A comparison study of Finnish pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions regarding the ethicality of the classroom assessment

Abstract

The assessment is a demanding and important activity which has a significant impact on students’ learning and motivation (White, 2009; Brookhart, 1993, 1994), curriculum development, and the teaching process as a whole (Harlen, 2007; Lyon, 2013). Since the teachers play a central role in deciding upon assessment techniques and grades, it is their responsibility, in the first place, to assure that the assessment is versatile, feasible, fair, and ethical. Consequently, pre-service and in-service teachers’ assessment training and knowledge concerning the assessment ethical codes and guidelines are of a major importance. The previous studies conducted by Green et al. (2007) and Liu et al. (2016) found that there is no professional agreement between pre-service and in-service teachers and in many cases, teacher’s ethical perceptions differed from the ethical principles specified in literature.

The aim of the current study is to examine Finnish pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions about the ethicality of the classroom assessment practices. Moreover, it was important to detect whether all teachers follow the same guidelines when it comes to the ethicality of the classroom assessment. The participants of the study are pre-service teachers of the Primary Teacher Education Master Degree Programs of the University of Oulu and in-service teachers of the University of Oulu Teacher Training Schools, Linnanmaa, and Koskela.

The results of this study show that on a less than a third of the scenarios, teachers within each group disagreed. And three out of 35 items displayed significant statistical disagreement between the groups of teachers. Based on these results, can be concluded that the instructions given to Finnish pre-service and in-service teachers regarding the classroom assessment practices, and their ethical judgment is in the most cases in line with the theories and guidelines. However, the findings also suggest that further instructions related to score pollution, the assessment of collaborative work, the use of the versatile assessment, and the awareness of the instructions regarding assessment conveyed in the Curricula, should be more carefully addressed in pre-service and in-service teacher education.