An investigation of beliefs and classroom asssessment practices of english teachers in primary schools in Thailand

Abstract

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to investigate 1) the teachers’ beliefs about classroom assessment in English classes, 2) their actual classroom practices, and 3) the extent to which their beliefs are congruent with their actual assessment practices. The participants were grade-6 English teachers in a school district from the northeastern part of Thailand. The study was conducted using a mix-methods approach. There were two phases. Phase 1 involved the administration of a questionnaire to 97 teachers. It aimed to gather data on the classroom assessment beliefs and practices of teachers in Thai primary schools. Phase 2 was comprised of two part. The first part was classroom observation and stimulated recall with six teachers and the second part was semi-structured interviews and scenario interview with 13 teachers. The objective of Phase 2 was to explore teachers’ actual practices in class and gain in-depth information on classroom assessment beliefs and practices.The findings revealed the teachers’ beliefs about the use of classroom assessment for four different purposes: student-oriented, teaching and instruction, administrative use and parental involvement. The findings also revealed their beliefs about the features of good classroom assessment and classroom assessment methods. In addition, this study showed that the teachers’ assessment practices were shifted from using various assessment methods to some limited assessment methods due to the O-NET tutoring policy. Finally, The teachers’ beliefs and actual practices were congruent in some aspects, which may be because of teacher education and training. On the other hand, the incongruence between the teachers’ beliefs and practices could be influenced by the contextual factors such as educational policy, time constraints, excessive workload, and teacher’s lack of assessment knowledge. The implications of the study include seeking a better way to inform the teachers of assessment policy, promoting a training program in assessment, and adjusting national test formats to be performance-based.