Abstract
Hong Kong’s education system has been undergoing major assessment reforms since 2000, exemplified by the introduction of a school-based assessment component into the secondary school English language curriculum in 2005–2007, and its extension to the final 3 years of secondary school in 2007–2010. The challenge many teachers faced at the time of the reform was understanding the new assessment for learning principles and practices that started to enter the English language teaching discourse. At the same time the researchers initiating the reform needed to theorise what it was that worked – and didn’t – thus enabling continual refinement and improvement of the key assessment principles and protocols. Theorising school-university collaboration as praxis, this paper explores how participation in a collaborative action research project helped both teachers and researchers understand the new assessment discourses and practices. Textual data on teacher feedback were analysed to show how assessment theories were teased out, tested and taken up (or not) in practice. This study makes a contribution to the fields of assessment literacy and second language teacher development by highlighting some of the complexities the teachers and researchers experienced while engaging in Western theories of learning in a Confucian heritage culture. Findings showed how definitions of assessment, in this particular case, teacher feedback to learners, were socially organised and managed through socio-political and socio-cultural discourses and norms circulating in the Hong Kong context at the time of the project, and how this informed and shaped theory-building in ways which provided the assessment reform with long-term sustainability and legitimacy. Implications for school-university partnership as praxis for teacher development in the context of assessment reform will also be discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Wiliam (1999) found that that assigning grades or marks was not conducive to learning, tended to undermine the motivation of weaker students and encouraged students to become more concerned with model answers, finding the right answers and/or trying to guess what the teacher wanted rather than focusing on the learning process, their own ideas and how they can progress towards learning goals.
- 2.
For more information about the HKCEE school-based assessment system, see http://www.hkeaa.edu.hk/DocLibrary/SBA/CE-Eng-07IntroBooklet-0610.pdf, and for the HKDSE, see http://www.hkeaa.edu.hk/DocLibrary/SBA/HKDSE/ENG-Intro_to_SBA_Booklet-Mar10.pdf
References
Assessment Reform Group. (1999). Assessment for learning: Beyond the Black box. Cambridge: University of Cambridge School of Education.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education, 5(1), 7–75.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 5–31.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2010). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(1), 81–90.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for learning. New York: Open University Press.
Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carless, D. (2011). From testing to productive student learning: Implementing formative assessment in Confucian-heritage settings. New York: Routledge.
Chan, C. (2015). Tensions and complexities in school-university collaboration. Asia-Pacific Journal of Education, 35(1), 111–125.
Chan, C. (2016). School-University partnerships in English language teacher education: Tensions, complexities, and the politics of collaboration. Norwell: Springer.
Cheng, L., Andrews, S., & Yu, Y. (2010). Impact and consequences of school-based assessment (SBA): Students’ and parents’ views of SBA in Hong Kong. Language Testing, 28(3), 221–249.
Clarke, S. (1998). Assessment in the primary classroom: Strategies for planning, assessment, pupil feedback and target setting. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Davison, C. (2007). Views from the chalkface: English language school-based assessment in Hong Kong. Language Assessment Quarterly, 4(1), 37–68.
Davison, C., & Mok, J. (Eds.). (2009). Aligning assessment with curriculum reform in junior secondary English language teaching. Quality Education Fund/Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Davison, C., & Hamp-Lyons, L. (2010). The Hong Kong certificate of education: School-based assessment reform in Hong Kong English language education. In L. Y. Cheng & A. Curtis (Eds.), English language assessment and the Chinese learner. New York: Routledge.
Davison, C., & Leung, C. (2009). Current issues in teacher-based English language assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 393–415.
Dweck, C. S. (2007). The perils and promises of praise. ASCD, 12(65), 3439.
Hamp-Lyons, L. (2007). The impact of testing practices on teaching: Ideologies and alternatives. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), The international handbook of English language teaching (Vol. 1, pp. 487–504). Norwell: Springer.
Hamp-Lyons, L. (2016). Implementing a learning-oriented approach within English language assessment in Hong Kong schools: Practices, issues and complexities. In G.-X. Yu & Y. Jin (Eds.), Assessing Chinese learners of English (pp. 17–38). London: Palgrave.
