role. An analysis of school and teacher education policies in each country provides a description of the framing discourses (i.e., vertical to horizontal; Bernstein, 1999, 2001) shaping teacher education programs and assessment learning within each context.

Australia

Teacher education in Australia occurs mostly through 4-year Bachelor, or 2-year Master of Teaching programs, offered as 400 courses from 40 higher education providers. Historically the six states and two self-governing territories have had slightly different approaches to assessment. National assessment, curriculum, and professional standards for teachers have brought greater standardization, and significant changes to teachers' everyday assessment practices (Adie and Willis, 2016; Van der Kleij et al., 2018).

Assessment in national policy is defined in terms of assessment for, as, and of learning (Ministerial Council for Education Training Youth Affairs, 2010), however most of the policy and support for teacher assessment has focused on assessment of learning (Van der Kleij et al., 2018). Teachers navigate between national, state, and local assessment priorities in their day-to-day assessment work, drawing on multiple assessment literacies (Willis et al., 2013) and multiple assessment roles (Alonzo, 2016). Teachers are under increased scrutiny with assessment data causing a backwash toward more scripted curriculum in many schools (Klenowski and Carter, 2016), and many teachers internalizing national assessment data as an indicator of their effectiveness (Thompson and Mockler, 2016). In practice teachers draw on assessment capabilities such as critical inquiry, reflexivity, and collaboration to align their assessment practices with varying policy demands, conceptions of knowledge, curriculum, learning and teaching activities (Wyatt-Smith and Gunn, 2009; Adie and Willis, 2016; Looney et al., 2018; Willis and Klenowski, 2018). Assessment understandings are formally articulated in policy through Standard 5 of the Australian Teacher Professional Standards, that emphasizes assessment strategies, how to provide feedback, make consistent and comparable judgments, interpret student data and report on student achievement (Australian Institute for Teaching School Leadership, 2011). A graduate teacher is expected to “demonstrate understanding” and achieve greater mastery as they move through their career to be proficient at “using” assessment, to “develop” approaches when highly accomplished, and “model exemplary practice” and “lead evaluations” as lead teachers.

Expectations of pre-service teacher assessment capability are also directly influenced by policy that regulates the training courses, where assessment operates as both a curriculum focus, and accountability lever. Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs are accredited by the AITSL. Recently revised standards (Australian Institute for Teaching School Leadership, 2018) are having a profound impact on the design and governance of pre-service teacher education courses (Bourke, 2019). From 2018, candidates are assessed at entry for suitability, and before graduation provide assessment evidence about their “positive impact on student learning,” through a Teacher Performance Assessment (Australian Institute for Teaching School Leadership, 2016, p. 45). Additionally, teacher education courses need to demonstrate the “post program impact of graduates… on student learning” (Australian Institute for Teaching School Leadership, 2016, p. 45). Assessment of pre-service teachers, and their teacher education institutions, is being directly linked to assessment of school students in a quality assurance discourse linked to ideas of classroom readiness, standards, and effectiveness (Churchward and Willis, 2018). In Bernstein's (2001) terms, there has been a strengthening of the classification of assessment capability through regulatory policies, that is, assessment is being set apart as a vertical knowledge discourse that is systematically structured and hierarchically organized.

Canada

Education in Canada falls under provincial jurisdiction with teacher education programs preparing candidates to teaching within specific K-12 provincial systems of education. While each of Canada's 13 provinces and territories has its own educational policies, there are striking similarities in educational priorities, including assessment frameworks and mandates for teachers (Volante and Ben Jaafar, 2008; DeLuca et al., 2017; Jang and Sinclair, 2017). Consistently, K-12 teachers are encouraged to use assessment for various purposes in their classrooms including for diagnostic, formative, and summative purposes (Jang and Sinclair, 2017). Increasingly, policies recognize the plethora of assessment methods that can be leveraged to document student learning and invite teachers to engage in regular, formal and less formal, reporting of student progress. All classroom assessment in intended to be standards-based (i.e., linked to provincial curriculum expectations) and relates to both academic standards and learning skills, which are reported separately on provincial report cards. Each province has its own large-scale testing program, with varying structures and degrees of influence on student grades (Klinger et al., 2008).

Accreditation of teacher education programs in Canada is conducted by provincial governments or provincial teacher governing bodies (e.g., Teacher Regulation Branch; Ontario College of Teachers, 2019). Each accrediting body uses a variety of evidence to certify that each program upholds and prepares teachers to meet provincial standards of practice. Teacher candidates are most often recommended for certification upon successful completion of their teacher education program, without additional testing. Teacher education programs are consistently 2-years in duration across provinces and largely function as post-degree programs. There are also concurrent education programs in which teacher candidates begin their program directly after secondary school alongside their undergraduate degree. Provincial standards for the teaching profession vary in specificity; for example, as related to assessment, the Ontario College of Teachers' Standards of Practice indicates that teacher should: “apply professional knowledge and experience to promote student learning. They use appropriate pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, resources and technology in planning for and responding to the needs of individual students and learning communities” (Ontario College of Teachers, 2019). In more depth, the Alberta Teacher Quality Standards (Alberta Government, 2018, p. 5) states, “A teacher applies a current and comprehensive repertoire of effective planning, instruction, and assessment practices to meet the learning needs of every student.” The Alberta Standards (p. 5) further articulates that teacher should:

Applying student assessment and evaluation practices that:

• accurately reflect learner outcomes;

• generate evidence of student learning to inform teaching practice through a balance of formative and summative assessment experiences;

• provide a variety of methods for students to demonstrate their achievement;

• provide accurate, constructive and timely feedback to students; and

• support the use of reasoned judgment about the evidence used to determine and report the level of student learning.

