Keywords
Formative Evaluation
English
Standardization
Qualitative Analysis
Test
Evaluación formativa
Inglés
Estandarización
Análisis cualitativo
How to Cite
Abstract
This qualitative study explores and identifies how parents and teachers address implementation of a gradeless system for teaching primary students English (EFL) and its effects on their academic development as experienced in a private school in Chile. Analysis of interviews and a focus group serves as a basis for obtaining insight about parent and teacher perceptions regarding changing to a gradeless system and how it poses challenges to academic development conceptions and practices. The study specifically focuses on how assessment is linked to the idea of success and the commodification of education through different conceptual metaphors. The data was analysed in light of a Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, 2016) facilitated using corpus linguistics methods (concordance lines and frequency lists). Results indicate clear contradicting perspectives about implementing a gradeless system. On the one hand, parents and teachers alike are concerned about jeopardizing their children’s future academic prospects by depriving them of numerical assessments since they believe that it positively fosters competition among students. On the other hand, parents and teachers are relieved at how embracing a gradeless system has improved their children’s emotional wellbeing. Both stakeholders expressed the negative effects that numerical assessments had on their children and themselves since it led to student competition and, consequently, increased student stress, frustration, and anxiety. Overall, the study strengthens the need to conceptualize EFL education differently to prioritize academic and humanistic formation of individuals over standardized and marketed development.
References
Cómo citar
Pérez-Arredondo, C. y Bernales-Carrasco, A. (2022). Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Gradeless Assessment and its Relationship with Education Commodification: A Case Study. Revista Educación, 46(1). http://doi.org/10.15517/revedu.v46i1.45575
REFERENCES
Allan, K. (2013). Skilling the self: The communicability of immigrants as flexible labour. In A. Duchêne, M. Moyer & C. Roberts (Eds.), Language, migration and social inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work, (pp. 56–78). Multilingual Matters.
Baker, P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis. Continuum.
Bartlett, J. (2018). Chile protests: State of emergency declared in Santiago as violence escalates. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/19/chile-protests-state-of-emergency-declared-in-santiago-as-violence-escalates
Bernales-Carrasco, A. (2020). Impact of a gradeless learning assessment in English oral tests: A case study of three elementary first grade’ school classes from a private school in Rancagua, Chile [MA dissertation]. Universidad Andres Bello.
Bloodgood, R. A., Short, J. G., Jackson, J. M. & Martindale, J. R. (2009). A change to pass/fail grading in the first two years at one medical school results in improved psychological well-being. Academic Medicine, 84(5), 655–662. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e31819f6d78
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Polity Press.
Box, C., Skoog, G. & Dabbs, J. M. (2015). A case study of teacher personal practice assessment theories and complexities of implementing formative assessment. American Educational Research Journal, 52(5), 956–983. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831215587754
Byrd, K. (2013). Reactions to English language learning in Chile as a means for personal and national development [MA dissertation]. University of San Francisco. https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/57/
Cantón-Mayo, I. & Fernández-Díaz, J. (2018). Estado de la cuestión en Revistas de Educación sobre el éxito profesional. International Journal of Educational Research and Innovation, 10, 64–90. https://www.upo.es/revistas/index.php/IJERI/article/view/3457
Carmel, R. (2019). Parents’ discourse on English for young learners. Language Teaching Research, 00(0)1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168819877080
Contreras, D., Gallegos, S. & Meneses, F. (2009). Determinantes de desempeño universitario: ¿Importa la habilidad relativa? Calidad en la Educación, 30, 18–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.31619/caledu.n30.172
Denscombe, M. (2020). The good researcher guide: For small-scale social research projects (4th ed.). Open University Press.