Hamp-Lyons, E. M., & Tavares, N. J. (2011). Interactive assessment: A dialogic and collaborative approach to assessing learners’ oral language. In D. Tsagari & I. Csepes (Eds.), Classroom-based language assessment. Language testing and evaluation series (pp. 29–46). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Harris, L., Brown, G., & Harnett, J. (2015). Analysis of New Zealand primary and secondary student peer- and self-assessment comments: Applying Hattie and Timperley’s feedback model. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 22(2), 265–281.
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77, 81–112.
Hyland, F., & Hyland, K. (2001). Sugaring the pill: Praise and criticism in written feedback. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(3), 185–212.
Lantolf, J., & Poehner, M. (Eds.). (2014). Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education: Vygotskian praxis and the research/practice divide. New York: Routledge.
Lee, I. (2008). Understanding teachers’ written feedback practices in Hong Kong secondary classrooms. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(2), 69–85.
Lee, I. (2011). Working smarter, not working harder: Revisiting teacher feedback in the L2 writing classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 67(3), 377–399.
Phillips, L., & Jørgensen, M. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage Publications.
Qian, D. D. (2010). Implementing school-based assessment in Hong Kong: Government policy and stake-holders’ perceptions. In Z. S. Lü, W. X. Zhang, & P. Adams (Eds.), ELT at tertiary level in Asian contexts: Issues and research (pp. 108–119). Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Richards, K. (2006). Bridging discourses in the ESL classroom: Students, teachers and researchers. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
SBA Consultancy Team. (2008). Aligning assessment with curriculum reform in junior secondary English language teaching. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Examination and Assessment Authority/Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Stimpson, P., Lopez-Real, F., Bunton, D., Wai-Keung Chan, D., Sivan, A., & Williams, M. (2000). Better supervision better teaching: A handbook for teaching practice supervisors. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Sutton, R. (1998). School-wide assessment: Improving teaching and learning. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Torrance, H., & Pryor, J. (1998). Investigating formative assessment: Teaching and learning assessment in the classroom. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Tunstall, P., & Gipps, C. (1996). Teacher feedback to young children in formative assessment: A typology. British Educational Research Journal, 22(4), 389–404.
Van den Bergh, L., Ros, A., & Beijaard, D. (2014). Improving teacher feedback during active learning: Effects of a professional development program. American Educational Research Journal, 51(4), 772–809.
Wiliam, D. (1999). Formative assessment in mathematics part 2: Feedback. Equals: Mathematics and Special Educational Needs, 5(3), 8–11.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Hong Kong Quality Education Fund for funding this research, and the participating researchers, teachers and schools for their extensive assistance with this study. We are also grateful for the constant encouragement and support of our research team at the University of Hong Kong who helped so much with the data collection and analysis.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix A: Schools Involved in the Study
Appendix A: Schools Involved in the Study
School | No. of teachers | Level | No. of students | Location | EMI/CMI | Banding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
School 1a | 4 teachers | Form 3 | 16 students (4 groups of 4) | New territories | CMI | 2 |
School 2a | 2 teachers | Form 2 | 8 students (2 groups of 4) | Kowloon | CMI | 3 |
School 3 | 3 teachers | Form 1 Form 3 Form 2 | 9 students 3 groups of 3 | Kowloon | EMI | 2 |
School 4a | 4 teachers | Form 3 | 16 students (4 groups of 4) | Kowloon | CMI | 3 |
School 5 | 3 teachers | Form 2 From 2 Form 1 | 9 students (3 groups of 3) | New territories | EMI | 1 |
School 6 | 1 teacher | Form 1 | 20 students | New territories | CMI | 2 |
School 7 | 3 teachers | Form 1 | 100 students | New territories | EMI | 1–2 |
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chan, C., Davison, C. (2020). Learning from Each Other: School-University Collaborative Action Research as Praxis. In: Poehner, M.E., Inbar-Lourie, O. (eds) Toward a Reconceptualization of Second Language Classroom Assessment. Educational Linguistics, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35081-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35081-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35080-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35081-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)