As one of the most high-stakes practices in education, grading has been the subject of significant debate and research over the years. However, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore the teaching and learning values embedded in grades by looking at grading policies. This study examined grading polices in China by focusing on…

This study explores beginning teacher candidates' approaches to grading in relation to their broader conceptions of assessment through a survey research design. 248 Canadian teacher candidates responded to two scales: Teachers' Approaches to Grading (TAG) and Teachers' Conceptions of Assessment (TCOA). The results of factor analysis showed that…

Given the longstanding role of grades in education, and their increased use for high-stakes decisions including student mobility, admission, selection, and accountability, this paper presents a systematic review of grading policies across all 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. In total, 23 policies were inductively analyzed for their…

Classroom assessment tasks and environment are central to supporting student learning, yet are under-studied at the tertiary level, especially in China's test-driven culture. This study explores the relationship between students' perceptions of assessment tasks and classroom assessment environment, within the university context of teaching English…

University instructors' classroom assessments play a central role in and inevitably influence their teaching and their students' learning. This paper reports on a comparative interview study conducted in a range of three ESL/EFL university contexts in Canada, Hong Kong and China. Six major aspects of ESL/EFL classroom assessment practices were…

Grading, feedback, and reporting of student achievement are key elements that support learning. This article reports an interview study on a range of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) teachers' classroom assessment practices at the tertiary level in Canada, Hong Kong, and China. The interviews focused on teachers' use of marking…

Results from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) indicate that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students have comparatively low success and high deferral rates. This study examined the 2002 and 2003 OSSLT test performances of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students in order to identify and…

Student assessment plays a central and important role in teaching and learning. Teachers devote a large part of their preparation time to creating instruments and observation procedures, marking, recording, and synthesizing results in informal and formal reports in their daily teaching. A number of studies of the assessment practices used by…

Examined the impact of changes in public examinations on secondary school English teaching in Hong Kong, where major changes were introduced into the Certificate of Education Examination in English with the intention of creative positive washback effects on classroom teaching. Data from teacher observations and interviews showed few lived changes…

Studied how efforts to change public examination of secondary students toward a more constructive approach would influence teaching in Hong Kong schools, investigating teachers' perspectives of the change in relation to teaching situations and classroom practices. Classroom observation and interview data indicated that class activities changed,…