Understanding teachers’ enactment of assessment for learning: A theoretical framework

Abstract

Assessment for learning has received extensive interest in assessment research and practice. However, despite the research on teachers’ assessment for learning practices, there has been limited attention paid to understanding and theorising teachers’ enactment of assessment for learning. This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding teachers’ enactment of assessment for learning in their situated contexts. Specifically, this paper draws on four layers of theories which address teacher-based assessment, the role of teacher, situated educational contexts and assessment practice transfer and enactment. This framework not only focuses on assessment practice itself but also focuses on the process in which assessment for learning is filtered through teacher agency and the situated pedagogical nexus. It understands teachers’ enactment of assessment for learning as a product inevitably shaped and transformed by teachers’ professional knowledge, agency, and wider educational contexts.