Review on Teachers’ Conceptions of Fairness in Classroom Assessment

1. Summary
A heated discussion about the teachers’ conceptions of fairness in classroom assessment
draws researchers’ interest recently.The article Teachers’ Conceptions of Fairness in Classroom
Assessment is publised on the Journal of Teacher Education in the year 2022.
In order to further explore teachers’ conception of fairness in classroom assessment, a
qualitative methodology was used in this study to draw on semi-structured interview data from
27 experienced high school teachers. The questions raised in the interview are focused on
teachers’ articulated experiences, conceptions, and practices of fairness in classroom assessment
practices as well as the influence of external issues on teachers’ practices. Using a standard
inductive thematic analysis approach by coding and decoding, a set of results come out as
follows.
First, teachers’ conception are consist of three themes, which is (1) individual mechanisms
(2) social mechanisms (3) dialectical relationships between individual and social
mechanisms.Second, in the first theme--induvidual mechanisms, teachers’ philosophy of fairness,
philosophy of education, caring, teaching and life experience were found influenced teachers’
personal approach to clasroom assessment fairness ,thus forming the subtheme of the individual
mechanism.Third, in the second theme--social mechanisms, two subthemes are identified
(a)cultural,economic, social and family mechanisms , and (b)educational mechanisms.
The above results add to the current literature by teacher’s conception of fairness, especially
the teachers’ individual philosophies and experiences interact with their encounters with social
contexts of society, schools and classrooms to shape their conceptions in fairness assessment in
classroom. Besides that, these findings also support social psychological theories of fairness and
socio-cultural theories of assessment.
2. Critique on the three themes for teachers’ conception of fairness
2.1 Individual mechanism
This first theme for teachers’ conception of fairness is individual mechanism which consists
of four subthemes. The first one is teachers’ philosophy of fairness. The interview data analysis
show that there are at least two mainstreams of teachers’ philosphy of fairness. One is equal and
equitable treatment. Equal treatment refers to provide the same opportunities for students in
class activities, offering students the same level of difficulty and the same criteria for grading. The
equitable treatment means providing individuallized feedback and responsive to students need,
such as creating quizzes and exams with questions in the ability spectrum of low, mid and high
difficulty to support all students’ psychosocial and learning outcomes. Besides the equality and
equity philosophy, the data also reveals another teachers’ philosophy of fairness , that is teachers
regards fairness is a moral drive and relative inherently nature of fairness.
The second subtheme is teachers’ philosophy education. Some argued their primary
philosophy is teaching the cirriculum. Under the guidance of this philosophy, they evaluated
students’ performance based on their ability and achievement in the content area. Some others
stated that their primary philosophy is nurturing professional ,ethical and accountable citizens, so
they refused to adjust weaker students’ grades based on nurturing accountable citizens.
The third subtheme is caring. Caring is another influential factor, which was raised by
teachers to compensate for the prior advantages that students were dealing with disabillity, low
socio-economic background and sick parents etc.
The fourth subtheme is teacher education, teaching, and life experiences. The teacher
education training programms help them to recongnize the diversity of students. For the teachers
who lack of adequate teacher education, they relied on the their classroom teaching experiences
as well as life experiences for understanding fair assessment.
2.2 Social mechanism
Teachers noted that social, economic, family, and educational conditions as key social
mechanisms influencing their conceptions and articulated practices of fairness, which form s two
subtheme of social mechanism(1) social, economic, family mechanism and (2) education
mechanism. Here the education mechanism refers to the accountability mechanisms applied in
Iran. Data from interviews show that it will have several consequences so teachers need to
change their conceptions and practices of fairness.
2.3 Dialectical Relationships between individual and social mechanisms
The research identified that individual mechanisms and social mechanisms interact with
each other to form teachers’ conception of fair assessment. At times, Teachers’ personal
experiences will work with social or school conditions, thus making teachers to reshape their
conceptions and practices of fairness in assessment.
3. Critique on the significance of the insights gained from 27 high school teachers
This reseach demonstrated the empirical evidence of fair assessment of teachers’
conception by examing 27 experienced high school teachers in Iranian educational system. The
conceptual framework constructed in this study is a useful complement of current literature on
teacher’s conception of fairness, especially in the field like the teachers’ individual philosophies
and experiences interact with their encounters with social contexts of society, schools and
classrooms to shape their conceptions in fairness assessment in classroom. Besides that, these
findings also support social psychological theories of fairness and socio-cultural theories of
assessment.
Admittedly, the limitation in this research is also obvious. There is a little doubt about the
validity and reliabilty of qualitative research and the coding and decoding ways is also a scientific
challenge.
4. Conclusion
Focusing on the interpretation and comments on the three themes for teachers’ conception
of fairness, this review provides the overall analysis of the conceptual framework and the
significance as well as limitation of this study.