This study, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, explored the interaction of formative assessment and collaborative challenges in Scottish primary school contexts.

The study built upon findings of an evaluation of a professional development initiative in the States of Jersey focused on Assessment for Learning (Crossouard and Sebba, 2006) which provided evidence of productive synergies between Critical Skills (CS) development and formative assessment - in particular within CS collaborative challenges. These were authentic, problem-solving tasks tackled by groups of learners, culminating in group presentations. Challenges seemed engaging to students, and also provided useful opportunities for peer and teacher formative assessment. Within this approach to task design, explicit attention was paid to issues of division of labour between pupil and teacher, as well as the different roles that pupils play within their groups during the elaboration of the challenge (Crossouard, 2009).

The research provided an opportunity to bring recent research into sociocultural approaches to formative assessment in other settings back to schooling contexts (Crossouard and Pryor, 2008; Torrance and Pryor, 2001). Through in-depth case study work, it addressed formative assessment practices within collaborative challenges in two primary classrooms purposely selected to illuminate good practice in CS within schools in Scotland located in contexts of social diversity.

As reported in Crossouard (2011), the research confirmed the power of this task design and teachers' skilfulness in deploying it, but raised questions about the understandings of assessment that supported teachers' criteria development and the ways criteria were brought into classroom dialogue. A large disjuncture was identified between assessing the complexities of these tasks and the assessment vocabularies inherited by teachers. Relational understandings of teaching, learning and assessment that better address teacher 'positionality' are suggested as useful for supporting a standards-based approach to assessment, as well as for addressing issues of social equity, including how gender and social class were implicated in classroom assessment (Crossouard 2012, a and b).

References

• Torrance, H. and Pryor, J. (2001): Developing formative assessment in the classroom: Using action research to explore and modify theory. British Educational Research Journal, 27(5), 615-631
• Crossouard, B. & Sebba, J. (2006) An evaluation of AfL initiatives in jersey.University of Sussex : Falmer
• Pryor, J. & Crossouard, B. (2008) A socio-cultural theorisation of formative assessment. Oxford Review of Education, 34(1) , 1-20
• Crossouard, B. (2009) A sociocultural reflection on collaborative challenges and formative assessment in the States of Jersey. Research Papers in Education,24(1), 77-93
• Crossouard, B. (2011): Using formative assessment to support complex learning in conditions of social adversity. Assessment in Education: Principles, policy & practice, 18(1), 59-72
• Crossouard, B. (2012): Absent Presences: The recognition of social class and gender dimensions within peer assessment interactions. British Educational Research Journal. Available on iFirst.
• Crossouard, B. (2012): Pupil Mortification: Digital photography and identity construction in classroom assessment. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 33. Available on iFirst.