Article 2021

Authentic assessment in Chinese secondary English classrooms: teachers’ perception and practice

HR
Huang, Rui
 JL
Jiang, Lianjiang George
Educational Studies
Journal · Vol. 47 · Issue 6 · pp. 633-646
Abstract

While there has been a scholarly call to enhance authenticity in assessment in secondary English classrooms, whether and how secondary English teachers perceive authentic assessment (AA) and engage with it remains under-explored. Drawing on data gathered through survey, classroom observations and interviews, this study investigates the perception and practice of Chinese secondary English teachers with regards to AA. The findings show that while no participants denied the value of AA, only one-third of them admitted that they had tried to increase authenticity in their assessment tasks. The two teachers who implemented AA in practice had reaped benefits but noted ill alignment of AA with their curriculum. The findings also show that other impeding factors for the teachers’ engagement with AA included high-stakes testing regime, limited resources, teachers’ assessment literacy and misconceptions about students’ abilities. Implications on how AA in contextualised classrooms could be better supported are also discussed. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Authentic assessment Perception Practice secondary English classrooms

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
School of Foreign Languages, Jimei University, Xiamen, Fujian, China
School of Foreign Languages, Jimei University, Xiamen, Fujian, China, Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao
Funding & Acknowledgements
Grant: FJJKCGZ18-820
This research was funded by Fujian Education Science 13th Five-Year Plan, the number of the project is FJJKCGZ18-820. The authors would also like to thank the editor, the anonymous reviewers and Dr Zhou Jiming for their comments on the early drafts of the article.
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