The Contact Zone of Assessment Reforms in Singapore Classrooms: Schooling in Transition (2004–Present)

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Transforming Educational Systems to Support Organizational Learning and Improvement: A Cross-National Comparison of Opportunities and Obstacles (Table 36)

Abstract

Objectives:
Recent national assessment policies were implemented by the Singapore Ministry of Education to promote the use of formative assessment to enhance student learning and shift schools away from a high-stakes examination culture that is deeply entrenched in Singapore society (Cheah, 1998). Such policies include teacher professional development, developing teacher networks, and creating opportunities for teachers and students to use formative assessment practices to strengthen learning while reducing examination pressure. An enhanced professional learning policy was introduced to further support teacher learning through the provision of learning infrastructures and resources, within- and across-schools. Such professional learning extends earlier policy in an attempt to develop schools into learning organizations in which assessment results drive reflection and improvement. This paper examines the impact and consequences of these policies by drawing on a large-scale classroom-based longitudinal study in primary and secondary schools. The analysis critically examines the relationships between national assessment reforms, teacher learning, shifts in assessment practices, and system changes in the wake of global assessment policy shifts.

Theoretical framework:
The analysis employs the notion of a “contact zone,” defined as a space where “cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt, 1991, p. 34). We depict schools as sites of contestation regarding the values of education and assessment priorities, with teachers playing out system tensions through resistant and creative strategies around assessment practices. Theories on policy layering and policy shifts are utilised to examine the consequences of policy instruments on the implementation process (Thelan, 2004).

Data Sources, Methods and Evidence:
The paper will draw from a critical policy analysis of Singapore’s educational and assessment reforms as well as empirical findings from the CORE Research Programme (CORE), a large-scale, multi-level, multi-methodological, classroom-based study documenting changes to teaching and learning in schools from 2004 to 2022.

Findings and Conclusions:
CORE’s long-term examination of system changes shows the tenuous relationship between policy enactment and classroom pedagogical events, and their mediating processes and consequences for teachers and students (Hogan et al, 2013). Specifically, a complex picture of assessment changes occur in schools, indicating that teachers who were further from high-stakes examinations, had more power to innovate. In other words, proximity to high-stakes testing years shaped teachers’ agency and identity to innovate classroom practices. This creates a bifurcated landscape that exposes students and parents to complex identity work in recognising assessment priorities at the same time that teachers have to negotiate nuances of policy implementation and navigate deeply entrenched societal and individual beliefs about the value of education, schooling and assessment. A culture of hierarchical policy rollout to schools, while having the best intentions, may unwittingly constrain opportunities for collaborative problem solving and system improvement, especially when infrastructuring attempts (Penuel, 2019) do not go deep enough to create pedagogical coherence in schools.

Significance:
The paper sheds light on the complex interplay between system-level reforms, teacher learning structures, opportunities and challenges, and teachers grappling in the contact zone between well-intentioned national imperatives and entrenched sociocultural beliefs.

Authors

• Hwei Ming Wong, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Dennis Kwek, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University