Analysis of assessment practices and implementation of evaluation reform in the primary school: an interplay between persons and contexts


Abstract

The article examines a project carried out in collaboration with U.S.R. Toscana in the 2020-21 school year. The researchers designed three actions - research, training, consultancy - and analyzed 15 assessment practices in the context of the primary evaluation reform decreed by the O.M. 172/2020. A questionnaire was administered to 700 primary school teachers belonging to 155 schools. In the analysis, assessment practices were related to pupils' learning levels and socio-emotional skills, teachers’ self-efficacy, assessment vision, teaching perception, and school climate. The results show that teachers associate pupils’ non-cognitive skills with higher levels of learning; on the contrary, the less strongly the perception of pupils' socio-emotional resources, the lower is the perception of students’ levels of learning. Furthermore, teachers who practice formative assessment work in school climates are more open to innovation and tend to perceive students with higher levels of learning and non-cognitive skills.