Teachers' Perceptions of Assessment

Abstract

First paragraph: Interest in teachers’ beliefs, and their influence on classroom behaviour and practice, has long been a concern of educationalists. For example, as far back as 1953, Oliver (1953/54) was demonstrating a very low correlation (0.31) between the ‘professed beliefs’ of the 119 elementary teachers in his study and their observed practices in the classroom. Arguably, however, the most important contributions in teachers’ beliefs research began to appear in the mid-1980s. The most notable of these (for example, Bandura, 1986; Clark and Peterson, 1986; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992) set the scene by arguing from both theoretical and empirical bases that belief systems are major forces that can promote or hinder the success of any change situation. Such approaches attempt with various degrees of success to develop theory that can generalize across individuals, groups of individuals (for example, pre- and in-service teachers) and multiple contexts. The theory-behind-the-theories is that they might reasonably be expected to inform planning for the success of new or alternative approaches to classroom practice. As Nespor (1987) put it: ‘the contexts and environments within which teachers work, and many of the problems they encounter, are ill-defined and deeply entangled…beliefs are peculiarly suited for making sense of such contexts’ (1987: 324).