The assessment in Secondary Education, is it formative and shared?

Exploring perceptions of professionals and future professionals in Education.

Abstract

A research study was conducted in order to obtain data on the use and presence of formative assessment in Secondary Education (SE), in the context of the Master's Degree in Teaching at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). For this, a mixed quantitative (transversal) and qualitative method was designed. The student´s perceptions of the Master's Degree on the educational centers in which they had just completed their Practicum was taken as a source of information. For this, an adaptation of the Espinel questionnaire (2017) was applied and descriptive data were obtained. A second source of information was the perceptions of Practicum tutors professors obtained from a Discussion Group, based on the Grounded Theory, carrying out a constant comparative analysis to find the categories. Data collection shows a great diversity in the use of formative and shared assessment. However, the summative continuous assessment, seems to be present in secondary school, as well as exams and tests of execution. These means of assessment remain consolidated by traditionalist conceptions, both of professors and of students and parents, wich are limiting for the development of a formative assessment in school centers, whose innovating, involved and enthusiastic teachers try to improve.