Common Ground. Student and Teacher Assessment Criteria

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the central assessment criteria that students themselves use to assess and grade texts written in English and compare them to the assessment criteria provided by the National Agency (Skolverket) in their teacher’s instruction booklet related to the National Test of English. To do this, the fourteen example-texts provided by Skolverket in their teacher’s instruction booklet are assessed by students in focus groups. Students themselves group their responses to the texts in terms of strengths and weaknesses. They also give each text a grade. Further classification is then done according to the two categories – Content and Language – and the eleven related text analysis criteria (‘bedömningsfaktorer’) found in the teacher’s instruction booklet. Skolverket’s comments relating to each text, which are in the form of free-flowing text, are also broken down and classified according to the same criteria. A comparative analysis is then done relating to the categories, criteria and grades.

This study finds that the students and Skolverket employ a common set of assessment criteria in their responses. Moreover, there is a strong correlation between the relative weights given to each criterion over the span of the fourteen texts. However, it is also shown that students have more focus on language over content in their assessments than Skolverket do and that while responses from Skolverket focus on the strengths in the texts, student responses focus on weaknesses. Further, using Skolverket’s whole grades as a benchmark, the students grade sixty percent of the texts the same as Skolverket. In addition, the data shows that the accuracy of student grading diminishes sharply at higher levels. There is an inverse relationship; the higher the grade the lower the accuracy.