Understanding the Emotions of Assessment Literacy Through Teacher Reflexivity

• In Event: Reconsidering Teacher Assessment Literacy: Evolving Trends and Practices in Education

Abstract

Emotions are a vital aspect of teacher assessment literacy that need to be studied in nuanced situated ways. Even though emotions do not often feature in assessment literacy standards, teachers regularly manage social and emotional aspects of assessment like student anxiety, attending to fairness and working with others (Pastore and Andrade, 2019). Teachers’ emotions inform their assessment decisions (Edwards, 2021), and assessment causes increased emotional labour (Xu, 2013). Intense emotions indicate whether situations are important and inform reflexivity associated with making judgements (Archer, 2000). While there is much to yet research about the importance of emotions in assessment, this paper analysed the emotional patterns associated with teachers developing assessment literacies in their practice as part of a professional learning process.

The interactions between teacher emotions and their developing assessment literacy were investigated during a ten-week professional learning cycle about making assessment success criteria more tangible for students in Year 10 English. It was part of a larger Australian Research Council project investigating accessibility in assessment. Written reflections were collected from 20 teachers across three schools every fortnight as teachers tried out new assessment practices.

A socio-technical analysis of the reflective text began with inductive qualitative analyses. Across 103 reflections, three patterns were evident; high levels of traction with new assessment practice, low levels of traction, and a mixed group. These groups of reflections were then analysed for reflexive expressions or ngrams (collections of 3 – 5 words that reoccur) that indicated feelings and emotions such as “I am happy with what”, “ I am a little nervous”, or “I’m a little bit worried” (Gibson et al., 2023). Additionally the reflection groups were computationally analysed for frequency of affective expressions drawn from a crowd sourced lexicon of over 14,000 emotive words (Mohammad & Turney, 2013). A further inductive analysis identified what aspects of assessment learning or contexts were associated with these emotional cues. Data visualisations were then created showing the frequency of interactions between various emotions and experiences that supported or constrained their developing assessment literacy in practice. This innovative methodology enabled the emotional aspects and the complexity of individual and group teacher assessment work to be represented in new ways.

Teachers with highest traction began with higher levels of trust, anticipation and pleasure, while other teachers needed to experience the professional learning first before levels of trust and anticipation grew stronger over time, with anticipation and hope providing a strong ongoing motivation for the group with lowest traction. Teachers with highest traction in assessment literacy development were more likely to identify enablers and barriers as external, compared to other teachers whose attributions were more personal. Insights about what emotions enable traction in learning over time can inform responsive professional learning to develop assessment literacies in practice.

Authors

• Jill Willis, Queensland University of Technology

• Andrew Gibson, University of Technology - Sydney