Díaz, C. & Morales, H. (2015). Creencias de estudiantes de primaria sobre el aprendizaje del inglés en un establecimiento educacional chileno. Revista Electrónica Actualidades Investigativas en Educación, 15(1), 1–20. https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/aie/article/view/17730
Elmore, R. (2019). The future of learning and the future of assessment. ECNU Review of Education, 2(3), 328–341. https://doi.org/10.1177/2096531119878962
Ennser-Kananen, J., Escobar, C. F. & Bigelow, M. (2017). “It’s Practically a Must”: Neoliberal Reasons for Foreign Language Learning. International Journal of Society, Culture and Language, 5(1), 15–28. http://www.ijscl.net/article_22788.html
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.
Flowerdew, J. & Richardson, J. E. (2018). The Routledge handbook of critical discourse studies. Routledge.
Gómez, E. & Pérez, S. (2015). Chilean 12th graders’ attitudes towards English as a foreign language. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 17(2), 313–324. http://dx.doi.org/10.14483/udistrital.jour.calj.2015.2.a10
Guskey, T. R. & Marzano, R. J. (2001). Scoring rubrics in the classroom: Using performance criteria for assessing and improving student performance. Corwin Press, Inc.
Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K. & Warrick, P. (2014). A school leader’s guide to standards-based grading. Marzano Research Laboratory.
Heller, M. & Duchêne, A. (2012). Pride and profit: Changing discourses of language, capital and nation-state. In A. Duchêne & M. Heller (Eds.), Language in late capitalism: Pride and profit (pp. 1–21). Routledge.
Heller, M. & Duchêne, A. (2016). Treating language as an economic resource: Discourse, data and debate. In N. Coupland (Ed.), Sociolinguistics: Theoretical debates (pp. 139–156). Cambridge University Press.
Hidalgo, E. & Fernández-González, N. (2019). Framing “choice” in language education: The case of freedom in constructing inequality. In L. Martin & A. del Percio (Eds.), Language and Neoliberal Governmentality (pp. 69–90). Routledge.
Holborow, M. (2012). What is neoliberalism? Discourse, ideology and the real world. In D. Block, J. Gray & M. Holborow (Eds.), Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics (pp. 14–32). Routledge.
Inbar-Lourie, O. & Shohamy, E. (2009). Assessing young language learners: What is the construct? In M. Nikolov (Ed.), The Age Factor and Early Language Learning (pp. 83–96). De Gruyter Mouton.
Jessop, T. & Hughes, G. (2018). Beyond winners and losers in assessment and feedback. In J. P. Davies & N. Pachler (Eds.), Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp. 64–84). IOE Press.
Kamhi-Stein, L., Diaz Maggioli, G. & Oliveira, L. (2017). English Language Teaching in South America: Policy, preparation and practices. Multilingual Matters.
Kohn, A. (1999). From degrading to de-grading. High School Magazine, 6(5), 38-43.
Kohn, A. (2013). The case against grades. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 28–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42982088
Kormos, J. & Kiddle, T. (2013). The role of socio-economic factors in motivation to learn English as a foreign language: The case of Chile. System, 41(2), 399–412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.03.006
Krzyżanowski, M. (2008). Analysing focus group discussions. In R. Wodak & M. Krzyżanowski (Eds.), Qualitative Discourse Analysis for the Social Sciences (pp. 162–181). Palgrave Macmillan.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press.
Martín, L. & del Percio, A. (2019). Neoliberalism, language, and governmentality. In L. Martín Rojo & A. del Percio (Eds.), Language and Neoliberal Governmentality (pp. 1–26). Routledge.
Matear, A. (2008). English language learning and education policy in Chile: Can English really open doors for all? Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 28(2), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188790802036679
Mauranen, A. K. (2017). Conceptualising ELF. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker & M. Dewey (Eds.), The Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca (pp. 7–24). Routledge.
