An inquiry into teacher assessment literacy: the development of an assessment literacy framework and instrument to measure the assessment literacy of teachers in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

In the era of increasing educational reforms, teacher assessment literacy has increasingly been recognised as an essential competency of effective teachers because effective teaching practices guided by evidence and information like that collected during assessment are integral to improving student outcomes. The increasing emphasis in teacher assessment literacy can also be attributed to the recognition that sound assessment practices are a cornerstone of efficacious educational reforms. As part of its own recent educational reforms, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) established the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) for its teachers to meet. The incorporation of assessment as one of the standards in the NPST recognises the importance of assessment literacy for KSA teachers. In fact, a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report indicated that KSA teachers have low levels of assessment literacy. When set against KSA’s aim to raise its quality of education through its educational reforms such findings are concerning. Moreover, while the NPST incorporates assessment as one of its standards, the delineation of assessment skills and knowledge are relatively brief and not contextualized. Given this environment, this study developed a comprehensive assessment literacy framework that aims to help Practitioner and Advanced teachers in the KSA to achieve the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST). In addition to developing the assessment literacy framework, the researcher also worked collaboratively with KSA teacher participants to develop an assessment literacy instrument or questionnaire, that is, the modified version of Teacher Assessment Literacy Questionnaire TALQ, called the MTALQ. In addition to focus xiv group interviews, the study used Classical Test Theory to analyse the results, focus on collecting internal consistency reliability, evidence, and investigated simple structure via correlations. The findings indicate that KSA teachers considered most of the skills incorporated into the assessment literacy framework (based on the NPST) as essential skills and knowledge, or at least desirable knowledge, for teachers to demonstrate that they have met the NPST and have the competency to effectively enhance student learning outcomes. However, despite the robust methodology used to enhance the validity of the instrument (MTALQ), the results indicate that KSA teachers faced a degree of difficulty in answering the items correctly which impacts aspects of the instrument’s reliability evidence and requires additional longitudinal evidence of validity. In addition, the results also corroborate (albeit with a small purposively selected group of teachers) OECD findings that KSA teachers have a rather low level of assessment literacy. The key outcomes of this study are the development of a refined assessment literacy framework and MTALQ. In KSA’s ongoing educational reforms, the refined assessment literacy framework can be employed to unpack the NPST in relation to the kinds of skills and knowledge KSA teachers need to meet the NPST. MTALQ can also be used as a tool to diagnose teachers’ assessment literacy levels and the areas in which teachers might be lacking. With both the refined assessment literacy framework and MTALQ, professional learning around assessment literacy in the KSA can be more structured and targeted to prepare pre-service teachers and upskill in-service teachers to meet the NPST and enhance student learning outcomes.