The aim of this dissertation in Norwegian Language arts’ didactics is to investigate Norwegian language arts teachers' assessment and feedback practices in light of the Assessment for Learning (AfL) theory, and the main research question is: What characterizes Norwegian language arts teachers written assessment and feedback practices in two schools?
The methods used are both quantitative and qualitative, namely document analysis of feedback and documents relevant to teacher assessment practices, thematic analysis of interview data and structural equation modeling in analyzing answers to a questionnaire survey that map students' perceptions of teacher feedback practices.
Central findings are that the teachers wrote many comments that could be coded as AfL. On an overall level, this finding may indicate that the long-term commitment to developing a more learning-promoting practice is realized in classrooms. At the same time, the analyzes show that there were in part large differences between the teachers and the schools. In Article 2, the main finding is that there is a clear statistical association between pupils' experience of learning through feedback explaining what the learner can do better and perceived usefulness (dependent variable). That teachers facilitate the use of feedback, on the other hand, is not significantly statistically associated with perceived usefulness. This finding is contrary to what one could expect from a theoretical point of view and is discussed in the dissertation. In the question of what characterizes practice in two schools, one of the main findings is that teachers at the school with the strongest collaborative culture were more coherent in their written feedback practices and closer to the realization of an AfL-oriented practice.
Implications for practice are that teachers can have a lot to gain from writing fewer final comments to the students, and instead giving feedback when it's most needed, namely when the students are in a process. The organization of this work should not be left to each teacher, but supported by management at each school, and also more long-term at the political level.
The work was conducted at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, UiO.