Formative assessment places greater emphasis on bidirectional contributions between the students in the assessment process (Yorke, 2003), as well as advocates an equal teacher-student relationship. To promote student learning, both stakeholders are expected to be fully engaged in the learning process  (Black & Wiliam, 1998), instead of measuring student performance unilaterally (Wiggins, 1998). Although formative assessment is well established in western classroom practices and is required as one underpinning literacy for teachers (Popham, 2011), when the idea of formative assessment was introduced to Confucian heritage countries in Asia, tensions for K‒12  teachers arose due to the perennial convention of overemphasizing summative assessment in school. 

Profoundly influenced by Confucianism, teachers in China may perceive formative assessment as a novel assessment paradigm that contradicts their traditional mindset on assessment. Take Chinese teachers as an example, many of them seem to be reluctant to this reform (Zhan, 2021). Moreover, schooling in these countries has been constantly shifted to virtual online classroom platforms since the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that online classrooms largely constrain the effectiveness of the implementation of assessment (Khan & Khan, 2018), the different classroom modes complicate the teacher formative assessment practices. 

However, there is a paucity of research on teachers’ overall literacy of formative assessment in the eastern Confucian heritage countries (Zhan, 2019). There is also a need to design and develop a psychometrically sound and culturally responsive inventory instrument in the field of formative assessment literacy in the Confucian cultural context. Thus, I attempt to design and validate a first easternized online inventory to evaluate teachers’ capacity for formative assessment acquisition and authentic application. The whole process includes four phases under the guide of an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. Building on the interviews and the prior inventories on relevant domains (e.g., Campbell & Mertler, 2004; Yan & Pastore, 2022), I plan to categorize the dimensions as five scenarios, consisting of 1) face-to-face classroom, 2) online classroom, 3) after-school assignments and tasks, 4) feedback, 5) ethical concerns. Each contains six multiple-choice questions and each question has one best answer. The inventory will be uploaded to www.wjx.cn, a Chinese online open survey website, and automatically code the correct answer as 1 point while the incorrect answers as 0 points. Thus, the total grade for one participant is 30 points and each subsection values 6 points. 

In particular, I am fully aware of the unique characteristics of Confucian heritage culture and its ubiquitous impact on teacher assessment practices. Therefore, all the questions are edited in line with the authentic local classroom settings. For example, I will emphasize student dignity considerations to replace the typical western inventory questions about privacy risks. 

The expected findings will contribute to the initial investigation of the status of formative assessment literacy for K‒12  teachers in Confucian heritage culture and locate the specific factors influencing the building and practice of teachers in this domain.  Eventually, the inventory will be used to gather evidence to inform in-service and preservice teacher professional development programs.

Given that educational assessment is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to measure solely on quantitative or qualitative information, and Confucian K–12 school contexts are unique through the lens of the social and cultural aspects (Berthrong & Berthrong, 2000). Therefore, we employ an exploratory sequential mixed-method research design (Creswell, & Plano Clark, 2018). The main research thread is: (1) Qualitative method: we intend to conduct a series of semi-structured interviews with 10 in-service teachers from elementary, junior high, and senior high schools to portray an initial picture of the status of teacher formative assessment literacy in Shanghai, China. (2) Quantitative method: building on the prior inventories on assessment literacy around the world, and the outcomes from the first-phase interviews, we will vernacularize and design a five-point Likert-type response questionnaire and a multiple-choice scale to explore how teachers perceive, comprehend, and practice formative assessment. About 300 teachers from 12 grades and all major disciplines will be invited as participants. In this phase, we will examine the construct validity of the quantitative data using exploratory factor analysis. (3) Qualitative method: As a necessity of exploratory sequential design, we will aim to verify the quantitative findings by conducting a new round of qualitative method. Thus, we will invite 3 cohorts of teachers and 1 group of school administrators from three-level schools to participate in the final focus group. Their consensus of formative assessment literacy will conduce to hone the quantitative findings and finally conflate and summarize the overall findings.

The overarching aim of this study is to design and validate a psychometrically sound and culturally responsive inventory in the Confucian culture context, which can be used as a tool for K–12 teachers’ overall formative assessment literacy. This study can directly depict the current state of Chinese K–12 teachers' formative assessment literacy. I expect to explore the advantages and disadvantages of formative assessment literacy in authentic settings and how Confucianism influences the building of formative assessment literacy for teachers. Further, it can gather the total grade of a teacher’s general comprehension on formative assessment and five subtotal grades convergent from three dimensions: conceptual, practical and socio-cultural for prospective analysis. Accordingly, the insights from this study could be used as suggestions for ongoing educational practices. By extension, this inventory could be harnessed as an underpinning tool for higher educational institutions to review and redesign pre-service and in-service teacher professional development programs focusing on improving teachers’ formative assessment literacy in Confucian contexts.

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