Using external assessments for improving assessment practice of primary school teachers: A first study and some methodological questions
Résumé
A recent research (Sayac, 2016) has shown that assessments proposed by primary school teachers are mainly summative and not used to increase student knowledge. To further this work, we have decided to study teachers' assessment practices in mathematics, but also to improve them in the context of a collaborative environment. In such a project, as researchers and teacher educators, we share the same goal with the teachers involved: developing assessment for learning and helping students to learn better in mathematics. For studying this environment and for analysing the professional development of any actor, we use the Activity Theory framework (Engeström, 2001) but also the notions of "evaluative episode" and "professional judgement in assessment", developed by Sayac (in progress) for defining the didactic paradigm of assessment. In our paper, we present our methodology and focus on one aspect of this research: the use of external assessments as tools for improving assessment practices. Keywords: Assessment practices, external and internal assessment, validity in assessment. In France, recent modifications in curricula and institutional directions encourage teachers to assess competencies (and not only knowledge), but also to develop, in their classes, "assessment for learning": teachers should consider that assessment is a part of the didactic process and use assessment information for adjusting their teaching strategies. A recent study by Sayac (2016) with some primary school teachers, has showed that assessments in mathematics are mainly summative and that teachers use the results principally for the end of term report. Moreover, assessment tasks are not complex and previously studied before taking the test.
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