In December 2020, the Italian Ministry of Education adopted a new assessment modality based on predominantly discursive communication and the abolition of numerical grades. This means was introduced to incentivize greater equality and support students in becoming aware of how they develop their competencies (Girelli, 2022). One of the core elements of this change is the shift from a "normative" way of assessing pupils - that implies the comparison between a single student and the rest of the class - to a criteria-based one. This latter mode of assessment requires the teacher to consider pre-established criteria that help the students better understand their potential (Black, Wiliam, 1998) by indicating the level of achievement of a learning objective. Four fundamental elements must be considered for this purpose: the level of autonomy with which the pupil can achieve the set goals, his or her ability to find resources spontaneously, the fact that learning takes place in an unfamiliar situation, and finally whether the acquisition of the set goals is continuous (i.e. it occurs in more than a single isolated case) or not (MIUR, 2020).

The theoretical framework of this research is the Capability Approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2006). It is «an intellectual discipline that gives a central role to the evaluation of a person’s achievements and freedoms in terms of his or her actual ability to do the different things a person has reason to value doing or being» (Sen, 2009). The attention devoted to the valorization of non-quantifiable processes in terms of accountability and rethinking the role played by the concept of measurement (Unterhalter, 2019) makes this framework a proper tool for proposing a new look at the evaluation methods currently in use in Italian primary schools. Since the right to education «requires a deep commitment to building human capabilities» and «Education nurtures understandings and builds capabilities that can help to ensure that our futures are more socially inclusive (UNESCO, 2021)», it is necessary to understand whether the learning processes promoted at school can promote the development of such resources.

Therefore, the question from which this research stems is how can formative assessment help students develop their capabilities. To date, few studies within the capability approach have focused on primary schools and formative assessment (Robeyns, 2017; Unterhalter, 2019; Palumbo, Pandolfini, 2019). The Italian context lends itself particularly well to investigating the relationship between these realities since the main document used by teachers to guide their teaching (MIUR, 2012) was formulated by Edgar Morin and the theory of complexity is also a fundamental factor for the capability approach (Szekeley. Mason, 2018). 

The methodology used for the research is based on an action-research approach in three different Italian primary schools. The teachers who will take part in the research were selected within the assessment group of the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa (MCE-FIMEM). This movement played a crucial role in the formulation of the new assessment system adopted in Italian primary schools (Piscozzo, Stefanel, 2022). The selected teachers will be considered active co-researchers in trying to outline the potential of the capability approach for formative assessment practices, to create a real "community of practice" dedicated to investigating these issues (Wenger, 1998). The pupils taking part in the research project come from second grades of public primary schools in three different regions of Northern Italy. In addition to direct classroom observations and focus groups with the research team of teachers, the research also involves the use of interviews with pupils. This choice was made because both in the capability approach (Robeyns, 2017; Hart, Brando, 2018) and recent literature on formative assessment (Yan, Yang, 2022; Monteiro et al., 2021) the active participation of students appears to be a determining factor. The research genre adopted is Educational Design-Based Research (McKenney, Reeves, 2020), which aims to develop practical solutions to education problems and theoretical comprehension by cooperating with the stakeholders involved in the research. This genre was chosen because of its versatility in combining theoretical and practical perspectives with a focus on subsequent implementation and spread.

Considering the early stage of the research, the data collection phase has not yet taken place. One of the main expected outcomes is the rethinking of competence-based teaching. The assessment system adopted in the European Union is strongly oriented towards the development of competencies and skills. The capability approach can make an essential contribution to rethinking assessment processes and practices to make pupils more aware of their potential (Lozano et al., 2012; Palumbo, Pandolfini, 2019; Urbani, 2018).

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