Prioritising students in Assessment for Learning: A scoping review of research on students' classroom experience

Abstract

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is important in policy and practice in secondary schooling across the globe. It is associated with teacher expertise, student agency, a dialogic classroom climate, and a commitment to the needs of all learners. Research about AfL often includes measuring the efficacy of selected practices or foregrounding the role and experience of teachers. Less prominent is literature examining student experience, which is problematic, given AfL's generally agreed aim of orienting learners as evidence seekers, interpreters, and decision-makers. This scoping review examined 75 empirical studies published since 2002 that provided evidence of the lived experiences of secondary school students when teachers facilitated AfL pedagogical practices. A conceptualisation of student experience as comprising six interrelated dimensions, ranging from recognition of classroom practices to integration with experiences beyond the classroom, is proposed in the thematic arrangement of results. Findings show student experience as responsive to changes in teacher practice when students are co-practitioners of AfL and developers of disciplinary expertise. The pedagogic power of students as evaluators is affirmed in evidence that positive student evaluation of the worth or value of a practice is an important precondition for productive student experience. AfL further contributes to a generative experience of learning when it enhances dialogic interactions, with students and teachers as partners in moving learning forward. Inclusive AfL and discipline-specific AfL practices are evident but under-represented in the field. The video abstract for this article is available at https://youtu.be/L8HI-KIskLs.