The Assessment for Learning Audit Instrument (AfLAi) was developed in a research study conducted over a 5-year period using a large national dataset in the Republic of Ireland (Lysaght and O’Leary, 2013). The AfLAi was designed to gauge teachers’ baseline understanding of assessment practices and the extent to which data derived from the instrument could be used to inform teacher professional development. This paper builds on and consolidates this research study by offering a case-study based in two Norwegian schools of the extent to which both the research instrument and the concomitant model of teacher professional development transfer internationally. In keeping with Tsui and Law’s (2007) thesis that globalisation and life-long learning challenge educators to forge partnerships and cross traditional community boundaries, the research employed an activity-systems framework (Engerstom, Engerstom and Karkkain, 1995) that used the AfLAi as a boundary-crossing tool (or shared artefact) in order to engage teachers in collective knowledge generation. Activity theory provided the conceptual frame to examine the social and contextual dynamics between the different constituent groups engaged in the study, in case Irish researchers and Norwegian teachers. As such, the paper speaks to the challenge of creating adaptable instruments that provoke and support innovative and effective approaches to educating teachers about assessment and effective to education teachers. The AfLAi was administered to teachers in two primary schools in the Valer school district of Norway (n=22). Analysis of the schools’ aggregated data revealed significant similarities with the Irish data set that prompted collaboration between the researchers and the teachers over a two year period. During this time reciprocal visits were undertaken by the researchers and the teachers to facilitate a programme of professional development. Data from a second administration of the AfLAI following CPD provides evidence of the extent to which the initiative was effective in developing teachers’ conceptions and practices of assessment and signal key challenges common to both Irish and Norwegian teachers. Of particular note was the extent to which teachers’ values and beliefs about assessment for learning impacted their day to day classroom practice. A major contribution of this paper is that it demonstrates how small and large scale studies can be combined in a way that enriches our understanding of AfL.

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