Toward a Theory of Classroom Assessment as the Regulation of Learning

• In Event: Toward a Theory of Classroom Assessment as the Regulation of Learning

Abstract

In general, the regulation of learning involves four main processes: goal setting, monitoring progress toward the goal, interpretation of feedback derived from monitoring, and adjustment of goal-directed action including, perhaps, redefining the goal itself (Allal, 2010). Research and theory on classroom assessment emphasize very similar regulatory goals and processes. Defined as a process of collecting, evaluating, and using evidence of student learning in order to monitor and improve learning (McMillan, 2013), effective classroom assessment articulates the learning targets, provides feedback to teachers and students about where they are in relation to those targets, and prompts adjustments to instruction by teachers as well as changes to learning processes and revision of work products by students. Drawing on Sadler (1989), Hattie and Timperley (2007) summarize this regulatory process in terms of three questions to be asked by students: Where am I going? How am I going? and Where to next?
According to Wiliam (2010), this conception of assessment as regulation is common in Francophone countries, where the central concept is regulation, summarized as ‘‘feedback + adaptation’’ (Allal & Lopez, 2005). Defining classroom assessment as a regulatory process is also consistent with established notions of self-regulated learning (SRL), which focus on understanding the processes by which learners set goals and then plan, execute, and reflectively adapt learning (Hadwin, Järvelä, & Miller, 2011). For one example, the first of Hattie and Timperley’s (2007) frequently cited questions, “Where am I going?” and the related principle of sharing learning targets with students (Moss, Brookhart, & Long, 2013) resonates with SRL scholar Phil Winne’s (2011) advice to boost metacognitive monitoring by helping learners set clear standards for themselves. While the connections between CA and SRL are more explicit in the case of formative assessment, which begins with a clear understanding of a learning target, the claim pertains to both formative and summative assessment. In fact, successful self-regulated learners blur the distinction between formative and summative assessment in their own learning efforts (Brookhart, 2001).
Current views of self-regulated learning acknowledge that learning is not just self-regulated by students, but also co-regulated and shared (Hadwin, Järvelä, & & Miller, 2011). Regulated learning is as much a social as a solo phenomenon. Black and Wiliam (1998) have argued that assessment is also social and that, in fact, “all the assessment processes are, at heart, social processes, taking place in social settings, conducted by, on, and for social actors” ( p. 56).
In this paper, we will develop a theory of classroom assessment as the regulation of learning by teachers, students, and others, and support it with evidence from each field’s respective theoretical and research bases. We will engage in each phase of theory building, including articulating assumptions, generating hypotheses, examining data (in this case, the existing literatures) for patterns, creating constructs, and integrating analyses (Smith, 1999).

Authors

• Heidi L. Andrade, University at Albany - SUNY

• Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University