Aim

This paper presents findings from an investigation of how Irish post-primary teachers engaged in the process of calculating grades for their students following the cancellation of the traditional Leaving Certificate Examination in 2020 during the Covid-19 crisis.  The paper also explores how this process impacted on their assessment practices and their professional identity as teacher assessors.

Background

For Irish post-primary teachers and students, Covid-19 meant the cancellation of the Leaving Certificate in June 2020.  This crisis demanded a response to the changing circumstances, a re-imagining of how we do final summative assessment in Ireland. 

The Leaving Certificate Established is a high stakes examination with results feeding into a point system that is used for entry to higher and further education.   Irish society looks to the LC examinations as fair, reliable and the process carried out by the State Examinations Commission enjoys public support.  However, many authors have expressed their condemnation of such a process and state that high-stakes assessment rather than developing teacher autonomy, is ‘promoting the standardization of teaching that both disempowers and deskills teachers [and that] the content of the curriculum moves to match what the tests require’ with the result that ‘teachers’ power [is] being increasingly usurped through policy and curriculum structure’ (e.g. Gleeson, J. Klenowski, V. & Looney, A., 2019). 

In May 2020 the Department of Education (DES) proposed a process of calculated grades (CG) in response to the health dangers inherent in holding exams during a pandemic.   The CG process provided for the combination of school information about a student’s expected performance in the LC and national data based on patterns of performance over time.  In essence, for the first time, Irish teachers were required to engage directly in the assessment of their students for certification purposes.

Conceptual Framework

The research will draw predominantly on the work of Looney et al. 2020 which argues that teachers’ identity as professionals, beliefs about assessment, disposition towards enacting assessment, and perceptions of their role as assessors are all significant for their assessment work.

A questionnaire survey of a volunteer sample of approximately 900 teachers is due to be completed in January 202. This will be followed in the Spring of 2021 with a series of semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of fifteen teachers from five post-primary schools who were involved in the calculated grades process to unpack the complexity of the answers in the questionnaire. The interviews will provide further reflective space for teachers to articulate a more in-depth understanding of the process and how it has impacted on their understanding of their role as assessors.

Findings will be abvailabe in the near future and will be presented at the conference in September if this proposal is accepted. What is important to note here is that the research is intended to build an understanding of how the calculated grades process worked in 2020 and how teachers’ experience of it can be used to gain a better understanding of assessment in high stakes contexts and of teachers’ identities as assessors. It is expected that the research findings will be useful in informing policy around assessment professional development and any future use of calculated grades or similar approach using teacher judgements.

Department of Education and Science. (2020). Calculated Grades for Leaving Certificate 2020 Guide for Schools on Providing Estimated Percentage Marks and Class Rank Orderings. Dublin: Author. https://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0037_2020.pdf Looney, A., Cumming, J., Van Der Kleij, F., & Harris, K. (2017). Reconceptualising the role of teachers as assessors: Teacher assessment identity. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2016.1268090 Gleeson, J., Klenowski, V., & Looney, A. (2019). Curriculum change in Australia and Ireland: a comparative study of recent reforms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 52(4), 478-489. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220272.2019.1704064