In Ireland, during the Covid-19 restrictions of 2020, the terminal examination for senior cycle called the Leaving Certificate (LC) was cancelled and a new process called “Calculated Grades 2020” (CG 2020) was instigated by the Department of Education and Skills (DES).  The DES were inviting teachers for the first time in Irish history to use their professional judgement in assigning grades and ranking for their LC students. These grades were high stakes and would feed into the points system for university. The CG 2020 process opened a portal into a new but highly complex assessment process for all involved and disturbed what was the normative role of teacher assessment identity in Ireland (Gleeson, 2010; OECD, 2013).

Research Stage 1:

In November 2020 a survey of over 700 post-primary teachers investigated how this cohort of teachers engaged with the process of CG in their schools and sought to address two overarching questions:

1. How did post-primary teachers engage with the process of Calculated Grades in their schools?
2. How did the process impact on how they view their role as assessors?

During the analysis of the questionnaire, it was agreed by the researchers that further study needed to be carried out on the findings to the second research question: the impact of the process on the teachers’ view of their role as assessor.  In May and June 2021, three focus group interviews with post-primary teachers in Ireland were carried out to explore the complexity of the findings concerned with the beliefs and feelings of teachers in relation to their identity as assessors.  The preliminary findings of the survey and focus groups were presented at last year’s conference and then published in a COVID19-themed special issue of the Irish Educational Studies in the Spring of 2021.

Research Stage 2:

In 2021 the Des offered students in Ireland a dual approach to the LC examination.  Stage 2 of this research further mapped the “Accredited Grades 2021” process for LC examinations.  A questionnaire was once again sent out to teachers in November and December 2021 and over 400 responded.  Focus groups will follow in April and May 2022. This paper is concerned with specifically answering the second part of the research question in relation to the impact on how teachers’ view their role as assessors.

The theoretical framework that underpins this research is the model proposed by Looney, Cumming, van Der Kierij, Harris (2018) on reconceptualising teacher assessment identity.  They state that teacher assessment identity is constituted by more than assessment literacy (Xu & Brown, 2017).  The underpinning principles of fairness, validity and reliability are fundamental to this knowledge and these are interpreted by the different beliefs that underpin a teacher’s conception of assessment.  These beliefs act both cognitively and affectively – what they believe to be true or false and how they feel emotionally about these beliefs. Teacher identity is dynamic and interactive (Looney et al, 2018, p. 455) and is a complex assemblage of values, beliefs, feelings, skills and knowledge honed over the history of the teacher’s career and influenced by their social-cultural context. 

Mockler (2011) highlights that the development of teacher identity is a non-linear development and as this paper will argue, it is an eco-system of components which expand and retract according to the contextual events in which a teacher works.  It has much to offer to countries across the world who wish to explore the complexities of disrupting the role of the teacher as assessor and attempting to reconceptualise a robust, clear and consistent assessment process which ensures equity and fairness for all stakeholders.

This paper draws on a qualitative approach using focus group interviews across two year of CG and AG processes. The focus groups in 2021 were made up of five female and eight male post-primary teachers who were drawn from a range of different types of post-primary schools in Ireland. They also represented a wide range of subject disciplines at both lower and higher level. Prior to the focus group interviews, teachers were offered the four questions and answers that emerged from the questionnaire which needed further deliberation. The interviews took place over Zoom due to Covid-19 restrictions (Wallace, Goodyear-Grant, and Bittner 2021) and the transcripts were analysed on nVivo using and Clarke and Braun’s (2017) thematic analysis. These questions and the answers to them were each discussed and probed during the interviews and they are outlined below: Q.10d. As a result of having been involved in the calculated grades process in my school I feel more supportive of efforts being made to reform the LC programme and examination Agree 36% Disagree 53% Undecided 11% Q.11c. I believe that teachers' involvement in assessment for certification purposes would lead to fairer outcomes for the students in my school (than if they were not involved) Agree 36% Disagree 48% Undecided 16% Q.11a. I believe that my involvement in the calculated grades process in 2020 led to fairer outcomes for the students in my class than if they had taken the LC exam in June 2020 Agree 31% Disagree 54% Undecided 15% Q.10e. As a result of having been involved in the calculated grades process in my school I feel more positively disposed to being involved directly in assessing my students for certification purposes Agree 29% Disagree 62% Undecided 9 The second stage of focus group interviews will take place in April and May of this year after the analysis of the second questionnaire of the AG 2021. An open call will be offered to post-primary LC teachers to engage in these interviews. An analysis of the data will follow and the findings from 2020 and 2021 will be collated in relation to the emergence of teacher assessment identity over the two years. The findings will be presented at this conference.

The CG 2020 and AG 2021 processes instigated a reimagining of teachers’ conceptualizations relating to assessment in Ireland. Whilst we agree that teacher identity is a complex construct and holistic in nature (Edwards & Edwards, 2017), teachers were confronted in both processes with new facets to their assessment identity. This seemed to place teachers in a liminal space, experiencing a sense of being stuck. Liminality is a world of contingency where events and ideas, and “reality” itself, can be carried in different directions” (Thomassen, 2009, p. 5). These new facets of teacher identity generated liminality on a personal, professional and political level (Mockler, 2011). a. Personal Level - The role of advocate in the relationship between teacher and student needs to be further defined alongside the role of teacher as critical and professional assessor. b. Professional Level - teachers believe that the purposes for education for the senior cycle need to be expanded beyond the narrow and instrumental function that has been determined by the LC assessment. The desire of the teachers for different pathways and forms of assessment, including formative assessment, to answer the diversity of student needs, was expressed as highly important for the future. c. Political Level – Political pressure might be seen as one reason for the fact that teachers overestimated their students’ outcomes at all points in the achievement spectrum and that it was more pronounced at the upper end (DES, 2020. P.23). Teachers felt the enormity of accountability and did not enjoy this new public face as assessor. These three findings relating to teacher assessment identity will be further studied in the analysis of the AG2021 focus group interviews. We will consider if the experience of liminality has changed and whether the dual process opened further possibilities that may impact on teacher assessment identity.

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