"Hon är ju ingen slarver direkt" – Gymnasieelevers upplevelser av bedömning och betygsättning i svenskämnet

Both in the school world and in the public debate we have experienced a major focus on assessment and grading. However, the practice of summative assessment has according to us been rather absent in our upper secondary teacher education programme. Since the student perspective of assessment is a research topic that is fairly unexplored, the purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge about teachers’ assessment practice from a student perspective. Moreover, this thesis aims to explore upper secondary students’ perceptions and understandings of assessment and grading in the subject Swedish. The empirical material is based on questionnaires followed by focused group interviews. The study was conducted at two Swedish upper secondary schools with one class from each school. The theoretical frame of this study is phenomenology and Husserl’s theory of the lifeworld and Løgstrup’s theory of the ethical demand are used to interpret the empirical material. The results show that students experience that their learning is made visible both orally and in writing throughout the course, that they know what their grades are based on, and that they know what they have to do in order to attain a certain grade. However, the students do not seem to be able to give any examples of specific skills. Furthermore, they experience that the teacher gives them several opportunities to meet the knowledge requirements and most students are pleased with their grades, which seems to result in that they are more likely to perceive grades as fair. Criticism is addressed towards the grading system and knowledge requirements for being arbitrary and intricate. Nonetheless, the students accentuate their teacher’s ability to disambiguate the knowledge requirements. The conclusion is that the teacher’s professionality and the student-teacher relationship are of great significance for the students’ comprehension and perception of assessment and grading. Hence, it is suggested that students’ perspectives should be attended to before reforms of the grading system are carried out