What ethical requirements should be considered in language classroom assessment? insights from high school students

Abstract

There has been a growing call for listening to test-takers’ voices across diverse assessment contexts. Within classroom assessment (CA), however, test-takers’ voices on ethics are under-researched in the high school context of Iran. Hence, this study purported to disclose Iranian high school test-takers’ (n = 15) perceptions of the ethical requirements in CA. For this purpose, a systematic thematic coding approach (constant-comparative method) was used to analyze the participants’ perceptions. Findings yielded two overarching categories, including do no harm (e.g., establishing a supervision group, considering test-takers’ individual differences, keeping test results confidential, and turning back test sheets with feedback) and avoid score pollution (e.g., using additional knowledge sources, using alternative assessment methods, clarifying grading criteria, avoiding unfamiliar contents and surprise items). The findings refer to a local gloss on global principles of ethics, which is hoped to map out specific dimensions of this important notion for diverse assessment contexts (e.g., high-stakes language testing and CA) and stakeholder groups (e.g., high school teachers, assessment developers, and education officials).