Assessment and Grading - Perception of Pre-Service English Teachers

Abstract

This article aims to explore test evaluation through the eyes of future English teachers. Firstly, the topic is linked to the wider context of modern approaches to future teacher education and school evaluation and then narrowed to test evaluation itself. Secondly, a survey, whose participants were second-year undergraduate prospective teachers, is introduced. As a part of developing their assessment literacy, they were asked to assess and grade a progress test, discuss it in the class and then reflect on the experience. The analysis of the data from the respondents’ handouts and open‐ended questionnaire items followed a constant comparative analysis and the result is an empirically grounded theoretical framework on pre-service teacher perception of assessing and grading. The findings show that the investigated pre-service teachers find evaluation a complex and difficult process and based on their experience of assessing and grading the identical test, they feel the urge to reconsider their current perception.