Over the past decade, research on Canadian teacher education programs has noted inconsistent learning outcomes for teacher candidates, specifically within assessment education courses, and pronounced variability of teacher candidates' assessment knowledge and attitudes. Poth (2013) surveyed 23 teacher-education institutions across four Canadian provinces, the vast majority offering required courses in classroom assessment. However, none of the 12 intended learner outcomes identified across the programs (e.g., develop communication skills for reporting achievement) were shared across all programs. Even within a single teacher education programs, there can be variability between assessment education courses, suggesting that while there is a dominant policy discourse on K-12 assessment within provinces, there remains variable learning and interpretations of the policy. Furthermore, teacher candidates within the same cohort have significant variability in knowledge and attitudes toward assessment (Volante and Fazio, 2007; DeLuca and Klinger, 2010; Coombs et al., 2018). Despite the presence of consistent teacher accreditation practices, evidence suggests a fairly weak classification of assessment knowledge as prescribed by teaching standards within Canada, which may contribute to variable assessment education models and outcomes for teacher candidates.

England

Over the last two decades, schools in England have become data driven with many influenced by the need to produce summative performance data for monitoring standards and evaluating school effectiveness. This means that data collection and regular assessment is well-practiced in schools. At the same time, assessment for learning has been encouraged in UK schools with national implementation programs and government incentives for schools to focus efforts on embedding such practices. The dilemma for the classroom teacher is how to reconcile these two different approaches to assessment. On the one hand, teachers have to regularly report on student attainment and demonstrate that their students are on track to succeed in national examinations. At the same time, they are encouraged to be more formative in their assessment practices, for which evidence is often required, increasing the accountability burden on teachers.

In recent years, alongside changes to the National Curriculum in England, new forms of assessment were demanded to align with the changes of content and demands of the curriculum (Harrison, 2016). Instead of measuring and reporting achievement, teachers, and schools were asked to focus on how secure each student's knowledge, understanding and skills were at key points in their schooling, suggesting a competency and mastery learning approach. The common assessment system in most state schools, prior to 2015, had been based on a system of National Curriculum levels. This system was introduced by the Task Group on Assessment and Testing (TGAT) in 1988 and was defined as a concept of progression shown through a sequence of up to 10 levels spanning the range of performance from ages 5 to 16. While the level system was eventually dropped for the 14–16 age group, the system developed and evolved for the 5–14 age range and became a set of eight bands used to measure a child's progress against other children nationally.

The initial purpose of these levels was for mapping progression. While TGAT had intended that the levels system be used for statutory national assessments, over time, levels also came to be used for regular in-school assessment to monitor students' progress toward expected levels. This change distorted the purpose of in-school assessment, particularly day-to-day formative assessment, as the focus became much more of which level students had reached, rather than focusing on assessment for learning. From 2016, schools were informed by government that they would no longer be reporting attainment using National Curriculum levels, but rather schools would have to set up their own systems for assessing students. One difficulty was the conflicting pressures in trying to make appropriate use of assessment as part of classroom teaching on a daily basis, while at the same time collecting assessment data to use in high stakes evaluation of individual and institutional performance. All state schools, at primary and secondary level, now needed to demonstrate that they could report on:

• how well their students have learned;

• what progress students are making year-on-year;

• that all students are on track to meet expectations; and

• how tailored support programs are being used for individuals.

Schools have responded in a range of ways to the new assessment initiatives, with some still in transition from the former level system or attempting to disguise retention of the former system by simply replacing levels 1–8 as A–H, while some schools have introduced new assessment approaches. For example, at elementary level, many teachers are assessing against age related expectations of performance, with learners either being “at,” “working toward,” or “exceeding” performance. At secondary, there is a greater variety of approaches, many of which link assessment in lower secondary school with that used in the final 2 years of study leading to the national GCSE examinations at age 16. The changing context of school assessment has put pressure on teacher education to respond by preparing teachers both for traditional and more contemporary approaches to assessment.

