At a breaking point where a new type of Individual Educational Plan (IEP) for all elementary school pupils has recently been introduced in Sweden, there is reason to study how assessment is expressed in these written documents. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education (2008) assessment in IEPs shall have a formative function, meaning that assessment shall support pupils´ ongoing learning process and point out what shall be developed as well as how development can be stimulated. The aim of the study is to develop further knowledge of IEP assessment, by focusing on the following questions: • How does assessment with a formative function find expression in Swedish IEPs? - How are learning/developmental goals (the what-aspect) and means of reaching learning/developmental goals (the how-aspect) expressed in IEPs? - In what way do the what-aspect and how-aspect interact with eachother? In defining formative assessment, Black & Wiliam (1998, 2003, 2009) point out three aspects; understanding pupil´s present level, understanding the next step and understanding how to reach the next step. The teacher should be able to share learning goals and provide feedback that moves the learner forward in a way that can be understood and used by the learner. This is also what the Swedish National Agency writes in their advices from 2008. In this case however, the formative assessment shall be communicated through a written document twice a year. The purpose of the IEP is that it shall be an individual, formative, concrete and active tool in each pupil´s learning process. Theoretically one can place formative assessment in general (Allal & Ducrey 2000, Black & Wiliam 2009) and IEP assessment in particular (Strandberg 2008), within Vygotskij´s Zone of Proximal Development, in the respect that both phenomena focus what is in the making rather than just looking at what is at present. Using IEPs is about teachers seeing pupils´ present level and presenting learning/developmental goals and means slightly above that level. Øzerk (1998) refers to this as the principal of optimal difference, meaning that the distance between pupils´ assimilative structures and the next step must be appropriately challenging. Learning flourishes with adult assistance and guidance within a competence area with both lower and upper limits. Defining pupils´ wider potential in order to let this set the aim for future instruction is essential in IEP writing. Swedish teachers spend hours and hours writing IEP assessment for their pupils, receiving little guidance doing so. Realizing a reform of this caliber, without educating teachers in advance can be seen as a gigantic experiment on millions of Swedish school children aged 7-16. Little research has been done in this field, and to take the discussion forward there is a need for further knowledge about how assessment finds expression in written IEPs. Even though the context is uniquely Swedish, the results concern formative assessment in general and provide insights well applicable to an international context.

Collected data consists of 5-7 randomly selected IEPs from respectively 63 different Swedish elementary school classes in forms 3, 5 and 8 (aged 9, 11 and 14). 63 separate teachers from 3 Swedish municipalities have written the documents. The total material consists of 379 IEPs. Characteristic for the analysis has been striving for understanding in accordance with the hermeneutic circle. My understanding of the data material as a whole has been established by reference to the individual parts and vice versa. A total of 829 goals and 557 suggested means of reaching goals were listed and analyzed separately at first and later in relation to each other. This subsequently led to categorization and creation of figures, enabling a way of reasoning around written assessment with a formative function as it can be expressed through goals and means in IEPs.

The analysis resulted in 3 main categories representing goal-types and 5 main categories representing a combined goals-means-level. The goal-types are either connected to pupils personalities, behavior and attitudes towards school work or to subject matter knowledge and the developing of skills and understanding. To reach the goals pupils either need to be/behave in a certain way or do something specific. In my paper this is described in figures and direct quotes from the data material. The analysis furthermore showed that some goals were highly individual, whereas others were very generally formulated. Similarly some suggested means of reaching goals were very vague and others more concrete. The relation between general-individual and vague-concrete is described through a four-field-figure enabling a discussion around assessment in relation to the purpose of the IEP. How can the IEP be an individual, formative, concrete and active tool in each pupil´s learning process? Goals and means being both individual and concrete point to tools, interactions and situations supporting the individual learner´s development. Goals and means being both general and vague are not very likely to contribute in the same way, but are nevertheless very common, especially among the IEPs given to pupils in the 8th form.