Introduction
Assessment is everywhere in schooling. In some countries, it begins before schooling starts with screening tests and interviews for selection into elite or competitive nursery schools or kindergartens. Nonetheless, for most children and adolescents, if assessment is not a regular occurrence, it looms in the background, perhaps haunting or driving their learning. Likewise, assessment plays an important role in curriculum and teaching; assessment is how teachers monitor students’ progress through the curriculum and how curricula can be evaluated for effectiveness. Unsurprisingly, assessment is also used by governments, the media, and parents to determine the quality of schools and teachers even though there is strong evidence that such uses have generally negative consequences on teaching, curriculum, students, and learning (Hamilton et al. 2007); although some positive consequences (e.g., teaching being focused more directly on the curriculum underlying the test) have been...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Barnes, N., Fives, H., & Dacey, C. M. (2015). Teachers’ beliefs about assessment. In H. Fives & M. Gregoire Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teacher beliefs (pp. 284–300). New York: Routledge.
Brown, G. T. L. (2008). Conceptions of assessment: Understanding what assessment means to teachers and students. New York: Nova.
Brown, G. T. L. (2012). Teachers’ thinking about assessment: Juggling improvement and accountability. Teacher: The International Education Magazine, 6(2), 30–35.
Brown, G. T. L., Kennedy, K. J., Fok, P. K., Chan, J. K. S., & Yu, W. M. (2009). Assessment for improvement: Understanding Hong Kong teachers’ conceptions and practices of assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 16(3), 347–363. doi:10.1080/09695940903319737.
Brown, G. T. L., Hui, S. K. F., Yu, F. W. M., & Kennedy, K. J. (2011a). Teachers’ conceptions of assessment in Chinese contexts: A tripartite model of accountability, improvement, and irrelevance. International Journal of Educational Research, 50(5–6), 307–320. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2011.10.003.
Brown, G. T. L., Lake, R., & Matters, G. (2011b). Queensland teachers’ conceptions of assessment: The impact of policy priorities on teacher attitudes. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(1), 210–220. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.08.003.
Cizek, G. J. (2001). More unintended consequences of high-stakes testing. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 20(4), 19–27.
Fives, H., & Buehl, M. M. (2012). Spring cleaning for the “messy” construct of teachers’ beliefs: What are they? Which have been examined? What can they tell us? In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, & T. Urdan (Eds.), APA educational psychology handbook: Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (Vol. 2, pp. 471–499). Washington, DC: APA.
Hamilton, L. S., Stecher, B. M., Marsh, J. A., McCombs, J. S., Robyn, A., Russell, J. L., et al. (2007). Standards-based accountability under no child left behind: Experiences of teachers and administrators in three states. Santa Monica: RAND Education.
Harris, L. R., & Brown, G. T. L. (2009). The complexity of teachers’ conceptions of assessment: Tensions between the needs of schools and students. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16(3), 365–381. doi:10.1080/09695940903319745.
Hofstede, G. (2007). A European in Asia. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 10(1), 16–21. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2006.00206.x.
Kennedy, K. J., Chan, J. K. S., & Fok, P. K. (2011). Holding policy-makers to account: Exploring ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ policy and the implications for curriculum reform. London Review of Education, 9(1), 41–54. doi:10.1080/14748460.2011.550433.
Lerner, J. S., & Tetlock, P. E. (1999). Accounting for the effects of accountability. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 255–275.
Newton, P. E. (2007). Clarifying the purposes of educational assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 14(2), 149–170.
Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307–332.
Popham, W. J. (2000). Modern educational measurement: Practical guidelines for educational leaders (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America’s public schools. New York: A. E. Knopf.
Rieskamp, J., & Reimer, T. (2007). Ecological rationality. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Encyclopedia of social psychology (pp. 273–275). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Smith, L. F., Hill, M. F., Cowie, B., & Gilmore, A. (2014). Preparing teachers to use the enabling power of assessment. In C. M. Wyatt-Smith, V. Klenowski, & P. Colbert (Eds.), Designing assessment for quality learning (pp. 303–323). Dordrecht: Springer.
Stobart, G. (2006). The validity of formative assessment. In J. Gardner (Ed.), Assessment and learning (pp. 133–146). London: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brown, G.T.L. (2016). Improvement and Accountability Functions of Assessment: Impact on Teachers’ Thinking and Action. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_391-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_391-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-532-7
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Improvement and Accountability Functions of Assessment: Impact on Teachers’ Thinking and Action- Published:
- 14 May 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_391-2
-
Original
Improvement and Accountability Functions of Assessment: Impact on Teachers Thinking and Action- Published:
- 05 April 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_391-1