New Zealand

Formative assessment has been prioritized within New Zealand assessment policy since the late 1980's (Department of Education, 1989; Ministry of Education, 1994) with policy documents also acknowledging the role of summative assessment within classroom assessment, and as necessary for reporting and accountability purposes The 1993 New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) states that formative assessment should be a priority, with this emphasis reiterated and elaborated on in the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). The section dedicated to assessment includes the assertion that the “primary purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning and teachers” teaching as both student and teacher respond to the information it provides (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 39). Student self-assessment is included as an aspect of the key competency of self-management. The 2007 documents explicitly acknowledge that different groups (parents, government, etc.) each have a role student assessment. The priority given to assessment for learning is reiterated in the Ministry of Education position paper: Directions for Assessment in New Zealand (Absolum et al., 2009), and reinforced in the 2011 Ministry of Education Position Paper: Assessment (Ministry of Education, 2011). This document states:

All young people should be educated in ways that develop their capacity to assess their own learning. Students who have well-developed assessment capabilities are able and motivated to access, interpret, and use information from quality assessment in ways that affirm or further their learning (p. 5).

The 2011 document sets out seven principles that emphasize that effective assessment is a key component of quality teaching and learning and that it plays an important role in system improvement. The recently published Trends in assessment: An overview of themes in the literature (Hipkins and Cameron, 2018) reasserted the importance of students at the center of the assessment processes, that the priority should be on assessment in the service of learning and that parents have an important role to play in this (see Table 1 for comparison between priorities of Position Paper, 1999 and Trends report, 2018).

TABLE 1

Table 1. Ordering of assessment priorities between 2011 and 2018.

Turning to national assessments, since 1995, national monitoring has been accomplished through light sampling of Year 4 and 8 students, with different curriculum areas assessed over a multi-year cycle. Students respond to individual and group, paper, and practical tasks. Teachers administer, mark, and moderate student responses, creating an important source of professional development on assessment for New Zealand teachers (Gilmore, 1999). New Zealand, however, had no comprehensive compulsory system of national monitoring until 2010 when the National Standards system was introduced. National Standards focused on reading, writing, and mathematics and relied on an Overall Teacher Judgment (OTJ) to evaluate student achievements. Teachers developed their OTJs by synthesizing a range of evidence. Yet in 2019, the National Standards were revoked.

This brief review of New Zealand's assessment policy context point to the influence of policy layering (Ball and Junemann, 2012) in creating vertical and horizontal discourses of assessment with impacts on the social-relational, material conceptual and ideational context for assessment and hence the development of beginning teachers' assessment capability.

Initial teacher education programs in New Zealand offer 3-year bachelor degree programs and one-year graduate diploma and Master of Teaching and Learning programs. Since 2007, initial teacher education providers have been responsible for ensuring their graduates met the requirements of the Graduating Teacher Standards: Aotearoa New Zealand (New Zealand Teachers Council, 2007). The seven Standards are grouped under three overarching categories: (a) professional knowledge, (b) professional practice, and (c) professional values and relationships. Each category could be interpreted as including mention of assessment but the Professional knowledge and Practice categories include an explicit mention of the use of evidence. In June 2018 new teaching standards were promulgated: Our Code Our Standards (Education Council, 2018). These apply to both pre-service and practicing teachers with pre-service teachers expected to meet the Standards “in a supported environment” on graduation from an initial teacher education program.

The Code has four aspects of commitment—to the teaching profession; to learners; to families and whanau, and to society. There are six “Standards,” each with a number of “Elaborations,” that are not legally binding. The Standards are “purposely designed at a high level so every practitioner can apply them to suit the context they are working in.” Four of the Standards have “elaborations” that indicate a focus on assessment (see Table 2).

TABLE 2

Table 2. Assessment standards from Our Code Our Standards (Education Council, 2018).

Within the “Professional learning” standard teachers are to (i) Inquire into and reflect on the effectiveness of practice in an ongoing way, using evidence from a range of sources, and (ii) Seek and respond to feedback from learners. The “Professional Relationships” elaboration focuses on clear and accurate communication; the “Design for learning” standard focuses on the selection of teaching, learning and assessment activities and the generation and use of assessment information to identify progress and design clear next steps or supports for learning, and the “Teaching” standard elaborations focus in on “equity and excellence for all,” responsiveness and student access to feedback and information that will allow them to direct their own further learning. At this time the meaning and practice of the Standards and of “in a supported environment” is not clear. Adding complexity, initial teacher education program approval requirements are shifting from a review of program content or student teacher opportunity to learn (what we are aspiring to) to an audit of the assessment tasks being used to determine graduates' achievement of the Standards. The proposition behind these developments is that the government needs to have confidence that pre-service teachers have achieved the Standards and are able to perform key teaching tasks from their first day of teaching, which reflects a move to strong framing in Bernstein's terms.

Pre-Service Program Provisions for Assessment Education

Programmatic provisions for assessment education (e.g., explicit coursework in assessment and embedded assessment learning) for each country were examined by systematically analyzing publicly accessible teacher education program documents (i.e., handbooks, program outlines/calendars, and course descriptions) in each context. Table 3 suggests the relative explicit address of each assessment area in comparison across the countries.

TABLE 3

Table 3. Assessment content code frequency by university course by country.