Chilean Pre-Service Teachers Approaches to Classroom Assessment

• In Event: Exploring Formative Assessment Practices and Policies in Latin American and European Countries: A Cross-national Comparative Overview

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes
Teacher assessment practices have a significant impact on student learning and academic success (DeLuca, 2017), making assessment literacy a critical component of teacher professionalism (Pastore & Andrade, 2019; Xu & Brown, 2016).

In Chile, the importance of formative assessment has been increasingly emphasized in recent years, as reflected in Chile’s Pedagogical and disciplinary standards for basic general education pedagogy programs (Ministerio de Educacion, 2022). The preparation of teacher candidates to implement culturally sustaining classroom assessment practices has also come into focus as educators adapt to growing cultural, linguistic, and migratory diversity.

Instruments that measure the extent to which TCs know how to approach classroom assessment in equitable ways are needed so that TPPs can reflect on how to best support TCs as they develop these skills (Chang and Cochran Smith, 2022). The current study fills this gap by presenting pilot results from a justice-oriented classroom assessment literacy measure administered to 180 teacher candidates attending three Chilean TPPs.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
We define justice-oriented assessment literacy as the knowledge, understanding, and skills required to design, interpret and use classroom assessment in a way that disrupts systemic inequities and promotes equity (Chang and Cochran Smith, 2022; Randall et al., 2022).

Methods
We used an affective instrument to gauge the extent to which TCs reported that they would likely use different classroom assessment approaches. Descriptive statistics were used to identify general trends in responses, and factor analysis was conducted to explore the underlying structure of the instrument and the relationships between variables (McCoach, Gable & Madura, 2013).

Data sources
We used a scenario-based instrument that explored how Chilean TCs respond to nine classroom assessment challenges related to classroom assessment. Following each scenario, six statements are presented that reflect different evaluation approaches. Assessment approaches included: (a) assessment purposes—focusing on assessments of, for, or as learning, and (b) equity—dominant-group oriented, culturally responsive, culturally sustaining. TCs were asked to rate the likelihood that they would use each of the six assessment approaches using a frequency scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely). Two additional items were included under each scenario to assess TCs’ self-efficacy and perception of preparation.” Demographic questions were included at the end of the survey.

Results
Findings include that the instrument best fits a unidimensional model (Mc. Coach et al. 2013), treating both assessment purposes and equity as aspects of assessment literacy, with assessment as and for learning items correlating with culturally responsive and sustaining items. Pre-service teachers tend to embrace more formative assessment perspective and culturally responsive approaches

Scholarly significance
This is one of the first studies in Latin America to examine how teacher candidates approach classroom assessment using scenarios aligned to national standards. The findings provide useful insights for teacher educators and contribute to international conversations on how to integrate equity and formative assessment into teacher education programs, and also highlight that TCs view assessment practices designed to further learning similarly to those that foster equity and inclusion.

Authors

• Valeria Carolina Zunino-Edelsberg, University of California - Davis

• Megan E. Welsh, University of California - Davis

• Maria Veronica Santelices, Catholic University of Chile