McMorran, C. & Ragupathi, K. (2019). The promise and pitfalls of gradeless learning: Responses to an alternative approach to grading. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44(7), 925–938. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2019.1619073
McMorran, C., Ragupathi, K. & Luo, S. (2017). Assessment and learning without grades? Motivations and concerns with implementing gradeless learning in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(3), 361–377. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1114584
Mizala, A. & Torche, F. (2012). Bringing the school back in: The stratification of educational achievement in the Chilean voucher system. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(1), 132–144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2010.09.004
Mogali, S. R., Rotgans, J. I., Rosby, L., Ferenczi, M. A. & Beer, N. L. (2020). Summative and formative style anatomy practical examinations: Do they have impact on students’ performance and drive for learning? Anatomical Sciences Education, 13(5), 581–590. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.1931
Morgan, H. (2016). Relying on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers: A bad idea. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 89(2), 67–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2016.1156628
Nikolov, M. (2016). Trends, issues, and challenges in assessing young language learners. In M. Nikolov (Ed.), Assessing young learners of English: Global and local perspectives (pp. 1–18). Springer.
O’Connor, J. S. & Lessing, A. D. (2017). What we talk about when we don’t talk about grades. Schools, 14(2), 303–318. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693793
O’Keeffe, M., Gormley, C. & Ferguson, P. (2018). Moving the focus from grades to feedback: a case study of pass/fail marking. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 11(1), 70–79. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1180128
Park, J.S-Y. (2011). The promise of English: linguistic capital and the neoliberal worker in the South Korean job market. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(4), 443–455. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2011.573067
Prieto, M. & Contreras, G. (2008). Las concepciones que orientan las prácticas evaluativas de los profesores: un problema a develar. Estudios Pedagógicos, 34(2), 245–262. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-07052008000200015
Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and discrimination: Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism. Routledge.
Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. (2016). The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 23-61). SAGE Publications.
Rodríguez, C. & Jarpa, C. G. (2015). Capacidad predictiva de las notas en enseñanza media sobre el rendimiento en pruebas de selección universitaria: el caso chileno. Aula Abierta, 43(2), 61-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aula.2015.03.002
Rogers, R., Schaenen, I., Schott, C., O’Brien, K., Trigos-Carrillo, L., Starkey, T. & Carter Chasteen, C. (2016). Critical Discourse Analysis in Education: A review of the literature, 2004 to 2012. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1192-1226. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316628993
Rokita-Jaśkow, J. & Ellis, M. (Eds.) (2019). Early Instructed Second Language Acquisition: Pathways to Competence. Multilingual Matters.
Rubin, D. I. & Kazanjian, C. J. (2011). “Just another brick in the wall”: Standardization and the devaluing of education. Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (JoCI), 5(2), 94-108. https://doi.org/10.3776/joci.2011.v5n2p94-108
Sepúlveda, P. (2018). Liceo Manuel de Salas elimina las notas y alarga 15 minutos los recreos. La Tercera. https://bit.ly/2CX7Sj0
Silbaugh, K. B. (2011). Testing as Commodification. Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 35(1), 309–336. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol35/iss1/15/
Stake, R. E. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed. pp. 443-466). Sage.
Van Dijk, T. (2015). Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. Tannen, H. Hamilton & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 466–485). Wiley-Blackwell.
Warriner, D. (2016). ‘Here, without English, you are dead’: Ideologies of language and discourses of neoliberalism in adult English language learning. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(5), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2015.1071827
White, C. B. & Fantone, J. C. (2010). Pass–fail grading: Laying the foundation for self-regulated learning. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 15(4), 469–477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-009-9211-1
Wilkins, A. (2013). Neoliberalism, pedagogy and the curriculum. Journal of Pedagogy, 4(1), 5–10. https://sciendo.com/issue/JPED/4/1
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (2016). Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. Routledge.
Wright, C. (2012). Educational Orientation and Upward Influence: An Examination of Students’ Conversations about Disappointing Grades. Communication Education, 61(3), 271–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2012.671949
Xiong, T. & Yuan, Z. (2018). "It was because I could speak English that I got the job”: Neoliberal discourse in a Chinese English Textbook Series. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 17(2), 103-117. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2017.1407655
Zappettini, F. (2014). ‘A badge of Europeanness’: Shaping identity through the European Union’s institutional discourse on multilingualism. Journal of Language and Politics, 13(3), 375–402. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.13.3.01zap